Monday, March 31, 2025
In “Guns and Moses,” a Brave Hasidic Rabbi Saves the Day
Chabad rabbis are typically known for hosting Friday night dinner, doing Hanukkah menorah lightings, and asking Jewish men on the street, "Have you wrapped tefillin today?"
But in Salvador and Nina Litvak's new film, "Guns & Moses," the Chabad rabbi and star of the film, Rabbi Mo (played by Mark Feuerstein of "Royal Pains"), is a brave rabbi who steps up when a friend is murdered in a shooting. He fights white supremacists and nefarious criminals, seeking out the truth about what happened while singing Jewish songs with his devoted wife and children.
"It was very important to me to create a ridiculously lovable Jewish character," said Nina, who co-wrote the film with her husband Sal. "There was always this whiny, nerdy, neurotic Jewish persona like Larry David and Woody Allen in Hollywood. We thought, enough of this already. It's been done so many times."
Rabbi Mo breaks the stereotypes of Jewish men usually portrayed on screen. He confronts his haters head on, takes gun lessons, and becomes an action hero like the world has never seen.
The Litvaks, who are based in Los Angeles, are just a few hours away from Poway, California, where a white nationalist walked into the Chabad of Poway, shot and killed congregation member Lori Gilbert-Kaye and wounded Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, another man, and his 8-year-old niece in 2019.
The day after the tragic shooting, Sal went to Poway to attend Lori's funeral to show their support and solidarity.
"Just seeing a community traumatized by this kind of thing in a Chabad shul was one of the strong inspirational elements of the movie," Sal said.
0 comments
Thursday, March 27, 2025
B&H Photo, iconic Hasidic-owned electronics store in Midtown, is getting even bigger
B&H Photo, New York City's iconic, Hasidic-owned camera and video equipment store, is expanding.
Last week, The Real Deal revealed that B&H Photo was the "mystery buyer" that purchased 333 West 34th Street. According to the publication, property records show that an LLC, signed for by Zalman Gottlieb, the financial controller for the camera shop, purchased the 10-story property for $150 million.
That mammoth number is actually a relative bargain: It is $105 million less than global real estate firm Brookfield Properties spent on the 287,000-square-foot property in 2018.
Founded by a married couple, Blimie and Herman Schreiber, B&H Photo originally opened in Tribeca in 1973 and moved into its current "SuperStore" at 420 Ninth Ave., at West 34th Street, in 1997. Like its founders, many of B&H's employees are Satmar Hasidic Jews — the shop is closed on Saturdays in observance of Shabbat, and kosher candies are available for free at checkout.
0 comments
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Young hasid returns suitcase with diamonds, $100,000 to rightful owner
A hasidic young man from New York returned a bag filled with diamonds, jewelry, and cash to a businessman he had never met before, PIX11 reported.
Last week, the young hasid was returning home from his yeshiva in Israel to spend Passover with his family, when an taxi driver transporting him from Newark accidentally gave him the wrong bag, assuming that it belonged to the yeshiva student or one of his friends.
"The yellow cab comes back, opens the window, says, 'Someone left this,' hands it over to me, and drives away," the yeshiva student, 20, recalled to PIX11. But before the student could tell the driver that the bag was not his, the taxi had sped off.
Opening the bag in the hopes of discovering who it belonged to, the student was shocked: "First, I saw a laptop. Then I started opening other areas and seeing jewelry. I was shocked. It looked like expensive stuff."
Among the bag's contents were Rolex watches, loose diamonds, jewelry, and a custom-made diamond-encrusted pendant, likely totaling more than $100,000 in value.
The young man then asked his mother for advice, and she suggested that he turn to Shmira, a Brooklyn, New York, public safety group. Shmira sent volunteers to collect the bag, and began searching for its owners. Eventually, Shmira found a phone number, which led them to the owner, who works in NYC's diamond district.
Levi Leifer, Director of the Shmira, said that the group invited the man to their Borough Park office after confirming ownership.
He described, "While he's talking, we see fear, assuming the bag is empty. But when he opened it, he couldn't believe it. You had to see his eyes. He was very, very excited—looked very happy."
The owner offered a reward for the students' honesty, but was declined. Both parties requested to remain anonymous.
0 comments
Tuesday, March 25, 2025
US joins antisemitism lawsuit against NY town for blocking housing project for ultra-Orthodox Jews
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is supporting a lawsuit against the town of Forestburgh, New York, alleging that town officials engaged in antisemitic efforts to block a housing project intended for Hasidic families.
According to the department's Statement of Interest filing, local officials and residents opposed the arrival of Orthodox Jews, with one resident stating: "Dirty money from the Jewish mafia is involved, and you wonder why Germans did what they say they did." Another email circulated among town officials warned that Hasidic Jews "take over, like locusts — killing everything they encounter, draining every last resource."
0 comments
Monday, March 24, 2025
Man who viciously attacked Orleans rabbi arrested, victim tells 'Post'
The person who attacked the rabbi of Orléans was arrested on Saturday night, victim Rabbi Arié Engelberg told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
The attacker was a minor, according to a social media statement by French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau. French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou said on X that Engelberg had been violently attacked Saturday when leaving a synagogue with his nine-year-old son.
Engelberg told BFM-TV that the suspect approached him and asked him if he was Jewish. Footage published on social media by French officials, including by European Parliament member Matthieu Valet, showed Engelberg being punched and kicked repeatedly. France Bleu, which obtained the original footage from a witness, reported that the rabbi had also been bitten on the shoulder.
0 comments
Thursday, March 20, 2025
The World’s Oldest Jewish Book Is on Display in New York City
A medieval manuscript, believed to be the oldest Jewish book in the world, is now on view in New York City.
The Afghan Liturgical Quire, which dates to approximately the year 700 CE, is on display at the Jewish Theological Seminary Library in Morningside Heights as part of an exhibit, "Sacred Words: Revealing the Earliest Hebrew Book" that opens Wednesday and runs until July 17.
Also known as the Afghan Siddur, the diminutive prayer book measures five inches by five inches and "is comprised of prayers, poems, and pages of the oldest discovered Passover Haggadah, which was mysteriously written upside down," according to a JTS press release.
The tome was previously on view at the the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., which said the book is relic of an 8th-century civilization along the Silk Road, the ancient trading route, and was created by Jews who lived among the Buddhists who ruled the Bamiyan Valley in modern-day Afghanistan.
The book went on a roundabout global journey to eventually reach the Green family, evangelical Christians based in Oklahoma who own the Hobby Lobby chain. The family purchased the book without knowing its actual age or origin, and added it to a collection that would evolve into The Museum of the Bible.
The book was mislabeled "Egypt, circa 900 CE," until carbon testing in 2019 confirmed that the siddur was even older, "astonishing researchers at the museum," JTA reported in November 2024.
"Far more ancient written Hebrew texts had been discovered, but only on scrolls, most famously the roughly 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls that are displayed prominently in Israel," according to JTA. "The carbon dating indicated that this was the earliest intact Hebrew codex by more than a century."
The JTS exhibition was developed in partnership with The Museum of the Bible and in cooperation with the Afghan Jewish Foundation, the American Sephardi Federation and Congregation Anshei Shalom of Jamaica Estates, Queens.
"The Afghan Liturgical Quire offers an extraordinary opportunity to discover a volume of Jewish prayers that predates any known Siddur, revealing a rich liturgical tradition that extends back well over a millennium," JTS's curator of Jewish art, Sharon Liberman Mintz, said in a statement. "I am delighted to present this remarkable treasure at JTS and invite the public to engage with this unique and historic artifact of Jewish heritage."
0 comments
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
Jewish Tesla owner demands hate crime charges after Cybertruck defaced with swastika
A Jewish Cybertruck owner says he caught an anti-Elon Musk protester defacing his vehicle with a Nazi symbol and is demanding the perpetrator be charged with a hate crime.
Avi Ben Hamo, who reportedly caught Michael Lewis, 42, drawing a swastika on his Cybertruck with the word "Elon" at the top, urged officials to press charges during "Fox & Friends" on Tuesday.
"I don't feel safe anymore in Brooklyn or in New York," Ben Hamo told Steve Doocy.
"[You're] not supposed to go ahead and do something to other people['s] car[s], and that's literally antisemitic. I think we have over here a bigger issue that in the city, the police, the DA… should charge people like this and should prosecute people like this."
"They need to pay for it. Otherwise, other people are not going to be safe, and Jewish people are not going to be safe in the city," he continued.
Lewis, who is also Jewish, was arrested on suspicion of aggravated harassment and later released, according to his attorney, Mark Luccarelli.
Ben Hamo said he approached the man when he saw him drawing an "antisemitic" symbol on his vehicle to ask him what he was doing.
"I didn't know what [was] really going on," he said. "I see this very antisemitic swastika on the car, and I didn't understand. I approached him and asked, 'What are you doing?' And he told me very, very disgusting things."
Ben Hamo said he stood in front of Lewis' car after he tried to flee the scene, but after he dialed 911 Lewis ran away.
0 comments
Tuesday, March 18, 2025
Haredi minister's son violently attacked in Jerusalem
Head of the HaMevaser newspaper, Moshe Porush, son of Minister of Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Meir Porush, was violently attacked on Sunday night in his father's apartment building in central Jerusalem, by neighbors identified as Gerrer Hasidim.
Witnesses reported that the assailants grabbed the baby stroller he was holding, tore off his jacket and pulled his beard.
During the attack, the assailants were heard shouting: "Your father harmed the Gerrer Rebbe, we will take revenge on you."
The minister's personal security guard, who regularly stands outside the building, noticed the incident a few minutes later and came to help.
He managed to return the baby to the father, but the assailants tried to attack him as well.
The police arrived at the scene, collected details of the incident, including security camera footage, and opened an investigation. At the same time, the personal security system in the Prime Minister's Office began investigating the incident.
Porush was later evacuated to a hospital for medical treatment.
The violent attack occurred following an ongoing fierce political confrontation within the Agudat Yisrael party, between the "Shlomei Emunim" faction, headed by Minister Porush and the Gerrer Hasidism faction, headed by Minister Goldknopf.
0 comments
Monday, March 17, 2025
New York City man arrested, charged with drawing swastika on Jewish driver’s Cybertruck
New York City police over the weekend arrested a man accused of finger-drawing a swastika on a Jewish man's Cybertruck in protest of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is President Trump's chief bureaucracy cutter.
Authorities took Michael Lewis, 42, into custody on charges of aggravated harassment Saturday after the Cybertruck owner saw the suspect double-park his car next to the electric vehicle, jump out and draw the symbol in the dust on his truck.
Avi Ben Hamo, the victim, told the New York Post he saw the suspect defacing his vehicle from across the street and sprinted out in front of his car to prevent him from driving away.
That's when the suspect ditched his ride and ran away, Mr. Ben Hamo said.
The suspect returned to his car 90 minutes later to find the victim, four police officers and a New York Post reporter waiting for him at the scene. The Post first reported the incident by reviewing security footage of the defacement.
"People hating Elon Musk is one thing, but to do something like this is next level," Mr. Ben Hamo told the newspaper. "I'm speechless. That's just wrong."
An attorney for Mr. Lewis, the suspect, said his client is also Jewish and no damage was done to the car.
0 comments
Thursday, March 13, 2025
Trump: 'Schumer used to be Jewish, now he's Palestinian'
US President Donald Trump called the minority leader of the US Senate, Chuck Schumer, "a Palestinian" during his meeting with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin on Wednesday at the White House.
"Schumer is a Palestinian as far as I'm concerned. He's become a Palestinian. He used to be Jewish. He's not Jewish anymore. He's a Palestinian," Trump said.
This isn't the first instance of Trump making this comment.
Trump had insinuated that "the Palestinians, people like Chuck Schumer, would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region," as part of a post on Trust Social in February.
0 comments
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
Bus full of Hasidim overturned, dozens injured
A serious traffic accident occurred last night near Monsey in New York State, when a bus carrying dozens of yeshiva students from the Skver Hasidic community overturned.
According to local reports, the bus was on its way from Lakewood to New Square when the accident took place near an exit on Route 172, shortly before 8:00 PM local time.
The bus was headed to a wedding celebration for the great-grandson of the Skver Rebbe in the Hasidic neighborhood.
Emergency response teams, including the Rockland County Hatzalah, found that one passenger was trapped under the overturned bus, while over 40 passengers managed to exit the bus on their own.
0 comments
Monday, March 10, 2025
At a historic Williamsburg synagogue on valuable land, dueling groups fight for control
Carlota America Ruiz stood outside Congregation Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom with a locksmith and a court order.
Ruiz had prayed at the Williamsburg synagogue since the 1980s. It's where she completed her Jewish conversion, and where her husband served as the board president for years. But a few weeks earlier, she said, a group purporting to be the temple's board had locked her and other long-time worshippers out of the modest brick building and secured the doors with padlocks and chains. On this sweltering September afternoon, Ruiz was back with permission from a judge to re-enter the sanctuary.
Police, bodyguards and feuding worshippers lined the sidewalk outside the shuttered entrance. As officers studied the court papers and deliberated with each side, Ruiz and the other ousted members were anxious to see their beloved sanctuary. The last time they were inside, the walls had patches of peeling paint, but the room was airy and bright, with 20-foot ceilings and multi-colored stained glass windows. There were rows of vintage oak pews dedicated to congregants who donated to the synagogue over the years, some of whom were Holocaust survivors.
Israel Leichter, the synagogue's secretary, urged police not to open the door for Ruiz and the other locked-out worshippers. He said they weren't true members and that they could bring their grievances to court. But after two hours of deliberations, the NYPD allowed a locksmith to slice off the padlock, and Ruiz and other long-time members rushed into the sanctuary. There, they found the benches demolished into a pile of jagged planks. A woman knelt on the floor and cried.
"I have no words," Ruiz said . "It's not the benches. It's the lack of humanity."
Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom is the oldest Orthodox synagogue in Brooklyn and the only one in Williamsburg that isn't Hasidic, according to long-time members. The congregation's building stands on the dividing line between drastic gentrification to the north and an insular Hasidic Jewish community to the south. Until a few months ago, the synagogue followed Orthodox customs, like separating male and female worshippers, but not all of the practices observed at nearby Hasidic congregations. Unlike the many Hasidic synagogues in the neighborhood, the congregation has historically been known for welcoming different kinds of Jews to pray.
Hundreds of worshippers used to pack into Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom's sanctuary on major holidays, Ruiz said. But as many of those congregants died or moved away in recent years, a small group of Hasidic Jews started to pray alongside the mostly non-Hasidic, long-time members. While the two groups co-existed in relative peace at first, in the last few years they have become estranged. Now, the mostly non-Hasidic long-timers and the Hasidic newcomers are suing each other for authority over the synagogue and its building. On Friday, a judge is expected to hear arguments in the case. But the legal dispute is likely to continue for months to come.
The specifics of the strife range from petty arguments over hoarded water bottles on a hot day to profound disagreements about what it means to be a Jew. But the patterns at play in this case underscore broader questions about the fate of New York's revered houses of worship, as religious membership dwindles and property values soar. At the center of the dispute is the congregation's most valuable asset: its building. Each side is accusing the other of plotting to sell the property, raze the temple and construct condos in its wake.
Selling or renting a house of worship can offer monetary salvation for a congregation struggling to stay afloat, like Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom. But such deals can also invite predatory redevelopment and displace or dissolve sacred communities. Dozens of churches, synagogues and other religious institutions from the Upper West Side to Flatbush have sold their properties in recent years. Sometimes the congregation doesn't survive the real estate sale.
0 comments
Thursday, March 06, 2025
A Chabad House for a Growing Family
In 2019, Rabbi Yanky Bell was on one of his annual pilgrimages to the Ohel, the resting place of Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson in Queens, New York, when he realized it was going to take him a while to write his petition.
Usually, Rabbi Bell's formal requests include blessings, spiritual guidance and inspiration from people back in El Cerrito, Calif., the small city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay where he and his wife, Shternie, run a Chabad House. (Rabbi Schneerson, who died in 1994, was a leader of the Chabad movement, a sect of Hasidic Judaism.)
But this time, Rabbi Bell came with a strong ask of his own: His family needed a new place to live and serve.
"We'd been looking for six or seven months," said Mrs. Bell, 31. "I'd already looked at about 20 to 30 houses."
It wasn't just that their family was expanding — their second son had just been born. Their community was growing, too. "When we had services," Mrs. Bell said, "we had people inside, outside, people everywhere."
They needed enough indoor space to accommodate an office for the rabbi and child care for at least 10 children — theirs and their supporters' kids — and to hold classes, meetings and other events. Outside, they needed space to build a sukkah, the temporary hut central to Sukkot, which celebrates harvests and gratitude.
For Rabbi Bell, 33, it was a complicated petition. "It took me about two hours to write," he said. "We really needed a blessing."
0 comments
Wednesday, March 05, 2025
New York’s Ultra-Orthodox Yeshivas Challenge New State Education Mandates
When Chaim Fishman left his Brooklyn-based secondary school at 16, he'd never heard of Mozart or Shakespeare.
"We were never taught about science or history or geography or civics," let alone English or math, which were considered "ethically wrong," said Fishman, who attended an ultra-Orthodox secondary school for boys — called a yeshiva — in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and is now a 26-year-old software engineer.
More than 50,000 male students are enrolled in New York's yeshivas, and a New York Times investigation found that many provided little instruction in core subjects, received some of the lowest standardized test scores in the state, and left their students unable to converse easily in English or find jobs after graduating. Even still, they received more than $1 billion in government funding over a recent four-year period.
A new state law set to take effect at the end of June seeks to hold these schools accountable by withholding millions in taxpayer funds if they don't provide an education ״substantially equivalent" to what's taught in the public schools. Ultra-Orthodox community leaders who have long advocated for autonomy are vowing to fight the new mandate.
And in a surprise move last week — well in advance of its June deadline for compliance — the state Education Department announced that after a six-year investigation it had pulled funding for two Brooklyn-based Hasidic yeshivas for failure to meet new secular education standards.
Along with termination of public subsidies starting June 30, their students were ordered to enroll in different schools starting this fall.
"The yeshiva system has been wildly successful and is largely responsible for the exponential growth of the Orthodox Jewish community in this country over the last 80 years," said Rabbi Yeruchim Silber, New York director of government relations for Agudath Israel of America, a national Orthodox advocacy organization.
"We have and will continue to advocate for educational autonomy for our yeshivas, whether through direct advocacy, legislatively and through the courts," Silber said.
In the past, Hasidic protesters have descended on the Capitol vowing to "sit in jail" before changing their educational system. How the upcoming debate shapes up will hinge on how New York politicians navigate their relationships with Hasidic leaders — and their thousands of voters, who often vote as a bloc.
0 comments
Tuesday, March 04, 2025
Man Kicked by Arab Owner Out of Oakland Café for Being Jewish Suing Owner
On October 26, 2024, Jonathan Hirsch and his five-year-old son entered the Jerusalem Coffee House, owned by Abdulrahim Harara, after dining at a nearby restaurant, Casper's. After the meal, Hirsch's son needed to use the restroom, but Casper's did not offer such facilities to customers and directed them to the coffee shop across the street. Hirsch was wearing a blue baseball cap with a white Jewish Star on the front, a recreation of a 1938 cap linked to the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, a Jewish charitable organization in New York that hosted Negro League baseball games. Hirsch ordered a latte, his son used the restroom, and they began playing chess while waiting for their drink.
Soon after, Harara approached Hirsch and asked if he was a "Zionist." When Hirsch refused to answer, Harara demanded he leave the establishment, threatened to call the police, and subjected him to both physical and verbal harassment. Harara raised his voice, and he, along with another employee, physically pushed Hirsch toward the exit. Harara also said, "This is a violent hat, and you need to leave."
Jonathan Hirsch is an American Jew and US citizen living in Oakland, California, with his wife and three children. The Star of David on Hirsch's hat is a symbol of Judaism and Jewish identity. It appears in Jewish synagogues, on Jewish tombstones, on the Israeli flag, and was used by the Nazis to identify Jews. The Star of David is deeply connected to the Jewish people and the Jewish religion.
An employee from the East Bay Community Space, which rents space to Harara, arrived and supported Harara's actions, saying, "The only reason they know you're a protected class is because of your hat. You chose to be in this situation." The police arrived shortly after, and Hirsch and his son stepped outside, with the child visibly frightened and in tears. Harara continued to yell, saying "[Expletive] Israel. [Expletive] Zionists," calling Hirsch a "bitch," and taunting his son with "Hey, your dad's a bitch. Your dad's a bitch."
Below is a video of the incident, where Harara verbally attacks Hirsch and demands he leave. Please do not click if you don't wish to hear the expletives. We should only point out that Hirsch had not discussed Israel, Zionism, Judaism, or any related subjects with Harara or anyone else in the coffee shop at any point. The only identifying feature on Hirsch's hat was the Jewish Star, with no other writing or symbols.
0 comments
Monday, March 03, 2025
Brooklyn Rabbi calls to pray for President Trump
Rabbi Moshe Landa of Williamsburg instructed his congregation to pray for President Donald Trump during Sabbath services, deviating from traditional political neutrality in the Hasidic community.
He highlighted Trump's support for the Jewish community, including pardons for Jewish prisoners and the repeal of policies he deemed detrimental to traditional values.
Last Sabbath, Landa referenced the recent assassination attempt on Trump: "We all saw how the president narrowly escaped death when the bullet missed its target by mere millimeters."
He added, "The president has already repealed the Sodom-like and unnatural laws, and has worked to bring additional salvations. Now, during the Sabbath before the month of Adar, we remember how in the days of Purim, the salvation came through King Ahasuerus and Esther – and so we too will pray that the Almighty uses every possible messenger to bring redemption and salvation."
0 comments
