Pondering the state of American Jewry
While we were yet celebrating the final leg of the Jewish high holidays in America, Rabbi Shmaryahu Yosef (Nissim) Karelitz was being laid to rest in Jerusalem. The nephew of the Chazon Ish, Rabbi Karelitz was chairman of the Beit Din Tzedek of Bnei Brak, and one of the leading rabbis of Lithuanian Jewry. Born …
Singer-Actress Demi Lovato got a free trip to Israel, apparently sponsored by Zeev Elkin of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. All she had to do was write a few posts. While she was in Israel, she got baptized in the Jordan River and had a religious experience. She posted about that. View this post …
Synagogues in California took special security measures to protect congregants over Rosh Hashana. So did shuls in Pittsburgh, and indeed, in all of America. Such measures included installing extra security cameras, having guards check handbags, and hiring extra security guards. Somehow, we have always thought this would not be needed here, in America. It is …
A California judge has ordered John T. Earnest to stand trial for the murder of 60-year-old Lori Kaye and the attempted murder of others present on that fateful day at the Chabad synagogue in Poway. During the September 19 hearing, the 911 recording was publicly aired for the first time. Surveillance footage of the shooting …
Police have arrested Matthew James Amiot, 36, in connection with a fire that destroyed a synagogue that had been in use for 119 years. Firemen were able to rescue 10 of the 14 Torah scrolls at the Adas Israel Synagogue. But only 8 of the 10 were salvageable. Duluth doesn’t have a very large Jewish …
Does it matter who lives in the homes defaced with antisemitic graffiti? Is it worse if they are Jewish? This is a question to ponder in the wake of an entire street full of homes in San Pedro, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, having been defaced with swastikas. San Pedro, a melting pot of Croatian, …
This week, the opinion columns were flying thick and fast as the world rushed to condemn Mayor DeBlasio for not doing enough about antisemitic attacks in New York. The attack that seemed to make the journalists reach their boiling point, was the one in which Rabbi Gopin was beaten with a paving stone. A 64 …
The world is once again in an uproar over a statement made by President Trump, in regard to Jews who vote Democrat. The US president, at a press conference in the Oval Office, in response to Ilhan Omar’s call to cut the $3 billion in annual aid given to Israel, stated, “I can’t even believe …
Israel’s Minister for the Interior, Ariyeh Deri, decided not to allow the two Democratic representatives, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib to enter Israel, on legal grounds. Israel’s No Entry law bars BDS activists from entering the country. After the decision was made, Tlaib appealed to Deri to visit her grandmother. On humanitarian grounds, Deri agreed, …
We wrote about Krystyna Danko, only recently, during a fundraising effort to buy the Righteous Gentile, who saved Jews during the Holocaust, a proper hospital bed. Now she has died, at age 102. She went to her final rest in the hospital bed that so many Jewish people helped to fund. Maybe more than the …