Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By simmons on August 18, 2017

Police blocking off the street after a car rammed into a crowd of counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 12, 2017. (Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

(JTA) Local officials said police provided protection to a synagogue during a far-right rally last weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia refuting a claim by a Jewish community leader that they had refused to do so.

On Friday, Charlottesville City Manager Maurice Jones said it is simply not the case thatCongregation Beth Israel was left unguarded during Saturdays event, when neo-Nazis and white supremacists gathered in the city. The synagogues senior rabbi also seemed to confirm the police statement.

Police stationed an officer on the corner of the block where the synagogue is located, plus another 32 officers about one block away in the other direction, Jones said in a statement to JTA. In addition, we had snipers on a rooftop in close proximity whose primary responsibility was to monitor a two-block radius which included Beth Israel.

We also had a group of Virginia State Police officers who were walking a four-block radius between two of our parks on a route that passed the synagogue on several occasions throughout the days events.

The synagogues president, Alan Zimmerman, had written in a blog post earlier this week that [t]hepolice department refused to provide us with an officer during morning services.

However,Congregation Beth Israels senior rabbi seemed to confirm the police account of the incident in a statement Thursday.

Rabbi Tom Gutherz said he and Zimmerman had met with the police on Wednesday andofficials reviewed with us the security provisions they made for the safety of our congregation during the protests. Based on our discussion, we are now confident that the steps they took were carefully considered to protect us and were effective. We note that we had also met with and spoken to the department prior to the rallies as part of our preparation.

In his blog post, Zimmerman said the synagogue had hired security after police allegedly did not provide protection.

On Saturday morning, I stood outside our synagogue with the armed security guard we hired after the police department refused to provide us with an officer during morning services. (Even the police departments limited promise of an observer near our building was not kept and note, we did not ask for protection of our property, only our people as they worshipped), he wrote in the post on ReformJudaism.org, which was titled In Charlottesville, the Local Jewish Community Presses On.

The synagogue did hire security guards for the first time in its history ahead of the far-right event at Emancipation Park, a short block from the synagogue. Rally participants chanted racist and anti-Semitic slogans, and a counterprotester was killed when a car driven by a suspected white supremacist plowed into pedestrians.

Zimmerman, like other eyewitnesses, described intimidation by rally participants or supporters.

Several times, parades of Nazis passed our building, shouting, Theres the synagogue! followed by chants of Seig Heil and other anti-Semitic language, he wrote. Some carried flags with swastikas and other Nazi symbols.

In a separate interview,Rabbi Rachel Schmelkin, an educator at the synagogue, noted that members of antifa, the anti-fascist street movement, also defended clergy and houses of worship during the rally.

There was a group of antifa defending First United Methodist Church right outside in their parking lot, and at one point the white supremacists came by and antifa chased them off with sticks, she told Slate.

Other members of the clergy gave similar accounts to Slate, praising left-wing counterprotesters for protecting them from the far-rightists.

Based on what was happening all around, the looks on [the faces of the far-right marchers], the sheer number of them, and the weapons they were wielding, my hypothesis or theory is that had the antifa not stepped in, those of us standing on the steps [of Emancipation Park] would definitely have been injured, very likely gravely so,Brandy Daniels, a postdoctoral fellow in religion and public policy at the University of Virginia, told Slate.

President Donald Trump blamed the violence at the rally on many sides.

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Charlottesville says it provided protection to synagogue, refuting initial account - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By admin on August 18, 2017

Volunteers, students and archaeologists excavate two recently uncovered mikves once belonging to the Great Synagogue of Vilna.. (photo credit:DR. JOHNATHAN SELIGMAN)

In 2015, a radar survey discovered ruins near a school in Vilnius, Lithuania. The ruins were of the Great Synagogue, and since their discovery they have provided substantial new insights into the life the Jewish community living there before the Holocaust.

In the past three years, archaeologists have uncovered ruins of mikves and bathhouses that have been underground for over 70 years. Doctor John Seligman, the head of the dig sight, says these findings give us critical information about the history of the Jewish people in Lithuania.

The archeologists of the Israel Antiquities Authority have discovered many clues as to how the Jewish community lived and thrived in Vilnius before the Holocaust. Such conclusions are drawn from the architecture and the structure of the mikve by exposing aspects such as Halachtic traditions, and methods of water transportation and sewage systems. The team also searched for answers in a nearby dig site in Punary, the site of a great Nazi massacre.

After the devastation and expulsion of the Jewish community in Vilnius, the Nazis burned the building to the ground, and during the Soviet rule, a school was built were the synagogue once stood. In 2015, a survey team was sent by the Israeli Antiquities Authority in hopes of finding ruins underground.

The researchers rejoiced when their radar picked up remains of the synagogue, and now hope to find more information about the community that once was and we can create a memorial site in their honor. The Antiquities Authority has to enlisted a variety researchers, students and volunteers from Israel, Lithuania, and the United States - Jews from all over the world - and aspire to create an environment of cooperation.

The Great Synagogue, built in the 17th century, was the largest and most extravagant synagogue in Lithuania. It was the heart of the Jewish community of the whole country. Jews would frequent the center on a daily basis. The building was of Renaissance-Baroque architecture and included 12 Beit Midrash (one of which belonged to Rav Eliyahu, the Gaon from Vilnius), mikves, a communal gathering house, kosher meat stands, and the famous Shtrashon library. Of these facilities, two mikves have been uncovered during the excavations.

Doctor Seligman says, until this point, we have had fragments of information about the life of the Jewish community in Vilnius. The goal of this mission is to turn the legacy of the Jewish community of Vilnius as an inseparable part of the entire Jewish Lithuanian legacy and to preserve the site for future visitors.

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Discovery in Lithuania: archeologists find ruins of Great Synagogue ... - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By richards on August 18, 2017

On Monday morning Aug. 21, 14-year-old Natasha Waldorf, who is Jewish, will start her sophomore year at Alameda High School.

In her class will be one of two boys who taunted her last semester, sending her text messages that included the word kike and other anti-Semitic insults, and the image of product mascot Mr. Clean in a Nazi uniform titled Mr. Ethnic Cleansing. In the halls she will pass two other students who taunted her that same week last January, joking about the Holocaust and, when confronted by Natasha, telling her that Hitler should have finished the job.

Alameda school authorities dont deny that these incidents, reported in a J. cover story in May, indeed occurred. This week, Alameda Unified School District Superintendent Sean McPhetridge told J., and the parents by email, that the situation has been handled appropriately.

Natashas parents, however, say otherwise. And they want something done.

They are not taking this seriously, Natashas father, Mel Waldorf, told J. These were threats. How is my daughter supposed to feel safe, with school starting Monday? How can [McPhetridge] say hes protecting a student when the kids who did this dont have to apologize and are sitting in her class for the rest of the year? Its egregious.

The Zionist Organization of America has taken up the case on behalf of Natasha and her family, alerting J. to the ongoing situation this week. The ZOA has been engaged since June in an email exchange with McPhetridge and with the high schools principal, Robert Ithurburn, which now seems to have reached an impasse.

Natashas parents, and the ZOA, want the school district to take five specific steps. At the top of the list: ensuring that all the students who taunted Natasha are made to apologize; instituting mandatory training programs for students, faculty and parents in how to recognize and combat anti-Semitism; and coming out forcefully and publicly in opposition to anti-Semitism.

McPhetridge says the district has followed correct protocol all along, although he is legally prevented from detailing what punishment, if any, the offending students have received. He says four of the five demands have been fulfilled, in substance if not in letter, and the fifth mandating parental training is not feasible. He reiterates his and the districts support for full inclusion for all faiths, ethnicities, races and gender identities.

Natashas parents and the ZOA say the district, specifically McPhetridge, arent taking their complaints seriously. McPhetridge, on the other hand, told J. this week that no incident in his decades of service has affected him like this one, and he takes it very seriously indeed. He insists that he wants to meet personally with Natasha and her parents to clear it up, as he met with the parents of three other children who suffered similar anti-Semitic taunting in Alameda schools.

As of late this week, Mel Waldorf said he was still waiting for a phone call from McPhetridge. And anyway, the ZOA says a face-to-face meeting wont solve anything the organization wants demonstrable action.

An impasse. And school starts Monday.

At the center of this conflict is Natasha, who, as detailed in a May 25 J. cover story and editorial, received a series of anonymous texts last January that taunted her for being Jewish and made threats about gas and ethnic cleansing. She discovered that a boy in her class, whom she thought was a friend, had sent the texts, egged on by a foreign exchange student. Eventually the first boy was made to apologize to her; her parents say the exchange student, who has since returned to his native Germany, never apologized and his parents werent even notified.

Later that same week, she and a friend overheard two other students joking about the Holocaust. One made the Hitler comment to her upon being confronted. Natashas parents then met with the schools assistant principal and dean, but as outlined in ZOA letters to McPhetridge, felt appropriate action was not taken. (That dean has since left the school district.)

The ZOA letters also charge that these incidents are not isolated. Natasha reported to her parents and to school administrators other examples of students making anti-Semitic comments, of swastika graffiti found on desks and walls, and making jokes about the Holocaust, sometimes in front of teachers. Anti-Semitic incidents also were reported at other schools in the district, including Edison Elementary, as covered in J.

On June 16, the ZOA first wrote to McPhetridge, saying, Anti-Semitism is a problem at other schools in the district, too. We understand that you are well aware of this ongoing serious problem, yet have not taken the steps you are legally required to take to remedy the anti-Semitism and ensure that it does not recur.

He has not met any of the list of demands we sent, said David Kadosh, executive director of ZOA West and one of the two signatories of the June 16 letter. He has not made public statements against anti-Semitism. Hes spoken in general about bigotry and says its enough.

In both a conversation with J. and in letters emailed to McPhetridge, Kadosh points out programs the school district runs to highlight inclusion for other minority students. As part of its Everyone Belongs Here campaign, for example, the district has held several events celebrating Muslim culture and history, including daily announcements in the high school during April, noting it was National Arab American Heritage Month.

By contrast, the ZOA letter points out, there were no school-wide announcements in May that it was Jewish American Heritage Month. When members of the Jewish student club put up posters, one was ripped down while the others disappeared in a few days. And last spring, for the first time, no Holocaust survivor was invited to speak to the students for Holocaust Remembrance Day. The school said it was too difficult to find a speaker, the ZOA letter charged, and rebuffed ZOA offers to provide one.

Were not asking for special treatment, Kadosh told J. Were just asking for the same attention and treatment for Jewish students.

In an hour-long interview in his office on Aug. 17, McPhetridge refuted the ZOAs and familys charges one by one. Yes, hes spoken out publicly against anti-Semitism at board meetings and a PTA meeting the family just isnt viewing the videos. Yes, the offending students were punished he just cant say how, due to privacy laws. Yes, the high school commemorates the Holocaust and a speaker will be provided next year; he thanked the ZOA for reaching out with suggestions.

And yes, the district takes anti-Semitism seriously, as it does with all bigotry although it can always do better. It cannot be just about anti-Semitism, he told J. It has to be the rights of all people.

Ive invited the ZOA and the Waldorf-Lindsey family to meet with us, he said, referring to himself and Principal Ithurburn. Theres so much we can do talking together that we cant do by email or phone. We are committed to making things better.

When a family [tells me to] work with the ZOA and copy [us] on the letters, its hard to cooperate, he added.

All of this is coming to a head at a time of upsurges in hate speech and anti-minority violence, including a rash of bomb threats at Jewish Community Centers in the spring which alarmed Natasha, her parents said the violence at the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville last week, and this weeks vandalism at Temple Israel in Alameda, where windows were smashed on Aug. 17.

Meanwhile, school starts Monday.

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School year dawns with no resolution for Alameda girl targeted with anti-Semitism - Jweekly.com

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Posted By admin on August 18, 2017

Asa Winstanley Activism and BDS Beat 17 August 2017

Jewish members of the Labour Party have founded a new group. Jewish Voice for Labour will launch at the UK main opposition partys conference in Brighton next month.

The new initiative presents a challenge to an existing Israel lobby group that positions itself as the representative of Jewish members of Labour.

Our mission is to contribute to making the Labour Party an open, democratic and inclusive party, encouraging all ethnic groups and cultures to join and participate freely, the new group said.

Jewish Voice for Labours founding document upholds the right of supporters of justice for Palestinians to engage in solidarity activities, such as boycott, divestment and sanctions, or BDS.

It adds that it opposes attempts to widen the definition of anti-Semitism beyond its meaning of hostility towards or discrimination against Jews as Jews.

This has been a key goal of the Jewish Labour Movement, an existing Israel lobby group within the Labour Party, that has sought to advance Israels agenda of delegitimizing BDS activism by equating criticism of Israel and its Zionist state ideology with anti-Semitism.

Jewish Voice for Labour criticizes the Jewish Labour Movement for its promotion of Israel. Unlike the JLM, Jewish Voice for Labour says it does not make promoting the centrality of Israel to Jewish life a condition of membership.

Jewish Voice for Labours chair is Jenny Manson, a former Labour councillor and parliamentary candidate. A retired tax inspector, she is a long-standing member of the Labour Party in Finchley and Golders Green, an area of North London with a large Jewish population.

It is also the constituency where Jewish Labour Movement chair Jeremy Newmark stood as a candidate for parliament in Junes general election. He failed to win the seat back from the ruling Conservative Party.

Manson said the new group Jewish Voice for Labour would provide a much-needed forum for Jews who want to celebrate and debate the long and proud history of Jewish involvement in socialist and trade-union activism.

She said they invite everyone of Jewish heritage in the Labour Party to join us in continuing these great traditions.

The existing Jewish Labour Movement is a group run by an Israel lobbyist, which works closely with the Israeli embassy in London. It was at the forefront of the campaign against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn last year, claiming the party under him was a cesspit of anti-Semitism.

The Jewish Labour Movement is affiliated to the UK Labour Party and says it supports the Israeli Labor Party. It is also a part of the World Zionist Organization one of four key national institutions in Israel which aim to foster Jewish settlement on Palestinian land.

Although an older organization, the Jewish Labour Movement was moribund until the beginning of 2016. It was then taken over by longstanding Israel lobbyist Jeremy Newmark, who became its chair in February 2016.

Former Israeli embassy officer Ella Rose was then hired as its first director in August of that year.

A former president of the Israeli-government-funded Union of Jewish Students, Rose was later investigated by the Labour Party after being caught on camera wishing her enemies would die in a hole.

The footage was part of an undercover investigation by Al Jazeera into the Israel lobbys influence on UK political parties.

It also showed Newmark working closely with Israeli ambassador Mark Regev during a closed door meeting at the Labour Party conference.

Newmark has a history of making false accusations of anti-Jewish bigotry as part of his efforts to silence and discredit the UK Palestine solidarity movement.

Newmarks Jewish Labour Movement says that it supports the World Zionist Organizations Jerusalem Program, which states as one of its goals: Settling the country as an expression of practical Zionism. The program defines the country as Eretz Yisrael a term Zionists use to designate the whole of historic Palestine, including the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The use of this phrase, as well as a small map icon showing an outline of the whole of historic Palestine plus Syrias Golan Heights on the Jerusalem Program web page, makes it clear that Newmarks group implicitly endorses Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

All Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Golan Heights are illegal under international law.

These institutional commitments undermine public claims by Newmark to oppose the occupation in line with Labour Party policy.

Earlier this year, Newmark was also reportedly responsible for the watering down of Labours general election manifesto on the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Last September, Newmark claimed to The Electronic Intifada that his group participates in the World Zionist Organization to oppose settlements and to speak out against the occupation.

The World Zionist Organization receives tens of millions of dollars from the Israeli government to found and develop Israeli settlements, including in the occupied West Bank and Golan Heights.

At last! LFI have had a free run for far too long.

Let's hope this new group can make positive changes to Labour, esp. break the stranglehold of JLM, which is nothing more than an ultra-conservative Zionist organisation dressed up as Labour "progressives". It is time Zionism as a racist mindset in that part of Labour is stamped out, for good.

There is light at the end of the tunnel ! Good news for the Labor Party in the UK .I have always said that the change must come from within . Oppression is what it is , oppression, and has nothing to do with antisemitism .

I predict that this new formation will rapidly outstrip in membership the rancid Labour Friends of Israel. This is exactly the sort of announcement that prompts the question, "Why did it take so long?" Anti-Zionist and progressive Jews will now have a strong voice within the party, one that can't be silenced. Hats off to the founders.

Brilliant - it's this kind of thing that keeps me in the Labour Party. The support of Labours right wing for Israel is an immoral disgrace.

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New Jewish group in Labour Party backs right to BDS - The Electronic Intifada (blog)

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Posted By admin on August 18, 2017

CHARLOTTESVILLE After using his blog and Wes Bellamys Twitter history to make a name for himself last fall, those platforms are now being used against Jason Kessler, the pro-white activist who organized the Unite the Right rally that turned deadly on Saturday.

Articles and conspiracy theories about Kesslers past as a supporter of President Barack Obama and wannabe liberal activist who participated in the Occupy movement abound now as President Donald Trump continues facing backlash for his response to the rally that resulted in one woman, as well as two state police officers in a separate incident, dying.

On Monday, Kessler uploaded a video hoping to dispel rumors that he intentionally organized a violent rally that would reflect poorly on the so-called alt-right movement of white nationalists. He accused the Southern Poverty Law Center, as well as less extreme nationalists, of spreading misinformation about him.

Earlier this summer, the SPLC labeled Kessler a white nationalist, and wrote a profile about him that included assertions that some people on white nationalist forums have been questioning his ideological pedigree.

I grew up in Charlottesville. Anybody whos seen the way Charlottesville was this weekend understands that its an incredibly left-wing, commie town, Kessler, 33, said in a video he posted online Monday.

Kessler said that he used to align himself with the citys politically left-leaning residents, but went on to say he was red-pilled about three years ago.

The term is a reference to the film The Matrix, and has been used by alt-right followers as a way to describe someone who has taken to white identitarian issues and now rejects ideas such as multiculturalism, feminism and political correctness. Critics argue that attachment to white identitarianism is nothing more than a veil for white supremacist beliefs.

But old tweets, a neighbor, a liberal activist and some of Kesslers old friends attest that he held strong liberal convictions just a few years ago.

In a series of tweets in November, Kessler said many alt-right followers are former liberals, and that he previously voted for Democrats. He said he voted for Trump in the primary and the general election.

I like Trump more than I did Obama, he wrote on Nov. 6. My Trump enthusiasm is through the roof. I like people who push the edge.

In an interview last month, one of Kesslers childhood friends, David Caron, said Kessler previously had identified as a Democrat, but became disillusioned when he started thinking that there was no place for him in a party that has focused its efforts on embracing diversity and minority issues. He said the two of them had started supporting Trump last summer and attended one of his rallies in Richmond.

He was a Democrat until last year. The main thing is, he said he felt like the party didnt want him, Caron said.

Laura Kleiner, a Democratic activist who lives in Staunton, said she dated Kessler for several months in 2013. She said Kessler was very dedicated to his liberal principles, and that he was a strict vegetarian, abstained from alcohol and drugs, embraced friends of different ethnicities and was an atheist.

He broke up with me, and a lot of it was because I was not liberal enough, she said. I am a very progressive Democrat but he didnt like that I ate fish and that Im a Christian.

Kleiner said Kessler was well aware that she was of Jewish heritage, and that he showed no signs of being anti-Semitic. She also said he had a roommate for several years who was an African immigrant.

In an interview earlier this week, one of Kesslers neighbors, Zoe Wheeler, said she knew of two different African roommates who lived with him, and never thought Kessler was a racist, even after he started to make waves in the local news late last year.

I met him 12 years ago, before he got really obsessed with white identity issues, Wheeler said. I think he went off the deep end There was no stopping it, and then he was fueled by being an enemy and having something to stand for.

If you spend too much time on the web and youre alone, youve got a lot of guys plying you with all kinds of ideas, she said. You want to grab hold of something. He wants to stand for something I get that. But I feel like hes all over the place.

I celebrate a diversity of cultures, and that was something that seemed to have been a part of his life, too, Kleiner said. I was really surprised to hear the stories that hes changed and is now far-right. Its really shocking and disappointing.

Hes an extremist in whatever he decides to do. Thats all I can really say.

Kesslers ties to Emancipation Park and the statue of Robert E. Lee go beyond the past year, when he decided to target Charlottesville City Councilor Bellamy for his effort to remove the statue of the Confederate general. The rally Saturday was ostensibly intended to be a protest of the councils decision to remove the statue.

According to a woman (who wished to remain anonymous) who was part of the Occupy movement camp in what was then called Lee Park, Kessler was present there for several weeks in late 2011. She said Kessler ultimately removed himself from the camp after activists there started to make it known that his presence was not welcomed.

He was just so disagreeable that hed start fights between other people. He was very manipulative and very aggressive, the woman said.

He wanted people to be more violent and aggressive. He wanted to be the leader of things. ... Even if his politics had been good, I dont think people would have liked him, she said.

The former occupier said Kessler also tried to attach himself to other leftist groups around that time, such as Food Not Bombs and an atheist social club. She said Kessler had attempted to insert himself in those groups and radicalize them.

I dont think he knew what they really did. They just feed people thats it, she said. Its like he got the idea that he could make it into some more militant group.

I dont think he actually has any central beliefs at all not that that makes what hes doing any less dangerous.

Kessler did not reply to messages seeking comment for this story. But essays he published on his blog through late 2015 seemed to demonstrate a shift in thinking. (The blog, Jason Kessler, American Author, recently was taken down. It remains unclear why.)

Last fall, The Daily Progress reported that Kessler published a blog post in February 2016 in which he reflected on the potential of war between different racial groups in the future. He argued that white people would need to fight to avoid becoming a minority in America a phenomenon hes described in recent months as white genocide.

Cultures, tribes and civilizations are meant to clash just as we always have in the past, just like it is with nearly every other beast in the animal kingdom, Kessler wrote last year.

Kessler used his blog to excoriate Bellamy in November. After uncovering a trove of offensive and inappropriate tweets Bellamy had written between 2009 and 2014, before he was elected to office, Kessler used his blog to expose the city councilor and call for his removal.

In his other blog posts that have been archived and shared with The Daily Progress, Kessler seemed to foreshadow his future role in the community and the events that took place at the Unite the Right rally.

I cant think of any occupation that I admire more than the professional provocateur, who has the courage and self-determination to court controversy despite all slings and arrows of the world, he wrote in December 2015 as part of a blog post he updated a few times over a span of about two months his running thoughts.

Also that December, he published his historical perspective on mass violence.

We get so caught up in the emotion of the violence that we dont consider the long-term, historical consequences, he said.

Perhaps wed be happier if we made peace with the fact that rabid animals are going to dwindle the herd from time to time (as they have in much greater volume throughout history) and thats not really a bad thing in the long run.

Regarding large-scale attacks, he said, I dont think the zeitgeist should have an aneurysm every time one occurs either. I think wed be served to draw some historical perspective on how difficult the human condition has always been and how that is something of a blessing in disguise.

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Organizer of Charlottesville's Unite the Right rally described as onetime wannabe liberal activist - Richmond.com

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Posted By admin on August 18, 2017

Like a lot of Reagan-era children, I was schlepped to a succession of suburban postwar temples. They all had magnificent cantors, lively services and prosaic 1960s and 70s architecture, which to my youthful eyes paled in grandeur next to my friends grand churches.

Years later, exploring the temples of New York and the landmarks of Jewish Europe, I discovered how misguided my juvenile impressions were. Just as suburban postwar churches can be aesthetically lackluster, Americas urban synagogues are frequently jewels in our midst stunning vestiges not only of the golden age of temple architecture, but also, frequently, of a golden age for urban Jewry.

Whether youre a connoisseur of historic shuls or simply curious, here are 11 standouts to visit along the East Coast of the U.S.

Early Americana in Rhode Island: King George was still in charge when the Jeshuat Israel congregants of Newport, R.I., dedicated their Palladian white temple in 1763, and worshipped facing east toward Jerusalem another continent away from their forbearers Iberian roots.

Gilded Age manses sprung up around Newport during the centuries that followed, and the Orthodox congregation carried on. By the 1940s, Touro Synagogue with its columned white-and-gold interior and Colonial-style benches was designated a National Historic Site as one of the oldest American synagogues in continuous use. In summer, there are daily public tours of the temple and of Jewish Newport; winter synagogue tours take place on weekends.

A view inside the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island. (Wikimedia Commons)

Right here in New York:

At the corner of Fifth Avenue and 65th Street, Temple Emanu-El is a landmark for both New York Judaism and the Upper East Side. But its roots are elsewhere in the German origins of its 1845 founders, and the humbler buildings of the Lower East Side and Midtown, where congregants worshipped before erecting this European-style, neo-Moorish edifice in 1929.

You can stream Emanu-Els services from anywhere, but you have to visit for the truly beautiful ritual objects at the temples Bernard Museum of Judaica. They include an 1850s ketubah, filigreed Torah ornaments from 19th-century Frankfurt, glittering Sabbath candelabras an

An event in the sanctuary of Temple Emanu-El in NYC. Courtesy of John Halpern

d more from two centuries of Jewish history.

The deep European roots of New York Jewry are embodied in the neoclassical edifice of Congregation Shearith Israel, across the park at Central Park West and 70th Street. The 1897 buildings columns and arches have more in common with New Yorks great public buildings than with synagogues of the era, when Moorish and Romanesque flourishes were more in fashion; Louis Comfort Tiffany designed the interior (and, naturally, the windows).

Congregation Shearith Israel in NYC. Wikimedia Commons

But tradition has long trumped fashion at a congregation that proudly calls itself Americas oldest Jewish congregation. Shearith Israel was founded by Sephardic refugees from Portuguese-controlled Brazil in 1654; for nearly 200 years, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, as it has been known, was the only shul in New York. On the second Wednesday of every month, a docent leads visitors through four centuries of New York Jewish history.

Across the river in Newark The observant eye pun intended will discern the outlines of a synagogue at 30 Prince St., where the Moorish-style red-brick building now houses the Greater Newark Conservancy. Nearby, Ahavas Sholom endures as Newarks longest operating synagogue, with a sanctuary notable for its gorgeous carved-wood interior, including a Torah ark that once graced New Yorks Rodeph Sholom.

But New Jerseys quirkiest synagogue might be another red brick structure: rural Woodbines former Brotherhood Synagogue, reincarnated as the Sam Azeez Museum of Woodbine Heritage.

Sam Azeez Museum of Woodbine (N.J.) Heritage. Wikimedia Commons

Late in the 1800s, a German philanthropist dreamed of resettling pogrom-plagued Russian Jews from their shtetls to an agricultural community in South Jersey. The utopia never panned out but the vintage shul, on the National Register of Historic Places, offers an authentic setting for exhibits showcasing Jerseys Jewish history.

An 75-90-minute Amtrak ride away in Philadelphia are several of the best-preserved synagogues in the New World. Philadelphians are proud of Jewish roots dating to the era of state namesake William Penn, whose crusade for religious liberty made the nations first capital attractive to European Jewish migrs.

A stones throw from the Liberty Bell, Independence Mall and the Constitution Center, Congregation Mikveh Israel sits at the center of historic Philadelphia a role it has occupied, metaphorically at least, since its 1740 founding as the citys first synagogue.

The sanctuary of Mickve Israel Synagogue in Savannah, GA. Courtesy of Richard Nowitz

While the current building is younger than I am, proud docents tell visitors about three centuries of East Coast Jewry in the nations first capital. Nearby, on a pretty block of Society Hill, you can trace this heritage through hundreds of years of tombstones at the intact Mikveh Israel cemetery.

Youll leave the heart of Center City to visit Congregation Rodeph Shalom but its worth the detour to a fairly nondescript stretch of North Broad Street, not only for the lavish, Byzantine-Moorish-style building, but also for the Judaica within.

Built in 1928, the Reform Rodeph Shalom is the Florentine-inspired temple of my childhood fantasies. The gilded interior is a cross between Gustav Klimts daydreams and the Egyptian wing at the Met: shimmering gold and turquoise hand-stenciled walls, a huge skylight shaped like a flower in brilliant blue and white, elegant arches that recall the grandeur of ancient Rome.

While youre there, check out contemporary exhibitions at the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art, along with the Obermayer Collection of Jewish Ritual Art, more than 500 antique ceremonial pieces from Italy, Hungary, Germany and beyond.

Just outside Philadelphia in the Main Line suburb of Elkins Park is Frank Lloyd Wrights only synagogue building. Wright fans will be fascinated at how his Midwestern aesthetic translates into temple architecture at Beth Sholom, where the soaring, pyramidal structure aims to evoke Mt. Sinai.

The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Beth Shalom in Elkins Park, Pa., above and top.

The temples geometric angles and absence of fuss are a contrast to the more ornate synagogues that dominate this list plain planes, you might say. Wright, who was intimately involved with the project, died before the 1959 dedication, but his tribute to American Jewry endures.

Down in Charm City Jewish heritage is among the many discoveries surrounding Baltimores revitalized Inner Harbor. Headquartered near the waterfront, the Jewish Museum of Maryland maintains two landmark synagogues within a block of each other.

Next door to the museum is the Lloyd Street Synagogue, built in 1845 as the states first shul, with a restored original mikveh. Steps away, the 1876 Bnai Israel Synagogue is still home to a thriving congregation, but museum-worthy for the period Moorish style inside and out, including a glorious white-and-gold sanctuary.

Join the literary scene at Washingtons new old shul In a city full of buzz, Washington, D.C.s coolest address today might be the former home of Congregation Adas Israel, a 1908 Moorish masterpiece that escaped the wrecking ball and was resuscitated along with its once-dodgy neighborhood into a new synagogue concept.

The Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Washington DC. Wikimedia Commons/David Monack

Sixth & I is a nondenominational, nonmembership temple for Jewish practice as well as a cultural gathering place. Under the stained-glass ceiling and ornate arches, crowds flock to author talks, performances by singer-songwriters, trivia nights and more.

Classical Charm in Charleston Another of the nations early Jewish communities coalesced in Charleston, S.C., where Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim was one of the earliest American synagogues to embrace Reform Judaism. The congregation is a century older than its 1840 building, itself a showpiece of Greek Revival architecture not so common in the synagogue world. A historical museum and fine Judaica store combine to make this a destination.

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From Rhode Island To South Carolina, 11 Synagogues Whose Architecture Can Wow - Jewish Week

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Posted By simmons on August 18, 2017

FBI agents previously raided the UTA Central Yeshiva at 76 Rutledge St. in March 2016. View Full Caption

DNAinfo/Ellen Moynihan

WILLIAMSBURG Two former administrators for a Hasidic school system conned a federal food program out of more than $3 million over a two-year stretch by seeking reimbursements for meals they never served, prosecutors said.

Elozer Porges, 43, and Joel Lowy, 29, who worked at the Central United Talmudic Academy (CUTA), were indicted on wire and mail fraud charges in Brooklyn Federal Court Thursday.

Porges, the executive director, and Lowy, the assistant director, submitted paperwork to the state Department of Health inflating the numbers of meals served at CUTA schools to get bigger reimbursement checks from the federal government, prosecutors said.

The scheme took place over a roughly two-year stretch beginning in October 2013, according to court papers.

Porges and Lowy indicated that dinner would be served five days a week when, in fact, it wasnt, the documentscharge.

They both pleaded not guilty at their arraignments. Porges was released on $500,000 bond, while Lowy was released on $200,000 bond, court records show.

They face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Their school network's South Williamsburg locationshave long been eyed by investigators, and with two of its Yeshiva sites raided in March 2016 as part of a corruption probe.

FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William Sweeney called Porges'and Lowy'sconduct inexcusable.

The Child and Adult Care Food Program strives to provide for at-risk children, and as school officials, Porges and Lowy should have strived to do the same, Sweeney said in a statement.

To defraud programs designed to help those in need is simply inexcusable, and we will work relentlessly with our law enforcement partners to thoroughly investigate these frauds.

Lowy's lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, said his client was just following orders.

"Mr. Lowy is a low-level administrative assistant in the school who followed direction which he believed to be correct," Agnifilowrote in an email. "He is loved in his community and will fight this case."

Porges' lawyerdid not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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Former Hasidic School Officials Indicted in Meal-Fraud Scheme, Feds Say - DNAinfo

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Posted By admin on August 18, 2017

Anti-Semitism is again back in the news.

Some of the posters at the Charlottesville, Va., white supremacist demonstrations this past weekend featured a man taking a hammer to a Star of David the biggest threat, the thing that needs to be destroyed. Marchers chanted, Jews will not replace us and Blood and soil! a direct translation of the Nazi slogan blut und boden, which plays on the notion of Jews as powerful, dangerous interlopers.

This comes toward the end of a summer that included the Chicago Dyke March ejecting participants with a Star of David on a gay pride flag on the misguided-at-best grounds that it went against the marchs anti-racist core values and heated debates about whether Gal Gadot, an Ashkenazi Israeli, is a person of color. Particularly in recent years, there has rightfully been increased talk about the ways in which many Ashkenazi Jews in America do have white privilege.

So are we oppressed? Or what? The reasons that question may feel complicated go back around a thousand years. Since the dawn of modern anti-Semitism, hatred toward Jews has been deeply intertwined with the idea of Jews having unique sorts of advantages.

In the Middle Ages, Jews were barred from many trades and professions, and it was sometimes illegal for Jews to own land. It was convenient for local authorities to permit Jews to work in trades that were repugnant to Christians most notably money-lending, which was associated in the Christian world with depravity and sin.

From a Jewish perspective, money-lending was a useful line of work for two reasons. First, it was somewhat portable, and when times were lucky it enabled our ancestors to have liquid assets both of which were practical during an era when expulsions of Jews from villages and even whole countries were not uncommon. It was also profitable. Most late medieval and early modern European polities taxed Jews at jaw-droppingly high rates, so loaning out money was essential for communities survival. A very small subset of Jews began handling money because it was a viable option and a practical necessity. And then they were resented for it and identified with the work in a way that Christian bankers never were. Even as early as 1233, anti-Semitic drawings depicted the usurious Jew, using many of the same themes one might find in a quick Google search.

Most Jews throughout history lived a fairly precarious existence, economically and otherwise. Many times in history we have been tolerated, and even embraced, by the rulers and locals of our host country. But we have also been subject to expulsions, pogroms, inquisitions and genocide many times over often, indeed, fueled by the trope of the greedy, crooked Jew serving as the scapegoat for other stresses and complexities in society. Often, the shift from living in peace to the bottom dropping out happened very quickly.

So here's the paradox: Anti-Semitism and Jewish privilege are, and have long been, two sides of the same coin. Even now, I feel it keenly.

On the one hand, Jews as a category are thus far shielded from the state violence that a lot of other groups are experiencing. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is not seeking us out as a group; we are not being barred from the military or being singled out in a travel ban. Although of course there are Jews of all levels of economic security in this country, American Jews as a collective do have a lot more social and cultural capital than many other groups, and we are not as vulnerable as other communities under attack. The reasons are various; a big one, though, is that many American Jews' families have been established here for a century or more and, over that time, Ashkenazi Jews were able to assimilate into the broader culture and become white.

Yet at the same time, anti-Semitism is functioning as it has for centuries. President Donald Trumps attacks on Soros globalists, White House adviser Stephen Millers claim that a reporter had cosmopolitan bias (a phrase that has longtime anti-Semitic connotations despite Miller's own Jewish origins), the Star of David superimposed on money in the infamous Trump tweet last year, the dog whistles in the Trump's final campaign ad and the posters and chants in Charlottesville all depend on a centuries-old, manufactured narrative of Jews as wealthy, powerful and in control. As this rhetoric gets louder, were seeing more targeted hate: Jewish graveyards have been vandalized at least five times this year, and the Holocaust Memorial in Boston was smashed for the second time this summer on Monday.

That shift from relative peace to something else can happen so quickly in the blink of an eye. Some members of the Jewish community are feeling our centuries-deep intergenerational trauma keenly, experiencing this era as nothing short of terrifying, with memories of pogrom torches and swastika flags looming large.

But this isnt the time to hunker down. Its the time to stand up. I, for one, have advantages that my ancestors in Europe never dreamed of, and this includes the social capital to fight bigotry with full force and power. We as a community have an obligation to stand up for those who are more vulnerable to both institutional and random attacks, as well as the powerful image of an 89-year-old woman photographed on Sunday in New York holding a sign that said: I escaped the Nazis once. You will not defeat me now.

The Washington Post

Danya Ruttenberg, of Evanston, is rabbi-in-residence at Avodah, a Jewish service corps, and author of Nurture the Wow: Finding Spirituality in the Frustration, Boredom, Tears, Poop, Desperation, Wonder, and Radical Amazement of Parenting.

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Why do white supremacists hate Jews? Because we can fight them. - Chicago Tribune

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Posted By richards on August 18, 2017

October 7, 1944

In Cooperation with Yeshiva University Museum. This exhibition is the American attempt to respond to four women, and the revolt in Auschwitz that they helped make possible.

On view: October 7, 2014 to April 12, 2015 Location: Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY

Led by Jonah Bokaers artistic vision and interpretation, and supported by research in the primary-source archives of the American Jewish Historical Society and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, we aim to reintroduce the visitor to a largely unknown or forgotten historical eventan event that could not have transpired without Roza, Estera, Regina and Ala. These women were not remarkable in any way that is known to us. They were young women who believed what they were doing was right. Through a non-traditional format that marries music, movement, choreography, archival material and film, we attempt to honor their bravery, and make their names known to you.

Rachel Lithgow, Curator, Executive Director American Jewish Historical Society

Born to Tunisian and American parents in Ithaca, NY, Jonah Bokaer is an international choreographer, media artist, and art space developer. His work, which integrates choreography with digital media, is often the result of his cross-disciplinary collaborations with artists and architects.

Creating choreography for museum spaces since 2002, Bokaer has performed at The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, P.S.1 MoMA, The New Museum, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City, as well as in The Asia Society | Texas, Le Carr dArt Nmes, IVAM Valencia, Kunsthalle St. Gallen, and MUDAM Luxembourg, among others. A full list of museum projects is listed below.

The creator of 33 dances, ten videos, three motion capture works, three interactive installations, two mobile applications, and one film, Bokaers work has been produced throughout theaters in Belgium, Canada, Cuba, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, India, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Recent performances include two seasons at the Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival (2011-2012), the 2012 Festival dAvignon in France, Thtre de la Cit Internationale in Paris, and the BAM Next Wave Festival 2012, for which he was commissioned for the inauguration of BAM Fisher, with artist Anthony McCall.

In 2008-2009 Bokaer became the first dance artist to be appointed a Young Leader of the French American Foundation, in acknowledgment of his efforts to develop Chez Bushwick, and CPR - Center for Performance Research, two independent arts centers which nurture young artists in New York City and internationally. Bokaer has collaborated with artists including Daniel Arsham (2007-present), Anne Carson, Merce Cunningham, Robert Gober, Anthony McCall, Tino Sehgal, and Robert Wilson (2007-present).

As choreographer for Robert Wilson, he has completed many operas including Faust (Polish National Opera), Ada (Teatro dellOpera di Roma), KOOL (Japan/USA Guggenheim Works & Process), Fronteras (IVAM Valenica), and On The Beach (Baryshnikov Arts Center).

Bokaer was recently named one of ten American artists to receive a Doris Duke Charitable Foundation grant award for the development of his third mobile application, in partnership with Georgia Tech.

jonahbokaer.net

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Exhibitions | American Jewish Historical Society

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Posted By richards on August 18, 2017

(JTA) A newly discovered blueprint of the destroyed great synagogue in Vilnius led ateam of archaeologists to unearth the remains of two ritual baths that were used by congregants of one of Europes largest and most prominent Jewish communities before its annihilation.

The synagogue, which was at the heart of the large Jewish community in Vilnius for hundreds of years, was destroyed in the Holocaust. But the baths, or mikvahs, and underground spaces discovered in a study carried out last year led to the excavation of the site by Israeli, Lithuanian and American archaeologists and the exposure of the ritual baths, the Heritage Daily reportedThursday.

The excavation has followed an architectural plan from the end of the 19th century that was discovered in the municipal archive of Vilnius for the restoration of the ancient bathhouse by the community. According to the plan, the bathhouse consisted of two main floors, many rooms and a large service wing. The document allowed the diggers to identify the two mikvahs last month.

The Great Synagogue of Vilna, built in the 17th century in the Baroque-Renaissance style, was a large community center and a center of Torah study. It was at the heart of Lithuanian Jewry and included 12 synagogues and batei midrash, or study halls, ritual baths, the community council building and kosher meat stalls.

But the complex is best known for its serving as the base of operations for the Gaon of Vilna, an 18th-century rabbinical luminary whose name was Elijah ben Solomon Zalman.

After hundreds of years of existence, with the destruction of nearly the entire Jewish community of Vilna during the Holocaust, the most holy place of the Jews of Lithuania was looted and burned by the Germans, and the remains were destroyed by Soviet authorities, who built a modern school in its place in 1957.

Before the discovery, We had found little information about the bathhouse and mikvah building of the Jewish community, a community that comprised almost half of the citys population, said Jon Seligman of the Israel Antiquities Authority, who led the research team.

These discoveries add a new dimension to the understanding of the daily lives of the Jews of Vilna, and will certainly provide a new focus for understanding the lost cultural heritage of the Jewish community of Vilna, the Jerusalem of Lithuania,' the researchers wrote in a statement announcing the find.

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Hidden blueprint leads diggers to ancient ritual baths of Vilnius synagogue - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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