Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By simmons on September 20, 2017

What is Zionism and who are the Zionists?

The concept of Zionism holds a vital place in the Israel-Palestineconict. Often characterized as Nationalist Zionism, Religious Zionism and Political Zionism this is an ideolog! that supports the demand of "e#s to return to their $historical homeland% called Zion #hich is de&ned as the 'and of Israel. (ccording to the prominent "e#ish &gures, Zionism is a movement, )oth religious and political, #here)! a socialistic model state for "e#sis to )e esta)lished on the land of Palestine.The religious roots if Zionism can )e found in "udaism #hile it #as developed in a political movement )! *oses +ess, a mentor of arl *ar in socialism. In his )oo, Rome and "erusalem, pu)lished in /012, he laid do#n the foundations for Zionism. +o#ever, Theodor +ertzl is considered the o3cial founder of this socialist ideolog! #ho gave an even more practical plan for the colonization of Palestine in his )oo,

The Jewish State

pu)lished in /041. +e stated +ess5s )oo as a source for ever!thing one needs to no# a)out Zionism. (ccording to him $race, people and nation all merge in Zionism to create socialism.%( crucial role in colonization #as pla!ed )! 6astern 6uropean *arist "e#s #ho #ere led )! Israel5s founding father, 7en 8urion. The socialist i))utzim stated that onl! "e#s could )ecome the mem)ers and so it led to the Na)a catacl!sm, paving #a! to the theft of the land and ethnicall! cleansing of around 9:;,;;; Palestinians o< their land. These Palestinians and their ne# generations still live in eile and are denied return )! the =N. In the =>, Zionism )ecame a ma?or force afterthe si-da! #ar mainl! through their inuence on the media and &lm industr!, as #ell as )aning and the academic sphere.

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What is Zionism and Who Are the Zionists | Zionism | Israel

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Posted By simmons on September 20, 2017

The Story of O.J., the black capitalism anthem onJAY-Zs 4:44,has faced a fair amount a blowback for the following lyrics, which have been perceived by some as anti-semitic: You wanna know whats more important than throwin away money at a strip club? Credit. You ever wonder why Jewish people own all the property in America? This how they did it. The Anti-Defamation League caught wind of the lines and issued a statement to Rolling Stonerebuking Hov for the aside.

We do not believe it was Jay-Zs intent to promote anti-Semitism, a rep told the publication. On the contrary, we know that Jay-Z is someone who has used his celebrity in the past to speak out responsibly and forcefully against the evils of racism and anti-Semitism.

The lyric does seem to play into deep-seated anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jews and money. The idea that Jews own all the property in this country and have used credit to financially get ahead are odious and false. Yet, such notions have lingered in society for decades, and we are concerned that this lyric could feed into preconceived notions about Jews and alleged Jewish control of the banks and finance.

Fans and supporters have come to JAY-Zs defense in the face of the blowback, including fellow black entrepreneur Russell Simmons. JAY-Z hasnt directly responded to the anti-semitism allegations, but his companion video shortFootnotes for The Story of O.J. argues that the songs concept is rooted in pro-blackness.Another video from4:44 is due tonight.

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Posted By admin on August 25, 2017

Email a copy of "Anti-Israel Extremists Target ADL in New Online Campaign Equating Zionism With Racism" to a friend

White supremacist Richard Spencer speaking on Israels Channel 2 after the far-rights violent demonstrationin Charlottesville earlier this month. Photo: Screenshot.

The Anti-Defamation Leagues current counter-offensive against the US far-right is facing a coordinated campaign of online trolling from BDS activists pushing the message that Zionism is akin to white nationalism, an ADL official told The Algemeiner on Friday.

The campaign began on August 17 five days after a violent show of force by ultra right-wing groups in Charlottesville, Virginia when a staff member of Jewish Voice for Peace, an extremist organizationwhose goal is the dismantlementof the State of Israel,penned a veiled endorsement of white nationalist Richard Spencer in The Forward newspaper.

Spencer is one of the leading figures of the so-called alt-right, whose viewsblend discredited theories about race with white pride identity politics. But after describing Spencer as possibly the worst person in America, the JVP staffer, Naomi Dann, hailed him for being being right about Israel.

Noting that Spencer who has a talent for catchphrases had referred to himself as a white Zionist in an interview with Israeli TV following the Charlottesville violence, Dann enthusiastically echoedthis view, going on to describe Israel as a racially-based state built upon Jewish colonial privilege, and therefore one that Spencer would identify with.

August 25, 2017 12:47 pm

An ADL official told The Algemeinerthat Danns article had provoked outrage at the organization. We felt we had to speak out, the official said. Here was a JVP member actually agreeing with, and getting into bed with, an antisemite and white supremacist.

The JVP-led trolling campaign began after ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote a response to Dann in the same newspaper, in which he excoriated her group for having no hesitation to piggy-back on Spencer, and try to link his base, hate-filled and exclusionary ideology with the proactive, affirming and empowering of Jewish nationhood.

As expected, JVP has doubled down on a messaging campaign attempting to link Zionism and Israel with white supremacist ideology, through a series of tweets and videos that used the ADL as a vehicle to equateZionism with racism. Joined by other BDS activists from groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine and the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, the campaign has recycled Soviet Union-era propaganda themes about the allegedidentification of Zionism with Nazism and racial supremacy.

Typical of the tweets was one from Yousef Munayyer, the head ofthe US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, who chargedthat treating Israels Arab citizens exclusively as a demographic threat was central to the Jewish states ethos.

Financed in the main through a rolling grant currently totaling $280,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, JVP has over the last year increasingly focused its ire on American Jews. A campaign launched by the group in July charged that US Jewish groups were promotingracism and police violence through a so-called Deadly Exchange involving Israeli law enforcement.

In June, JVP activistsphysically threatenedmembers of a LGBTQ contingent taking part in the annual Celebrate Israel parade in New York City.

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Anti-Israel Extremists Target ADL in New Online Campaign Equating Zionism With Racism - Algemeiner

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Posted By richards on August 25, 2017

It was offensive enough when, in the aftermath of the deadly events in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend, the white supremacist leader Richard Spencer called himself a white Zionist, comparing his form of Nazism to the belief in a homeland for the Jews.

It was even more distressing to read on these pages a supportive rendering of that assertion by Naomi Dann of the radical group Jewish Voice for Peace.

We work hard to reflect a range of American Jewish opinion, which is why the piece and reaction to it was published. The free flow of ideas is to be cherished. But when a Jew even hints at comparing Israel to Nazis, it must be denounced.

The argument that Zionism is akin to Nazism is not new, and its never been correct. Its related equation that Zionism is racism was codified by the United Nations when it passed Resolution 3379 in 1975. Though hardly Israels best friend, the international body later came to its senses and overwhelmingly rescinded the resolution in 1991.

But, like the anti-Semitism at its core, this ugly syllogism will not die, resurging at times of anxiety and anger, and fueled by a willful disregard for what Zionism and Nazism actually represent.

This wasnt the first time that Spencer and his ilk have sought to create some sort of common ground between their extreme white nationalism and Zionism, but the supposed affinity is based instead on quicksand.

The version of Nazism that Spencer espouses, even if its dressed up as a kind of perverted affirmative action for white people, is by its nature exclusionary and racist. It is propelled by grievance and hate. It views ethno-nationalism as a zero-sum game, where one groups power automatically diminishes another groups status.

The American ideal has always aspired to the opposite a notion of nationalism that expands to include rather than restricts to reject. Of course, this country has fallen short of the ideal from the start, but that doesnt obviate the progress thats been made and the need for us to keep trying for more.

Zionism, too, is an expansive aspiration, asserting that Jews, like all other peoples on earth, deserve the right to govern themselves in their ancestral homeland.

There is an undeniable tension between privileging Jews in the State of Israel and the rights of other religious and ethnic groups. That tension is inherent in any nationalist enterprise.

Its why so many countries erect high barriers to acquiring citizenship in Austria it can take up to 30 years and others informally enforce social and cultural norms to maintain the hegemony of the dominant class.

Its also why other nations have strict religious tests for citizenship and leadership, to privilege one group over another. Every citizen in Saudi Arabia, for example, is considered a Muslim, and conversion to Christianity is punishable by death. In 30 countries, mostly in the Middle East and North Africa, the head of state by law must have a particular religion.

Is that racist, too?

Its unlikely that a non-Jew will become head of state in Israel anytime soon, given the countrys overwhelming Jewish majority, but Arab citizens serve in the legislature, on the high court, and in many other positions of civic responsibility. This has not prevented the current government of Benjamin Netanyahu from following policies that discriminate against non-Jews, or from perpetuating the occupation of Palestinian land and the denial of Palestinian sovereignty.

That such policies are done in the name of Zionism is painful, a perversion of the Zionist ideal. It is something that all Jews must reckon with. But the imperfections of reality do not negate the underlying fact that Zionism is not inherently racist and can and, in fact, does exist side-by-side with democracy.

Nazism cannot.

For Dann to write that Spencer is holding a mirror up to Zionism and the reflection isnt pretty is especially perilous in the current political climate. The intimidating display of Nazi slogans and symbols in Charlottesville, Virginia, legitimized by the shocking statements of President Trump, are a chilling reminder that even in America, Jews are at risk simply because we are Jews.

It ought to strengthen our sense of solidarity. It ought to persuade us to recognize our shared vulnerability, even in the face of our considerable, and continuing, internal differences.

For a Jew to compare Israeli policy that she finds offensive to Richard Spencers ideology is more than troubling. Its also not true. And truth is too precious a commodity these days to ever be squandered.

Contact Jane Eisner at Eisner@forward.com or on Twitter, @Jane_Eisner.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward.

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Zionism Cannot Be Compared To Nazism Even If Richard Spencer And JVP Say So - Forward

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Posted By richards on August 25, 2017

Cohoes

Fifty years ago this weekend, a former American Nazi Party member killed a 59-year-old Jewish man in Cohoes.

Francis Mainville laid in wait for Harry Pearlberg, a door-to-door salesman from Troy, before gunning him down on Saturday, Aug. 26, 1967. Police arrived to find Pearlberg lying in a pool of blood and Mainville standing at the top of the stairs with a unregistered .32 caliber revolver.

"Here I am, officer," police recalled the 29-year-old saying as his gun was snatched away. "If you'd been black, I'd have shot you, too."

He wore a Nazi armband and a silver SS pin.

Harry Pearlberg, who was shot by avowed Nazi Francis Mainville in Cohoes in August 1967. (Provided photo)

Harry Pearlberg, who was shot by avowed Nazi Francis Mainville in Cohoes in August 1967. (Provided photo)

Francis Mainville points to an arm insignia while in the custody of Police Aug. 29, 1967. He was charged with murder for shooting Harry Pearlberg in Cohoes. (Times Union archive)

Francis Mainville points to an arm insignia while in the custody of Police Aug. 29, 1967. He was charged with murder for shooting Harry Pearlberg in Cohoes. (Times Union archive)

Francis Mainville is escorted by police during his arraignment on murder charges Sept. 1, 1967, for shooting Harry Pearlberg in Cohoes. He is bandaged after an attempted suicide. (Times Union archive)

Francis Mainville is escorted by police during his arraignment on murder charges Sept. 1, 1967, for shooting Harry Pearlberg in Cohoes. He is bandaged after an attempted suicide. (Times Union archive)

Rabbi Israel Rubin of the Maimonides Hebrew Day School speaks to summer camp students about the Charlottesville, Va. protests on Friday Aug. 18, 2017, in Albany, N.Y. (Will Waldron/Times Union)

Rabbi Israel Rubin of the Maimonides Hebrew Day School speaks to summer camp students about the Charlottesville, Va. protests on Friday Aug. 18, 2017, in Albany, N.Y. (Will Waldron/Times Union)

When Nazi violence came to Cohoes

The slaying came a day after the assassination of George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party, by another party member in Arlington, Va. Doctors who assessed Mainville's mental state later testified at trial that he had killed Pearlberg as a twisted form of retaliation.

"Hitler was like God to me and Rockwell was next," Mainville told a psychiatrist after his arrest. He was ultimately sentenced to life in prison after a jury rejected an insanity plea. He later died in prison.

A husband, father and grandfather, Pearlberg had fled Poland during World War II and settled in Troy, where he was a respected member of B'nai B'rith and the Jewish Community Center. At his funeral, Rabbi Herman Horowitz said, "The hour of the extreme right is still with us."

Those fears echo in the nation's current conversation on racial intolerance.

A white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., turned violent Aug. 12 when a car mowed down counterprotesters, killing one woman and injuring 19 more. The night before, men with torches and Nazi flags chanted, "Jews will not replace us," as they protested the City Council's decision to remove a Confederate statue from a public park.

Fifty years ago, Pearlberg's murder sparked public outcry for stricter gun control laws, better psychiatric care and harsher punishment for hate crimes. Today, lawmakers and advocates are asking for many of the same measures.

"I don't think anything has gotten better," Pearlberg's son said in an interview last week.

Edward Pearlberg was cautious, though, to cast his father's killing as political. "I just want him to be remembered as my father, not as a martyr of the Jewish community," he said. "I remember him as having a tremendous sense of humor. He was a scholar in his own right, as far as Judaism was concerned, and devout. He liked people and people liked him."

The murder

Mainville knew Pearlberg, who had been selling dry goods to his family and the bakery where Mainville worked for four years. The morning of the shooting, the two men had coffee at the same counter and discussed Pearlberg stopping by to pick up a payment, Edward Pearlberg recalled.

Later that day, Mainville sat alone in his Ontario Street apartment, watching television with a loaded pistol in his hand, "waiting for this Jewish guy," he said in a signed statement to police. A paperboy and grocery delivery boy had already stopped by unharmed.

When Pearlberg rang the doorbell, Mainville called out, "Who's there?"

"It's only Harry," the salesman said.

Gunfire smashed through the door. One bullet grazed Pearlberg's abdomen, another struck him beneath the left arm and ripped into his heart. He bled to death before reaching the hospital, without seeing his son or wife, Rose.

"That was probably the last day of her real life," Edward Pearlberg said about his mother, who fell ill shortly after her husband's death.

Mainville, on the other hand, was a "calm, cool, collected suspect who showed absolutely no remorse," Cohoes Police Chief John Klieb told reporters. The killer told officers he was "a Nazi stormtrooper" and wrote in a signed statement, "Jew, I hope you die."

Mainville registered as a member of the National Socialist White People's Party five years before the killing but kept up his membership for just six months, the organization told the Times Union in 1967. After his arraignment on a first-degree murder charge, Mainville posed for a photograph pointing to an SS armband and giving a Nazi-style salute to the gathered crowd.

Mainville had a history of threats and violence. Ten years before the killing, Mainville told an Albany County judge, probation officer, sheriff's deputy and his father, "I will get you," after he was sent to prison on a burglary conviction. The 19-year-old later escaped but was caught two days later.

In 1963, Mainville attacked his pregnant wife just a month after they had married, nearly killing her. He brandished a machete and knife before strangling her, later telling police he'd decided to "kill my wife with my bare hands." The attack left her hospitalized. Mainville was convicted of assault but received probation.

And a year before shooting Pearlberg, Mainville went to an Army-Navy Store on Remsen Street planning to kill the proprietor also Jewish but turned around when he noticed children inside the shop, he told police after his 1967 arrest.

The trial

Two days after the killing, Mainville set fire to his clothing and mattress in an apparent suicide attempt inside Albany County jail. He was taken to Albany Medical Center Hospital with second-degree burns and kept under psychiatric observation. Days later, he appeared in court bandaged and silent to enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. The judge sent Mainville to Hudson River State Hospital in Poughkeepsie for further psychiatric evaluation.

Mainville remained in state psychiatric care for eight years before doctors ruled in May 1975 that he was competent to participate in his own defense. The trial began that September.

Mainville's family and neighbors testified about his obsessive fear that black and Jewish people would take over the United States, while doctors hired by the defense argued his bigotry was the result of paranoid schizophrenia a theory the jury rejected.

"Is fanatical hatred by itself sufficient to classify one as mentally ill?" the prosecutor said, asking the defense's medical expert if he considered "80 million German people fanatics and psychotics." The doctor demurred.

After his arrest, Mainville told a psychiatrist that he'd heard about Rockwell's death on the radio and "decided to kill the first Jew I saw. I didn't have anything against that little guy."

"When I shot the guy, I was not sick," Mainville told another doctor. "This is my belief. I am a Nazi." His statements are eerily similar to those made by Dylann Roof, the 22-year-old white man who massacred nine black parishioners during a June 2015 Bible study in Charleston, S.C.

When asked to explain the fatal shooting, Roof told jurors, "There's nothing wrong with me psychologically." As at Mainville's trial, family and friends said they knew about Roof's fanatical hatred and his violent intentions before the attack. Roof was sentenced to death in January.

Mainville was ultimately convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison after a three-day trial in Albany County Court. He died by suicide in 1979.

Edward Pearlberg, now 80, said it wasn't until then that his family stopped looking over their shoulders in fear of Mainville's release.

The lesson

Edward Pearlberg thinks his father was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he's not surprised that the story of the murder has resurfaced in the aftermath of the Charlottesville riots.

Earlier this month, rabbis Israel Rubin and Leible Morrison gathered about 20 elementary school-aged day campers inside the Maimonides Hebrew Day School in Albany to explain how they saw the connection.

"There is a difference between not liking someone and hating someone," Rubin told the children. "God made all of us in different ways. ... We have to learn how to accept each other, even if we can't love everybody."

Rubin's family was nearly wiped out in the Holocaust. When he asked his students if they'd heard anything about Charlottesville, roughly half raised their hands.

"It's important for you to know this," he said before explaining how neo-Nazis targeted a historic synagogue in the Virginia city during the protests.

Three men dressed in fatigues and armed with semiautomatic rifles reportedly stood across the street from Congregation Beth Israel on the morning of Aug. 12, as neo-Nazis marched past and shouted, "Sieg Heil!" The temple's rabbi stood in the doorway with a security guard hired to keep the congregation safe.

"They didn't shoot anybody but it was really nasty," Rubin told the children, who at the mention of guns momentarily stopped fidgeting. "There was real hate. And the Jews inside were very, very worried. They had to go out the back, hiding."

Morrison said people raised without compassion or a sense of the need to care for others grow up to hate.

It's not an easy conversation to have with kids, but Morrison believes it's a necessary one.

"We always have to remember: There's hate, there's not liking and there's loving. So we have to do a lot more mitzvahs so that the love and caring takes away the hate," he says, using the Hebrew word for good deeds.

Morrison pointed to Harry Pearlberg as an example.

"Neighborhoods wouldn't matter to him. He was a grassroots kind of guy, and that's how most peddlers were," Morrison said, adding that it was common practice for Jewish salesmen to sell goods to hard-up neighbors with the simple promise of later payment.

"They were very trusting and compassionate," Morrison told the kids. "And that's the example we want to follow: They brought out the goodness in people."

emasters@timesunion.com 518-454-5467 @emilysmasters

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When Nazi violence came to Cohoes - Albany Times Union

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Posted By simmons on August 25, 2017

A Torah scroll. Photo: Rabbisacks.org.

We have a number of weddings coming up in mycongregation. Therefore, I thought it wouldbe wiseto address the glaring contradiction that exists between a widely-held Jewish belief about marriage, and a fundamental aspect of Jewish faith.

The Talmud (Sotah 2a) makes a startling statement about the inevitability of spousal identity: Forty days before an embryo is formed, a divine voice declares: this persons daughter isdestined to marry that boy. Jewish folklore refers to this marriage predetermination concept as bashert the Yiddish word for destined.

In other words, no one should ever haveto remain single; all we have to do is find our beshert, marry them and live happily ever after.

To say that this idea is theologically problematic rather understates the glaring issues that it presents issues that undermine the very basis of our faith system.

August 25, 2017 11:32 am

For example, just look at asection ofShoftim, which talks aboutmilitary exemptions. Oneexemption criteria is framed as follows (Deut. 20:7):who is the man who has become engaged to a woman, but has not yet taken her as his wife let him go and return home, lest he die in battle and another man shall marry her.

Maimonides, in his famous letter to the12thcentury Italian convert known as Obadiah the Proselyte, refuted the notion of beshert by citing this verse from Shoftim.

Why, Maimonidesasks, would a man who is engaged to the woman he is destined to marry be fearful of being killed in battle and replaced by another man? Surely, says Maimonides, if the meaning of the Talmudic passage is that his fianc is destined to behis wife even before her birth, no other man could ever marry her. Why, therefore, should he be exempted from military service?

To reconcile this apparent contradiction between scripture and Talmud, Maimonides advances the idea that the Talmudic passage aboutbeshert cannot be taken at face value, and must instead be interpreted as referring to the potential that exists for reward and punishment a potential that God sets into motion even before a person is born.

According to this approach, someone who is deserving of reward will merit the husband or wife who will be their agent and partner for a wonderful life, while the opposite will be true if their behavior falls short. The point is, all the options are already in place before one is born.

Maimonides goes even further in his refutation, by quoting an alternative Talmudic source that is a cornerstone of Jewish faith and turning it on its head. In Berakhot (33b), the Talmud declares that everything is in the hands of Heaven, except for the fear of Heaven. Like so many other Talmudic statements, what seems to be a simple idea is actually very profound. The key to understanding this particular statement lies in accurately defining the exception. What is included in the fear of Heaven?

Maimonides, being the great rationalist that he was, refused to accept a notion that includes literally everything as being in the hands of Heaven. If that were true, he says, it would wreck the entire concept of free choice.

Consequently, the exception to the rule fear of Heaven turns out to be a much broader category than the basic translation implies. It includes your marriage and all your relationships; it includes your livelihood, your home, your time management in fact, it includes anything that relies on choices that you make. Because who we choose to marry, and how we choose to live our lives, all falls under the rubric of ensuring that our relationship with God is on the right footinga process that requires the careful and proactive calibration of our fear of Heaven.

The tension between determinism and free choice has vexed philosophers and theologians for millennia. Particularly in recent years, when we have begun to explore and understand the world ofbiological and psychological determinism, we have been forced to deal with the weight of inevitable consequences and our limited ability to counteract them. And yet, it is in this limited arena that our fear of Heavennamely, our relationship with God, can really come to life.

As we approach the High Holidays, the period in our calendar during which we focus on our choices over the last yearand the choices we intend to make for the nextit would help for us to reflect on the fact that it is in the arena of choice that we truly define ourselves.

The realization that we have the choice to make choices is a critical component of ensuring that everything we do never becomes a product of fate. Rather it must be the result of considered reflection and our own willful actions.

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Posted By simmons on August 25, 2017

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Updated: Friday, August 25, 2017, 3:47 AM

Their prayers were answered.

A Brooklyn judge temporarily blocked the demolition of the oldest synagogue in Borough Park after members argued the sale of the building was based on misrepresentations.

Chevra Anshei Lubawitz, on 12th Ave. and 41st St., was sold for $3.1 million on June 14 to developer Moses Karpen, records show. The developer wants to demolish the building and convert it to a six-story apartment building.

As part of the deal, the synagogue would pay $3 million for the first floor and basement of the new building and use the space as a temple.

Seventeen members of the synagogue say they only found out about the sale a few days after it occurred. They contend two board members behind the sale made no effort to seek other offers and that the building was never offered on the open market before it was sold to Karpen, who is a friend of one of the board members.

Supporters of the sale insist there was nothing untoward about the deal, noting the congregation will have a brand-new space under the arrangement.

"The congregation wanted to make sure that they were dealing with a developer that they had confidence in and was highly respected," said Scott Mollen, the lawyer representing the synagogue's leadership behind the sale.

The board spoke to several other developers and had the property appraised by an expert before making the sale, Mollen added.

But critics who are seeking to block the deal in court say the building was undersold by at least $1 million, based on another sale in the neighborhood.

The purchase has been in the works for 18 months, records show.

The board filed a petition with the state's attorney general asking for the legal signoff to make the deal, records show. That petition argued the synagogue, which opened its doors in 1914, is "old, dilapidated, in need of extensive renovation and is no longer able to house" services.

Members opposing the sale say that's not the case.

"There's not a single violation on the property," said David Shor, who has prayed at the synagogue for a decade. "It's actually beautiful."

The synagogue has stained glass windows, chandeliers and pews in good condition, a photo shows.

But Mollen said the roof is in dire need of repair, the bathroom is a mess, stairs are damaged and there's a mold problem.

"There are major structural issues," he said. "Given the small size of the congregation it is not practical to raise sufficient money."

The size of the congregation is also in dispute.

Those supporting the sale say there are only about 18 members.

Opponents contend that number is actually closer to 50. They note that there are two Friday night services during the winter months.

As for complaints that members were never notified, Mollen says the sale was brought up in two board meetings before a vote was taken.

One of the members against the sale admitted he attended three meetings where others talked about possibly putting the building up for sale, court records show.

"The congregation completely denies that there was a lack of notice and proper approval by the membership," said Mollen.

But many say they only heard about it in June, when the synagogue's leadership announced the building would be closed for the summer while members were away.

"I've been praying at this synagogue for 10 years and am so upset at this ugly turn of events which has taken so many of us by surprise," Shor said.

The legal victory for opponents of the sale may be short-lived.

Judge Marshal Steinhardt's temporary restraining issued on Thursday order lasts until Oct. 16. It specifically allows the synagogue leadership to proceed with the permitting process required before the demolition.

"The congregation leadership thinks that today was very positive," Mollen said, noting the next court date is set for Sept. 7.

Still, critics of the deal have faith.

"We are very pleased that the court saw the need to issue a TRO, which will prevent this historic structure from facing the wrecking ball," Shor said. "We are confident that the court will see the merits of our case, and prevent the destruction of Borough Park's oldest synagogue."

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Judge blocks demolition of historic Brooklyn synagogue - New York Daily News

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Posted By simmons on August 25, 2017

First Congregation Sons of Israel will host a service and musical sing-along dinner followed by Kiddush Levana (Sanctification of the Moon) at 6:30 p.m. today.

According to the Jewish faith, the tradition of Kiddush Levana has taken place for well over a millennia, says Rabbi Joel Fox, who will lead the service.

It is found in the Babylonian Talmud where Rabbi Yochanan taught that one who blesses the new moon is regarded like one who greets the Shechinah, or Divine Presence, Fox says.

In Exodus 12:2, it is written: This month is to be for you the beginning of months. It is considered to be the first commandment in the Torah, which is to bless the new month, based on the lunar calendar.

We are taught that those who bless the new month are respecting the first commandment in the Torah, as it reflects the idea of greeting the Divine Presence, Fox says.

Kiddush levana is performed on the first sighting of the new moon, which this month immediately followed the solar eclipse of 2017.

Were not praising the moon, but rather God who created it.

This Friday evening, when the moon is fully visible and unobstructed by cloud cover, members of First Congregation Sons of Israel will stand under the open sky and gaze together at the new moon. They will then recite the blessing accompanied by songs and prayers.

This past Monday evening, Jews began Rosh Chodesh Elul, or the new month of Elul, which is a month of reflection and repentance. It is also the 30-day countdown to Rosh Hashana (the New Year) and 40 days to Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement).

We have looked to the heavens and have marveled at the miraculousness of nature, space and time, Fox says. We have begun the time to reflect on our own miraculous selves and our place in the universe. Blessing the moon on its reappearance is a way of renewing our trust in Gods constant presence. We also will be restoring our awareness of all of the goodness and blessings found in our lives.

In addition to leading the Kiddush Levana celebration, Fox will also lead Shabbat service at 10 a.m. Saturday.

First Congregation Sons of Israel is at 161 Cordova St. Reservations are requested for Shabbat dinner on Friday.

For reservations, call 829-9532 or email fcsi1924@gmail.com.

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Synagogue to host Blessing of the New Moon today - St. Augustine Record

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Posted By richards on August 25, 2017

Old City of Porto, Portugal

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Ahead of next months European Days of Jewish Culture project, the Portuguese town of Belmonte has renovated and reopened its Jewish museum, which is the largest in the world about crypto-Jews.

The reopening earlier this month followed extensive renovations costing $350,000 at the museum, which was founded in 2005, a municipal spokesperson told JTA. The renovations and the addition of interactive exhibitions were timed to be ready for this years edition of the Jewish culture project a framework for events highlighting European Jewish culture that take place each year in the beginning of September in 35 countries.

You could say this this a totally new museum and we are confident that it will become a reference point for Sephardic culture, Belmontes mayor, Antnio Dias Rocha, told the Lusa news agency earlier this month. The aim is for visitors to understand how it was possible for our Jews to remain so many years in Belmonte, he added.

In Barcelona, the European Days of Jewish Culture features a Jewish film festival. In the Netherlands, visitors will be able to access the Middelburg Synagogue, an 18th-century establishment which was built by exiled Portuguese Jews and is the oldest of its kind outside Amsterdam. It is generally not open to the public.

This years theme of Diasporas is particularly relevant to Belmonte, which in the 15th century saw an influx of Jewish refugees from Spain, from where they fled because of the Church-led campaign of persecution known as the Inquisition. When the Inquisition spread to Portugal in 1536, many of Belmontes hundreds of Jewish families fled, becoming refugees themselves. But many stayed and continued to practice Judaism in secrecy, becoming crypto-Jews, or anusim. The community existed as such as late as the early 20th century before disappearing.

In recent years, however, rabbis and activists from the Shavei Israel group, which seeks to reconnect the descendants of the anusim to Judaism, have re-established a small community in Belmonte.

The eastern town of Belmonte is one of only three locales in Portugal with a functioning synagogue, along with Lisbon and Porto. In recent years, local and national tourism bodies have invested millions of dollars in attracting tourists to Belmonte, including by setting up a kosher market each year in September since 2010.

The renovated museum, which includes reconstruction of murals and insight into the individual stories of Belmontes Jews, is projected to attract 100,000 visitors annually, Dias Rocha said. According to Lusa, this figure is slightly higher than the total combined number of visitors who each year come to the towns six other museums. In 2016, 92,000 tourists visited the citys seven museums an increase of 15 percent over 2015.

Separately, in Lisbon Jewish community leaders and municipal workers are preparing for the opening of that citys Jewish museum, due to take place this year. In March, two Jewish museums opened in Braganca and Porto.

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New Jewish museum seeks to showcase Sephardic culture - Arutz Sheva

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Posted By richards on August 25, 2017

As every working parent will tell you, modern families lead busy lives. Mums and dads findthemselves juggling work presentations with spelling tests, interview preparation with school plays and client calls with science projects.

The death this month of Blanche Lindo Blackwell [pictured below] at the age of 104was widely reported in national newspapers. Of course, when someone of that age passes away, she suffers from a grave disadvantage, so to speak. All of her contemporaries have passed away and the friends and younger membersof the family that remain only remember heras an old lady, a relic from another age.

I met Blanche when she was aged just under 100. In fact, she was demanding to see me. Rumours of the Jewish ancestry of the Duchess of Cambridge, confirmed, it was thought, by the birth of little

Prince George in the Lindo Wing of St Marys Hospital, had led to my writing toThe Times,explaining its Jewish history, and that Kate had no known relationship to the Lindo family or, indeed, any Jewish antecedents.

In 1938, Frank Charles Lindo had been so anxious to repay the care he had received from members of the nursing profession that he built a nurses home and private wing atSt Marys Hospital, known as the Lindo Wing. Blanche hailed from the Jamaican branch of the family, and she wanted to know more.

Blanche Blackwell

This was how I found myself ringing the bell nervously to her apartment in Belgravias Lowndes Square. There, I found a sprightly elderly lady, with an engaging personality and warm smile.

She had a friend staying and we were served attentively by two devoted West Indian maids.

Explaining that she was a religious Christian but very proud of being a Jew, Blanche saw no contradiction in this.

Her family had been baptised after the deathof a young son from blackwater fever, the scourge of the tropics.

Blanchie, as she called herself, wanted me to research her English family, and invitations were extended with my husband for dinner and a tea. She was very fond of her computer, which had been adapted for her failing eyesight, and regaled us with amusing stories.

Born in Costa Rica in 1912, the second daughter and third child of two Lindo cousins, she had a wonderful time growing up in Jamaica.

Sent to boarding school, she was known as a rebel, and finished in Paris, the only West Indian debutante of the year 1933.

Her marriage to a member of the Crosse & Blackwell family ended in divorce, but her son was the owner of Island Records and the discoverer of Bob Marley, the reggae star.

She had acted as hostess to the rich and famous on the island and, indeed, to royalty. Blanche was very good company but, the last time I was invited to tea in Lowndes Square, she had forgotten she had invited me.

However, by then she had all the information on the English branch of her Sephardi family. Isaac Lindo, born about 1638, had settled in London, becoming an Elder at Bevis Marks Synagogue.

It was David Abarbanel Lindo who performed Disraelis circumcision and itwas Abigail Lindo, lexicographer, who was the only woman of her time to have publications in her own name.

It was Benjamin Lindo who supplied perfume to the royal family and Gabriel Lindo who wassolicitor to the Sephardic congregation.

It was Blanche Lindo, however,who became the first and only honorary member of The Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain, at the age of 100.

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We helped Blanche discover more about her famous family - Jewish News (blog)

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