Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on March 2, 2017

This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts.

When I got married, I decided to speak Yiddish to my children, and not just any Yiddish, but my husbands heymish Yiddish; in other words Hasidic Yiddish.

I was able to carry out my plan quickly since I was marrying a divorced father of three, so I inherited three stepchildren. By the time my own children were born, Yiddish had long been established as the language of our home.

Most Hasidic families in America (with the exception of Chabad), automatically speak Yiddish without thinking twice. According to the 2000 Census, 90 percent of families in Kiryas Yoel reported that they spoke Yiddish at home. However, I wasnt born into a Hasidic family and my mother tongue is English. I didnt speak Yiddish growing up, but learned it in college and graduate school, as a part of my concentration in Yiddish Studies. On my wedding day, my Yiddish was fairly academic and definitely not fluent.

My stepchildren were little angels and never made fun of my Yiddish. In fact, by speaking Yiddish to them, my command of the language became more and more fluent and haimish, until people no longer were able to tell that it wasnt my native tongue. Not that I stopped speaking English. On the contrary, my husbands English improved dramatically since our wedding day. But Yiddish was the official language of our home, and in time, even my stepchildren stopped using certain English words that are widespread in Hasidic Yiddish because my husband and I were careful to speak pure Yiddish.

Until my first child started attending cheder

Suddenly I noticed all sorts of English words creeping into his Yiddish. But I dug my heels in and corrected and corrected until the children learned that we speak Yiddish at home - and only Yiddish.

From time to time I noticed that my children spoke differently to me than to other children. Once, one of my children invited a friend over to play. Suddenly, he asked me for some orange juice, using the Yiddish phrase, marantsn-zaft. He then turned to his friend and asked him if he wanted orange juice.

Another time, my heart ached when I brought my youngest child to a very Hasidic playgroup and the teacher asked my son to take of his coat in the Hasidic Yiddish-English hybrid: Ti os daan coat, using the English word coat instead of the Yiddish word, mantl.

Ti oys dayn MANTL sheyfele, (Take your coat off, sweetie) I said a bit too loud, emphasizing the correct Yiddish word for coat. I explained to the teacher that we used the real Yiddish words for things at home and that if she used the English word for coat, my son might, heaven forbid, not understand.

I guess you could ask: Why was I so stubborn about speaking a pure Yiddish with my children? If I wanted them to speak a true Hasidic Yiddish, it has to include a plethora of English words. Maybe I was still under the influence of the Yiddishists who I befriended during graduate school? Maybe I still scorned those who wanted to take our beautiful language - the language which Yiddish activists had worked so hard to prove its pedigree and promote its high literature - and turn it into an actual jargon? Its also possible that although Im no linguist, I still clung to the belief that it was sacrilegious to depart from some sort of standard for a language. Or maybe I simply felt that the Yiddish language was being flooded with English words and expressions because Hasidic mothers today often speak better English than Yiddish. Probably its combination of all of the above, tinged with my own idealistic nature.

Recently, I started thinking about another language-related matter. When my oldest child was small, my non-Hasidic friends would ask me if I minded the fact that he probably wouldnt go to college. I firmly answered: No. I was insulted when I overheard my mother whisper to my sister: If anything happens to me, make sure he (my son) goes to college. I always said that if my children decided of their own volition to go to college, I would support them, but that I would never push them in that direction. I truly believed that it wasnt hard to pass a GED if you studied by yourself, and I was theoretically ready to help them prepare for it if the occasion were to arise. Meanwhile, I ignored my mothers hand-wringing over their immigrant English.

I dont remember exactly when the Aha moment came. Probably, it was when my son was speaking English to someone who didnt know Yiddish and his usage of a Yiddish syntax while speaking English suddenly grated on my ears: how he couldnt translate simple idioms from Yiddish; and how his pronunciation really did sound like that of an immigrant. It dawned on me that my son who was born and raised in America would always be asked, Where are you from? It could be that my same desire for a pure Yiddish at that moment also meant a pure English. I didnt want my kids to speak a broken Yiddish, or a broken English.

And so English-Speaking Day came into being. Every Sunday I speak only English to my children. The first time we celebrated English-Speaking Day, I was out with the kids on walk. The younger ones thought it was funny and tried to speak English back to me; but my oldest son got so upset he ran away and walked home by himself. Eventually, he became used to the concept, but he still answers me in Yiddish.

At the same time, I became somewhat dissatisfied with the way English was taught in the Hasidic boys schools. Although the school that my children attend has one of the better English departments, they just learn the English language and math, and will never study science, history or literature. (I was pleasantly surprised, though, when my sons English teacher taught them about the national elections, about the Bill of Rights and even gave them a brief introduction to the civil rights movement.)

Another hurdle is that the school day is so packed with learning Torah that my ten-year-old son has almost no time during the week to play. He once mentioned that he would love to learn woodworking so I placed an ad in the local classifieds seeking a teacher. No one responded. I dreamed of sending him to a class in another neighborhood, but when would he have the time? He comes home at six PM and then sits and learns voluntarily for a program in which the children are rewarded for extra learning with a trip or ice cream, and then he still has his regular homework to do

I dont want to get into a lengthy discussion about the state of English studies in Hasidic schools, and Im still not sure if Im going to try to compensate with any sort of sustained Enrichment program. But I do know that if my son ever decides to take the GED and study study for some sort of degree, he will hopefully be able to do so as a native English speaker.

In the meantime, what are his plans for the future? His reply: he wants to own an aquarium supply store.

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Posted By richards on March 2, 2017

Michel Nedjar at his studio in Paris in 2016. (Isabelle Filleul de Brohy)

(JTA) Though he may be one of Frances best-known puppet makers, Michel Nedjar insists he does not really create the acclaimed and haunting figures that he calls his Purim puppets.

A former tailors apprentice whose lifes work last week went on display at the prestigious Metropolitan Museum of Lille, Nedjar says he merely exhumes his puppets to reconnect to his brethren who were murdered in the Holocaust, to his lover and mentor who died of AIDS and to his Jewish roots.

The talk of exhumation is no cryptic metaphor by Nedjar, whose 2005 exhibition titled Purim Puppets was featured for years at the Paris Museum of Jewish Arts and History.

He literally buries some of his puppets in the ground for long periods of time before digging up their decomposed remains. The processis a communion withmany of his relatives shot dead by the Nazis and dumped into mass graves in his ancestral Poland.

The Holocaust is something I carry within myself wherever I go, since I first learned of those graves as a boy, Nedjar, 69, said in a 2016 documentary about his life titled The Forbidden Areas of Michel Nedjar.

One of the items in Michel Nedjars exhibition titled Purim Puppets (The Museum of Jewish Art and History in Paris)

He doesnt bury all his puppets. Some live up to the title of his collection referencing Purim the holiday of costumes and buffoonery, when Jews are encouraged to drink alcohol and rejoice. They includethe colorful and sophisticated piata-like objects that he was inspired to create while touring Central America, Southern Asia and beyond in the 1970s.

But the exhumed ones, with their hollowed-out, gaping eye sockets, earth-filled mouths and rotting beards, are the stuff of nightmares. And they are the reason that institutions like the Lille Metropolitan, which the Le Figaro daily has ranked among the seven best French museums outside Paris, are lining up to display the work of a tailors apprentice with no formal education.

Nedjars Sephardic father an affluent tailor and textile merchant and his Ashkenazi mother sought, like many parents of their generation, to insulate him from the horror that ended just two years before his birth, when a quarter of French Jews were exterminated along with much of European Jewry.

Our parents did not want to talk to us about any of it, Nedjar says in the documentary, referring to his sister. I remember them always laughing and smiling.

His only concern as a child, Nedjar recalls, was hiding from his parents that he liked to play with his sisters dolls a preference he says was an early manifestation of his sexual orientation. So he would bury the forbidden playthings in his backyard.

Growing up privileged and happy, nothing prepared Nedjar for the 1956 documentary film Night and Fog, which shocked the world by showing, for one of the first times in wide distribution, graphic footage from theconcentration camps.

It devastated me, Nedjar said. I was one with the victims. There was a shot of a grave, and I entered that grave and I felt all those bodies around me.

Nedjar said he realized for the first time that had he been born just two years earlier, he also wouldve been killed for being a Jew.

It was after watching the film at the age of 9 that Nedjar said he exhumed his doll for the first time as a therapeutic exercise.

Exhuming that puppet was to exhume all those dead that were inside me now. It was too heavy, too painful, he said. You can call it therapy, you can call it an attempt to reach the surface and breathe. That puppet saved me.

In a way, that puppet also made Nedjar a well-known artist in France. After displaying his buried Purim puppets he chose the name because it signified Judaisms ability to rejoice even when faced with the threat of extinction he was able to present and sell his work at prestigious art galleries.

But it would take decades for Nedjar to transform that childhood experience into the inspiration behind his trademark technique.

A poor student who flunked high school, Nedjar was put to work at his fathers atelier, where he completed a tailors apprentice training. Then he started selling clothes and textiles with his maternal grandmother, who taught him Yiddish, at the main flea market in Paris. Back then, it was a heavily Jewish institution, with many Ashkenazi merchants.

Nedjar says it was good for his development as an artist.

There was always schmattes lying around the house and at the market, he recalled, using the Yiddish word for rags. I started working with it, sewing crazy clothes and designs from old curtains which the hippies during the 1970s absolutely adored, so I was able to save money and travel the world.

In Mexico, Nedjar lived with the filmmaker Teo Hernndez, who would become Nedjars great love and artistic mentor.

Teo taught me to make love and make films, he said in the documentary.

Upon leaving Mexico, Nedjar sank into an acute depression that worsened as many of his friends contracted the HIV virus that causes AIDS the disease that in 1992 claimed Hernndezs life.

Bereaved, depressed and considering psychiatric treatment, Nedjars mind circled back to the puppets he buried and exhumed as a child decades earlier to deal with his grief over the Holocaust.

I told myself I needed to rescue myself with the puppets, he said. Idont know why but I had this intuition.

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Posted By richards on March 2, 2017

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Posted By richards on March 2, 2017

presidential address By Lauren Markoe | February 28, 2017

President Trump delivers his first address to a joint session of Congress, on Feb. 28, 2017. Courtesy of Reuters/Jim Lo Scalzo

WASHINGTON (RNS) President Trump, long chided for failing to address a surge in hate crimes, began his first address to Congress by invoking Black History Month and condemning recent threats against Jewish institutions and the shooting of Indian men in Kansas City.

His uncharacteristically soft-toned speech, which included several religious references, at points emphasized the commonalities among religious groups and toward the end declared thatwe are all made by the same God.

And, heralding a new chapter of American greatness, the president acknowledgedour Muslim allies fighting the militant group known as the Islamic State, or ISIS.

He called itanetwork of lawless savages that have slaughtered Muslims and Christians, and men, women and children of all faiths and beliefs.

But his other remarks Tuesday night (Feb. 28) would no doubt confirm for many criticsthat he still scapegoats Muslims and other minorities. He defended his Jan. 27 executive order, stayed by a federal appeals court, that temporarily bans nationals of seven Muslim-majority nations from visiting the U.S.

And hepromised to fight terrorism, slowly enunciatingradical Islamic terrorism, to make the point that he would use the phrase, despite even his own national security advisers stated belief that it helpsextremists to paint the U.S. as anti-Muslim.

He also reiterated his intention to build a great, great wall along our southern border.

Trump invoked Scripture when he praised a Navy SEAL, Chief Petty Officer William Ryan Owens, who died in a controversial raid in Yemen that the president approved.

Ryans legacy is etched into eternity. For as the Bible teaches us, there is no greater act of love than to lay down ones life for ones friends, said Trump, invoking John 15:13.

And he championed school choice, sayingfamilies should be free to choose the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school that is right for them.

But perhaps what most surprised his audiencewas the speechsopening, a seeming attempt to bridge the divides among Americans that so many have accused Trumpof widening.

Tonight as we mark the conclusion of our celebration of Black History Month, we are reminded of our nations path toward civil rights and the work that still remains to be done, he said to applause and cheers.

Hate crimes have been a growing concern so far this presidency. In less than two months, bomb threats have targeted about 100Jewish community centers, schools and offices of the Anti-Defamation League. Vandals have desecrated hundreds of graves at Jewish cemeteries in St. Louis and Philadelphia.

And last week in Kansas City, two Indian men were shot, one fatally, in what is widely assumed to be a hate crime.

Recent threats targeting Jewish community centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries as well as last weeks shooting in Kansas City remind us that while we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all of its very ugly forms, the president told the lawmakers.

Trump has dismayed Jewish and other groups for failing, until last week, to denounce rising anti-Semitic hate crimes in the nation. And he has offered no specificcondemnation of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hate crimes, which have surged in the past several years.

READ:Trump condemned anti-Semitism. What about Islamophobia?

Trumps remarks Tuesday night were unlikely to mollify Jewish leaders upset with his record on addressing hatred toward Jews.

Just hours before the speech they called on him to address reports that he had, in a meeting with state attorneys general, suggested that threats against Jewish community centers might be coming from the reverse to make otherslook bad.

It was not clear what Trump meant, but some Jewish leaders expressed concernthat hewas implying that the threats could be attempts to frame his supporters, rather than threatenJews, and called on him to clarify his statement.

Jewish leaderswere also worriedabout new reports that the Trump administration is considering scrapping a State Department post created to monitor and combat anti-Semitism.

Lauren Markoe has been a national reporter for RNS since 2011. Previously she covered government and politics as a daily reporter at the Charlotte Observer and The State (Columbia, S.C.)

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Posted By richards on March 2, 2017

TWH Jewish facilities have been targeted with vandalism and bomb threats in recent weeks, and that has some of their Pagan neighbors on edge even as they stand ready to assist. Hundreds of headstones were damaged in two Jewish cemeteries this month, and 100 bomb threats have been reportedly called into Jewish community centers and temples in the United States and Canada in whats being called telephone terrorism.

It was enough to get a mention by President Trump during his first speech before a joint session of Congress, although those remarks have been criticized for not outlining to plan to stop the attacks.

While most of the bomb threats targeted community centers in the eastern United States, they were located in a total of 33 states as well as two provinces of Canada. The calls may have originated overseas, authorities believe, and used voice-masking technology, as in this example posted online.

No bombs have thus far been found, but federal officials are investigating them as hate crimes. While the threats have caused some participants 67% of which are not Jewish to pull their families out of programs, there are also reports of solidarity as neighbors show up to express their support.

[Penny White]

Its easy to overwhelm a religious community with outsiders good intentions. Were issuing a statement, of course, and supporting on social media. We are prepared to stand guard but that probably wont be necessary, she added, because of the response by local police and FBI agents.

Asheville resident and Pagan Laura LaVoie lives no more than a tenth of a mile away. When I read the news in our local paper, I was stunned. I dont want this kind of bomb threat happening anywhere, but when it is right next door to your house, it impacts you a little differently, she said.

Neither LaVoie nor Ballard believed the threat could have originated locally, an opinion which has since also been shared by law enforcement officials. That doesnt make it any less unsettling, however.

LaVoie said, The Pagan community in Asheville as a whole seems to be very out, so of course I have concerns that it could be targeted. But overall, our community is a welcoming one so I dont imagine it would happen from someone who is a part of Asheville culture.

On the other side of the country, the Marin Interfaith Councils name was added to one such statement. Member Aline Macha OBrien said that Congregation Rodof Shalom, a group that is very prominent and active in that council, was one of the centers which was threatened.

OBrien said, In the current climate, where certain religions (primarily, of course, Islam and Judaism) are openly or implicitly demonized, it is vital to point out these shared values and to use them as a starting point for addressing the ethical issues entailed in todays conflicts.

The issue of the reception of refugees, for instance, touches directly on questions of hospitality and care for the vulnerable that virtually all religious and ethical traditions address.

Mike Novack is both a member of Covenant of the Goddess and a practicing Jew living in Massachusetts. You do raise an interesting question about whether folks should get involved in that as Pagans, he said, but thought that should be answered by those Pagans are who not also Jewish.

Novack went on to say that he wasnt doing anything differently in the wake of the attacks. Jews always consider this sort of thing not out of the ordinary. It is only the recent number of events that is unusual so a little more time must elapse before treated as a real increase (if the rate stays high).

By and large the Muslim and Jewish communities are taking advantage of the attacks to heal breaches between them, he added. Jews coming out to help clean up after attacks on Muslims and vice versa.

To Novacks last point, $5,000 reward has been offered for information leading to the arrest of the telephone terrorist[s] via the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The programming and services offer by Jewish community centers have a reach and variety similar to that found in YMCAs, which is why a majority of members, in some cases, are not Jewish. Nevertheless, they do indeed serve as a social hubs for Jews, someof whom no longer observe the religion but wish to honor their shared cultural heritage.

Its a cultural thing, an ancestral heritage, said Hank Eder, an eclectic Pagan with Jewish ancestry who denounced the attacks. Acts against any of us, no matter what their faith, are acts against all of us, no less than cutting off some part of yourself in an attempt to hurt another.

Ballard said that, while shes waiting to learn how best she can support her neighborhood JCC, she does believe that magical work would be an effective response.

The proposed Trump action was poorly thought out and ineffectively designed, in my opinion. Plus messy with too many moving parts. But magical working can be very effective. Certainly protective magic can be part of a strong security system, working in tandem with other kinds of security: electronic, security guards, etc.

The one thing that appears clear is that threats such as these are bringing people together, encouraging them to work for the common cause of protection in solidarity.

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Posted By admin on March 1, 2017

Email a copy of "New Israeli Initiative to Equip Jewish High School Students With Tools to Counter Campus Anti-Zionism Lauded by Advocacy Groups" to a friend

The apartheid wall at Columbia University. Photo: Columbia SJP/Facebook.

Anew Israeli initiative to prepare high school students to deal with and confrontanti-Zionist activity that they are liable toencounter when they get to college was laudedby Jewish advocacy groups this week.

Opportunities that expose young people to Israels people, history and culture are incredibly important in developing educated, engaged students who can stand up for Israels right to exist when threatened on campus. We welcome programs that educate students about Israel and build love and respect for the Jewish homeland before students arrive on college campuses, Hillel International spokesmanMatthew Berger told The Algemeiner on Tuesday.

Berger, speaking for the worlds largest Jewish student organization, was referring to the joint Jewish Agency for Israel-Strategic Affairs Ministry endeavor first reported on by The Jerusalem Postto equip Jewish studentsabout to enter universities with the tools tobetter cope with propaganda smears, antisemitism and boycotts, according to JAI Chairman Natan Sharansky.

March 1, 2017 2:38 pm

EducationalgroupStandWithUs Executive Director of High School Affairs Miri Kornfeld told The Algemeinerthat preparing the many high school students who may not know how to respond articulately to the ideological assault on the Jewish state will shift the emphasis from putting out fires to preventing them before they even start.

Gilad Skolnick, director of campus programming for the campus bureau of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, saidthat anti-Israel activists and professors are more organized than ever before at spreading lies and disinformation about Israel. He said that students especially those not coming from the Jewish day school system, and therefore have greater challenges when it comes to understanding the complexities of the Arab-Israeli conflict can always benefit from more training to counter hostilenarratives.

But a lack of knowledge is not the mainproblem that Hasbara Fellowships Executive Director Elliot Mathias said he hopes the initiative will take into account. The key, he said, is first teaching kidswhy they should care about Israel beforetraining them in how to advocate for it.

He explained: Students must be engaged in why Israel is so important to the Jewish people; how they can have a personal connection to Israel; and why standing up for their brothers and sisters in Israel is an integral part of their Jewish identity.They must be given the tools to understand the mission of the Jewish people to make the the world a better place, and the central role that Israel plays in this. If they understand these things, they will be receptive tolearning how to advocate for the Jewish state.

Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, head of campus watchdog group the AMCHA Initiative, told The Algemeinerthat many Jewish students, regardless of their personal or political affiliations are being singled out, harassed, intimidated and sometimes even assaulted by anti-Israel activists. As a result, they are thrust into the role of Israels foot soldiers simply because they are Jewish. Preparing high school kidsfor this intolerant climate, which we are working hard to change, is critical.

The announcement about the launch of theinitiative comes amid a sharp increase in anti-Israel activity often crossing the line intoantisemitism on campuses around the world. In February alone, images of a Nazi gas chamber and nearby crematorium were scrawled in the room of a Jewish student at the University of Minnesota; pamphlets accusing Jewish terrorists trained by Israeli Zionists of orchestrating last months deadly shooting at a Montreal mosque were found atCanadas Western University; and a speech at Trinity College in Dublin by the Israeli ambassador to Ireland was cancelled at the last minute,due to protests outside the lecture hall.

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Posted By admin on March 1, 2017

A headstone, pushed off its base by vandals, lays on the ground near a smashed tomb in the Mount Carmel Cemetery, a Jewish cemetery, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. February 27, 2017. (photo credit:REUTERS)

NEW YORK The Anti-Defamation Leagues San Francisco Regional Office was evacuated late Monday afternoon after yet another bomb threat was called in to its San Francisco office.

The threat was received at 4:19 p.m. by a staff member answering phone calls at the location and is the second one received by the ADL, after its New York headquarters were targeted last week.

This is also the latest such incident in a series of nearly two dozen fielded by local Jewish institutions across the country earlier on Monday, including Jewish community centers and Jewish day schools.

The latest wave of bomb threats comes after over five others since the beginning of the year, with a total of 89 incidents at 72 locations in 30 states and one Canadian province. In addition, two Jewish cemeteries were vandalized in the past week, in St. Louis and Philadelphia.

In Washington, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said, The president continues to be deeply disappointed and concerned by the reports of further vandalism at Jewish cemeteries. The cowardly destruction in Philadelphia this weekend comes on top of similar accounts from Missouri and threats made to Jewish community centers around the country. The president continues to condemn these and any other form of antisemitic and hateful acts in the strongest terms. From our countrys founding, weve been dedicated to protecting the freedom of our citizens right to worship. No one in America should feel afraid to follow the religion of their choosing freely and openly.

The ADLs San Francisco offices were evacuated without incident. Local law enforcement authorities swept the scene and an investigation is underway.

One threat or evacuation is one too many, and yet weve now seen more than 20 incidents in a single day, not just at ADL, but to childrens schools and community centers and more than 90 incidents since the start of this year, ADL CEO Jonathan A. Greenblatt said. The level of threats and incidents is astounding, and must not stand. We will do everything in our power to combat this wave of antisemitism.

ADL added that it is working closely with law enforcement officials at the local, state and national level in response to the calls and has previously convened community security briefings.

Earlier on Monday, the organization had released the ADL Action Plan on Antisemitism calling on the Trump administration to adopt a plan of action to address the scourge of threats aimed at Jewish institutions. This, they said, includes ordering the Justice Department to launch a robust investigation into these incidents, establishing an interagency task force to combat antisemitism and improving hate crime training, reporting and response.

After Mondays rash of bomb threats, the JCC Association of North America also called on federal authorities to take a stand against the latest manifestations of antisemitism.

The Justice Department, Homeland Security, the FBI and the White House, alongside Congress and local officials, must speak out and speak out forcefully against this scourge of antisemitism impacting communities across the country, said David Posner, the groups director of strategic performance.

Actions speak louder than words. Members of our community must see swift and concerted action from federal officials to identify and capture the perpetrator or perpetrators who are trying to instill anxiety and fear in our communities, he added.

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Posted By admin on March 1, 2017

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt speaking at the organizations Never is Now conference in New York City, Nov. 17, 2016. (Courtesy of the ADL)

(JTA) The Anti-Defamation League offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of those responsible for the vandalism of a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia.

More than 100 gravestones were toppled and damaged at the Mount Carmel Cemetery in the citys Wissinoming section. The vandalism was discovered Sunday.

The reward money leading to the arrest and conviction of the vandals is being provided by the Mizel Family Foundation, according to the ADL.

Abouta week ago, over 150 headstones were discovered overturned and damaged at the Chesed Shel Emeth Jewish cemetery in St. Louis in vandalism that made national headlines. Vice President Mike Pence was among those who contributed to the cleanup effort.

It is not known who committed the vandalism or if the motive was anti-Semitism.

A Gofundme campaign for the Philadelphia cemetery was launched by a private citizen, Raphael Caroline, 31, in the hours after the vandalism was discovered. It reached its $10,000 goal and beyond in sevenhours.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia also is collecting donations for repairs to the cemetery.

Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey in a tweet called the attack on the cemetery a despicable act of vandalism these acts of hate cannot be tolerated.

The states governor,Tom Wolf, in a tweet called the vandalism a cowardly, disturbing act. We must find those responsible and hold accountable.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said city officials are working to discover who committed the attack.

My heart breaks for the families who found their loved ones headstones toppled, he said in a statement. We are doing all we can to find the perpetrators who desecrated this final resting place, and they will be prosecutedto the fullest extent of the law. Hate is not permissible in Philadelphia. I encourage Philadelphiansto stand with our Jewish brothers and sistersand toshow them that wearethe City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection.

Area Muslims from the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USAs Philadelphia mosquejoined local Jews to help clean up the cemetery.

They wanted to divide us. We united even more, tweeted Kashif Chaudhry, a physician and Muslim activist.

This is America, read more than one response.

This Jewish girl from Philly thanks Muslim community of Philly 4 standing w/us, read another.

A candlelight vigil to support the Jewish community was held on Sunday night.

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Posted By simmons on March 1, 2017

The terror attacks against Jewish folks in America continue. No one seems to care.

In what may be a land speed record for the number of Jewish Community Centers evacuated in a single year, 2017 is off to a bang with nearly 30 such incidents recorded before the end of February. While every Jewish person around the world is watching to see if our worst fears about the American people come true, I was particularly struck by the second round of bomb threats against the Anti-Defamation League's San Francisco office. The offices were evacuated.

When some asshole Hitler enthusiasts on the internet got upset with me for being Jewish, I called the San Francisco ADL. The ADL was more concerned with my safety than I was, more helpful than I'd hoped, and displayed the ultimate in respectfulness: the ADL followed up. As I reflected on it, I realized this was exactly the foundation of support I'd been raised, as an American Jew, to expect. When I needed it, the ADL was there.

The ADL are heroically back to work in San Francisco today. The wave of hatred has not gone away.

We need them working because those headstones toppled in St. Louis and Philadelphia were not incidentally those of Jewish graves. Wave after wave of threats that chase children out of classrooms won't stay just threats forever. The monsters have been emboldened, and as is so often the case, the canary in the coal mine is a Jew.

We are headed in the wrong direction.

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As anti-Semitic bomb threats continue, ADL office evacuated in San ... - Boing Boing

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Posted By admin on March 1, 2017

Good Work Published on Tuesday, 28 February 2017 15:03 Joanne Wallenstein

Scarsdale attorney John B. Harris is the principal author of an Amicus Brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals 9th Circuit on behalf of the Anti-Defamation League ("ADL") objecting to President Donald Trump's recent executive order to ban travel into the United States from seven majority-Muslim nations.

The brief is not a typical synopsis of legal issues. Rather, it is a review of the United States' long history of welcoming immigrants and the tragic consequences of times when America turned away from its core values, such as when the United States turned away Jewish refugees desperately seeking safety aboard the St Louis during World War II, excluded immigrants from China and interned Japanese Americans.

The brief quotes luminaries in American history such as John Winthrop who "admonished the future colonists of Massachusetts to always remember that their new community would be "as a city upon a hill." It recalls Walt Whitman, Emma Lazarus and John F. Kennedy who in his book "A Nation of Immigrants" wrote, ""America has always been a refuge from tyranny. As a nation conceived in liberty, it has held out to the world the promise of respect for the rights of man."

Harris' law firm, Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz in Manhattan, submitted the brief on behalf of ADL where Harris is the Chair of the ADL Legal Affairs Committee. He said, "The U.S. has been and should be a beacon of hope for refugees from war-torn countries and for victims of persecution."

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Scarsdale Attorney Files Amicus Brief for ADL Challenging Trump's Travel Ban - Scarsdale10583.com

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