Pondering the state of American Jewry
The news of the newest synagogue shooting in Poway, California, just six months after Tree of Life is more than shocking. We wonder what is happening to America, to our religious freedom and security. We felt safe. Now we do not. What will be? Only Hashem knows. John Earnest had evil on his mind as …
Because Joseph’s Tomb is in Nablus, a city that is under Palestinian Authority autonomy, visits to the holy site by Jewish pilgrims are fraught with danger. For this reason, visits are coordinated with the IDF, to minimize the potential for people getting hurt. What makes a visit dangerous? Why would people be hurt for visiting …
According to Algemeiner, “More than 160 antisemitic hate crimes were documented by the NYPD in 2018, an increase of almost 25 percent over the previous year,” and now there’s been another attack on a Jewish man, this time on a Saturday night in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights. (I leave it to you to consider: is 19 …
An article in the Jerusalem Post begins, “Antisemitism pervades the European Union.” That somehow reads differently than “antisemitism on the rise.” And this was a comprehensive survey, involving almost 16,500 study participants. Among the results: 28% of those surveyed experienced some kind of antisemitic harassment at least once over the past year, while 39% experienced …
A year ago, a man named Alen Califano walked into a Jewish nursing home and went berserk, repeatedly, for instance, “bashing an 84-year-old man on the head with a fire extinguisher while shouting, ‘I’m going to kill you, you (bleep bleep) Jew!’” But while Califano’s motivations and intent seem clear as day, Judge Iacovetta isn’t …
Howard Stern recently interviewed Adam Sandler on his talk show, and incidentally, brought up the subject of the bar mitzvah ceremony, asking him if he wouldn’t describe it as “the single most weird situation in your whole performance life?” The two then broke into an impromptu performance of calling the bar mitzvah boy to the …
According to a report on the first conference of North American Jewish school principals that recently took place in Jerusalem, Jewish leaders from the U.S. and Canada asked the Israeli government to subsidize tuition to Jewish schools. As anyone who tries to keep a Torah-observant lifestyle in the United States knows, tuition has become so …
A Pearson Airport security agent failed the sensitivity test in Toronto when he failed to recognize a religious Jew’s tefillin (phylacteries) and insisted on opening up the boxes to inspect the contents, a violation of religious liberty, for sure. Especially when the religious Jew, remaining respectful throughout, asked twice to speak to the agent’s supervisor. …
Yet another reason American Jews might want to make Aliyah and move to Israel: they’ll live longer. According to the Jerusalem Post, a more healthy lifestyle, along with better education, better healthcare, and a healthier economy, has help to raise Israeli life expectancy by 10.3 years, from 1970-2015, from 71.8 to 82.1 years. How does …