Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on February 8, 2017

A man has been charged with a hate crime after he allegedly broke a window and placed swastikas on the door of a Loop synagogue, police said.

Stuart Wright, 31, was charged with one felony count of hate crime to a church or synagogue after he was identified in surveillance video as the person who vandalized the Chicago Loop Synagogue at 15 S. Clark St. on Saturday, police said.

The video showed a man parking a dark-colored SUV in front of the synagogue around 12:30 a.m. and briskly walking up to it, placing stickers on the door and smashing a window.

The man was wearing a mask and retrieved a metal object from his pocket before swinging twice at the window. He ran back to his car and drove away.

Police collected license plate information and processed fingerprints from the scene, officials said. Police got additional, anonymous information on a tip line.

Wright was arrested around 11:45 a.m. Tuesday in the 2100 block of South Loomis Street, police said.

The synagogue opened in 1959 and has a congregation of 800 people, according to the president of the synagogue, Lee Zoldan.

Check back for updates.

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Posted By richards on February 8, 2017

Alvin Benn, Special to the Advertiser 3:31 p.m. CT Feb. 8, 2017

Rabbi Scott Kramer during a Holocaust Education Program at the Auburn Montgomery campus on April 6. Kramer said representatives from the Anti-Defamation League and the FBI are expected to attend Thursday's event.(Photo: Mickey Welsh/Advertiser)Buy Photo

Worries over waves of bomb threats at Jewish facilities in recent weeks have prompted a Montgomery synagogue to sponsor an event to discuss growing security concerns.

Montgomerys Jewish community is small when compared with larger towns, but leaders of the Capital Citys two Jewish houses of worship have taken special steps to beef up protection efforts.

I have never witnessed any incidents of anti-Semitism in Montgomery during my 10 years here, but that doesnt mean something like that cant happen and thats why we are holding our event, said Agudath Israel Etz Ahayem Rabbi Scott Kramer.

The synagogue, located at 3525 Cloverdale Road, will begin its program at 6 p.m. Kramer said representatives from the Anti-Defamation League and the FBI are expected to attend the event.

The ADL has issued a statement of concern about an unprecedented rise in Anti-Semitic incidents in the United States, not only over the last year, but specifically in the last few years.

Birminghams Levite Jewish Community Center received a bomb threat last month and authorities are trying to determine if it might be linked to similar threats across the country.

The Birmingham facility that includes a day care was evacuated and parents were contacted to get their children. Bomb-sniffing dogs also checked the building and an all-clear was eventually sounded.

Threatening phone calls have been recorded at dozens of Jewish facilities in recent weeks including Alabama, Florida and Tennessee.

Kramer said he has long wanted to invite the ADL to his synagogue and this seemed to be a good opportunity.

We take security very seriously, the rabbi said. Most of our doors have video cameras and we also have armed guards whenever services are held.

Temple Beth Or has also increased its security systems and Rabbi Elliot Stevens said Tuesday afternoon that more will be added if needed in the future.

We have security for all of our services and Sunday school and also have installed a sophisticated camera system with multiple cameras not only on site but on cellphones, too, said Stevens.

The rabbi said the need to increase security devices has become a depressing subject and we wish we didnt have to talk about it but these are the tenor of our times.

Stevens said the Southern Poverty Law Center has tracked more anti-Semitic threats and incidents last year than in many prior years.

ADL official David Posner said his organization has been coordinating security training for those who frequent Jewish community centers in dozens of locations around the country.

Posner said several of the threats were determined to have been hoaxes, but the FBI is actively investigating those calls.

We are relieved that no one has been harmed and the JCCs continue to operate in a way that puts the safety of their staff, visitors and premises first, said Posner, who is the director of strategic performances for the group.

Posner said he and his organization are following developments of recent events and we are concerned about the anti-Semitism behind these threats.

WHAT: Apublic discussion ongrowing security concerns in Montgomery's Jewish community, and anti-Semitism inthe U.S.

WHEN: Thursday at 6 p.m.

WHERE:Agudath Israel,Etz Ahayem Synagogue,located at 3525 Cloverdale Road in Montgomery

MORE INFO: For more information, call334-281-7394.

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Posted By richards on February 8, 2017

CHICAGO (AP) Chicago police say they have arrested a man suspected of vandalizing a Loop synagogue last weekend.

In a news release on Wednesday, police say 31-year-old Stuart Wright was arrested on a felony count of criminal damage to property and a felony hate crime charge. They say he was arrested Tuesday on the city's southwest side.

Police say Wright was arrested with the help of information provided to a department tip line after surveillance video of the incident was released.

Also, they say detectives identified him as suspect seen on the video climbing from a vehicle, attach swastika stickers on the front door of the Chicago Loop Synagogue and then smash a plate glass window with what appeared to be a metal object.

It wasn't immediately known if Wright has legal representation.

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Posted By richards on February 8, 2017

As president of the Chicago Loop Synagogue, Lee Zoldan worries about growing the 800-person congregation and getting the bills in order.

She didn't think her role would also include assisting police in the middle of the night after a vandal broke a window and put several swastika stickers on the front door of the downtown building the first time it's been the target of a suspected hate crime since opening in 1959.

"I was stunned," Zoldan said at a Sunday news conference announcing two rewards totaling $3,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction of the vandal. "You don't expect something like this ... this has never happened to us. I was trying to process it."

Community activist Raul Montes Jr. contributed $500, and the Anti-Defamation League offered $2,500.

Police responded to the synagogue in the first block of South Clark Street shortly before 12:30 a.m Saturday to find the damage.

A surveillance camera hanging from the synagogue captured video of a man parking a dark-colored SUV, possibly a Toyota Highlander, in front of the building before briskly walking up to it, placing something on the door and smashing a window.

The man in the video is wearing a head mask and retrieved a metal object from his pocket before swinging twice at the window. He ran back to his car and drove away.

Police collected license plate information and are processing some fingerprints from the scene, Zoldan said.

Montes said he wants to draw more urgency to the case.

"This is blatantly anti-Semitic and totally beyond comprehension and will not be tolerated," Montes said Sunday, standing in front of a dozen congregants and supporters. "This is a hate crime. This should not have occurred nowhere."

The synagogue is hosting an interfaith event Wednesday at noon, which will feature indoor speakers rallying for unity around the incident.

Jenan Mohajir, a Muslim woman, stopped by the synagogue Sunday with her husband and three young children to drop off a bouquet of yellow flowers. Mohajir, 36, of Kenwood said she wanted to do something to show solidarity.

"We're here because this is not an acceptable way to treat each other," said Mohajir, who works at an interfaith youth network. "Chicago is our city, and we won't stand for this type of hate in our city."

As news of the vandalism spread, Zoldan said the synagogue began to receive countless emails and messages of support in addition to a batch of letters written by Muslim children.

Initially, police were conducting a property damage investigation, but the incident is now being investigated as a hate crime.

"If there's anything good that can come out of the hate crime, it's been the outpouring of love that we've seen from around the city, around the country and actually around the world," Zoldan said. "We look forward to bringing this person to justice."

echerney@chicagotribune.com

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Posted By richards on February 8, 2017

Rabbi Yosef at Rabbinical Convention

Court's Spokesman

Israel's Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef related for the first time to attacks aimed at him by womens organizations following the bill of divorce episode involving a woman from Tzfat in northern Israel.

In 2014, S. was given a get (halakhic divorce) in a rare and unprecedented move by a religious court in the northern city of Tzfat, seven years after her husband was severely injured in a car accident and left in a vegetative state. A halakhic divorce must be granted by the husband and accepted by the wife. The rabbinic court in this case decided that they could be the husband's legal guardian and that he would have wanted to grant the divorce, calling it a get zicui.

That halakhic concept's only precedents were when the woman receiving the divorce needed someone to take her place, but have never been used actively by someone who is in a position to grant a divorce. The late Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog was opposed to the use of the concept, as is YU's Rabbi Herschel Schachter; the rabbinic court judges consulted with other well-known judges in Israel, but not with the Chief Rabbinate.

Shortly after the ruling was issued and the divorce granted, Reuven Cohen, who opposed the decision but is unconnected to the couple in question, filed an appeal with the Supreme Rabbinic Court the Chief Rabbinates highest judicial body to challenge the divorce on halakhic grounds.

Upon the decision to reopen the case, the Rabbinical Court was met with vocal opposition from womens groups and Knesset members. In addition, there was criticism from other sources about reopening a get which had already been granted and about the plaintiff not having standing in the case. The Chief Rabbi intends to convene a committee of rabbinic judges to decide on halakhic policy regarding the get zicui.

At the opening of the annual convention for rabbinical judges, taking place this week, Rabbi Yosef told the other judges: We hold by the standard among ourselves of Fear no one [when making a judgement]. If there are womens groups that want things from us, that we should allow them to do anything - do not be afraid! Fear no one. Be strong.

Theyre representing me as if I was stringent on a matter, which I was not. Almost all the rabbis were stringent on this matter. I spoke for the sake of heaven without personal concerns and they stood and disgraced me. I fulfilled the injunction of Fear no one. I call on all judges of Israel - do not fear the womens organizations, hold by Fear no man and adjudicate only according to Jewish law.

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Posted By richards on February 8, 2017

Yesh Atid leader MK Yair Lapid announced Wednesday that he has been undertaking efforts to rally former Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon and former Chiefs of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Benny Gantz to his partys ranks.

Yair Lapid (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Moshe Ya'alon (L), Benny Gantz (C) and Gabi Ashkenazi (R) (Photo: Tomeriko)

Finally, Lapid offered his thoughts on comments made by Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett on Tuesday stating that the next round of fighting with Hamas was close.

It is irresponsible for cabinet ministers to come out and say that the next round of fighting with Gaza is in the offing, stated Lapid, who was in the cabinet when Operation Protective Edge was being conducted in 2014.

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Posted By richards on February 8, 2017

Former chief rabbi Yona Metzger. (photo credit:YONAH JEREMY BOB)

Former chief rabbi Yona Metzger, through his lawyers, asked the Jerusalem District Court on Wednesday to endorse the 3.5-year jail sentence and NIS 5 million fine that are part of his plea bargain reached with the prosecution in light of his conviction for bribery last January.

Unusually, Metzger himself did not speak, though he had confessed at an earlier hearing, and did submit several letters of support from famous rabbis to try to garner sympathy from Judge Moshe Yoed Hacohen.

The letters came from former chief rabbi Shlomo Amar, Rabbi Dovid Grossman and former major.-general Gershon Hacohen.

The state prosecution started the hearing by reiterating how severe Metzgers crimes were, quoting relevant portions of the Bible, the Talmud and Maimonides legal code the Mishneh Torah about the grave offense of bribery and how Metzger was supposed to set an example for others.

During this part of the prosecutions arguments, Metzgers usual smile changed to a stricken and broken stare, looking as if he might be near tears.

But then the prosecution asked the court to accept the plea bargain on the grounds that he was one of very few public figures who had confessed to his crimes early, sparing the state and the country a years-long, expensive and messy trial.

Metzgers defense lawyers added that the indictment he confessed to was heavily amended to contain fewer charges and much smaller amounts of illegal funds accepted.

They added that he would have had a real chance at beating all or many of the charges at trial, and the deal saved the prosecutions having to take on this risk.

Further, they said that he had suffered more than a typical defendant by the irreparable tarnishing of his public image after years of devoted service to the state.

The final sentence is set to be issued on February 23 and Metzger is expected to enter prison sometime in May.

Metzger was indicted in October 2015 accused of accepting NIS 10 million in bribes and his trial opened in March 2016, but never got deep into the trial phase due to ongoing plea deal negotiations.

Besides bribery, the charges include fraud, breach of public trust, fraudulent receipt of a benefit under aggravated circumstances, theft, money- laundering, tax violations and conspiracy to commit a felony, all while using his position as chief rabbi. He held the post of Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel from 2003 to 2013.

In the original indictment, in the Conversion Affair, Metzger allegedly received large bribes from foreigners who wished to convert or to clarify whether they were Jewish under standards acceptable to the Chief Rabbinate.

The indictment said that Metzger and Rabbi Gavriel Cohen, the former head of the Beit Din of Los Angeles, split funds paid to Cohen regarding the issues in question.

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Posted By richards on February 8, 2017

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Posted By richards on February 8, 2017

Black History Month has always proved complicated in multicultural America. The great historian Carter G. Woodson, the second African American to receive his doctorate from Harvard, created Negro History Week in 1926. Then Dr. Woodson, founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, later expanded Negro History Week to Black History Month to honor the birth month of writer and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who we all know did an amazing job and is being recognized more and more.

Because of this, Dr. Woodson became the legendary Father of Black History. It is an old commemoration not a gimmick or product of political correctness. It is not a separatist gesture, and it is not meant to be a stand-alone annual recognition of the accomplishments of African Americans and other people of African descent, but rather the event serves as inspiration to see and support the discussion year round.

As a self-identified African American, one of the best parts about the notion of Black History, is that it Venn-diagrams with any other category of historical inquiry and celebration and that in the most democratic way, any of us can make Black history.

For some, Black History Month means celebrating Black firsts and paying attention to the most exceptional among us. For me, Black history is comprised of everyday incidents. The spirit I have invested in Black history is the story of a lifetime learning about my history and that of the entire family, whether on the African continent or her Diaspora.

In fact, black history influenced my journey as a Jewish educator in the Maryland suburbs of Washington D.C., home to about 60% of the DC areas Jewish population. Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Renewal, Ashkenazic, Sephardic, I taught them all, from Hebrew school to youth groups. Not only was my teaching about Jewish heritage imbued with some of the same notions and conventions from a lifetime dance with Black history, but I myself was making Black history in a Jewish context. For many of my students I was the first and only Jewish teacher of color they ever knew. I was the first teacher of African descent in many of the synagogues where I taught. In many cases, I was the solitary Black figure of authority, the only Black mentor, friend, and teacher they had. Period.

Revisiting my old haunts is revealing. I am captured in displayed photos, the lone professional face of color, surrounded by people who dont look like me with whom I had little in common save one thing: being a Jew.

I worked in a world that was overwhelmingly female, white, upper middle class, Northern/Northeast, heterosexual and born into the Jewish community bubble. I was absolutely none of those things. I made a sport of grinning and bearing through my differences. Most of the time, the demographic and cultural gap narrowed and I was treated to a different experience than most African Americans encounter the feeling that I was not bound by my box. I was held to the same codes as anyone else and encouraged to be myself.

On the other hand, sometimes teachers, parents and students occasionally painted me as not only exotic but incapable of truly understanding Jewishness beyond what I had mastered from a smattering of prayerbooks and guides to Jewish observance.

Jewishness occasionally seen as the polar opposite of Blackness in an arbitrary play of divide and conquer was a deficit in how some viewed my presence. Youre the whitest Black guy I know, one teacher joked with me. Im Blacker than you, and youre butt hurt because you know its true, smirked one cocky teenager with blue eyes and blond hair. I didnt have the heart to tell him that my treatment by police debunked his premise.

Incidents like that balanced against the good were tough to measure. One teacher who became a member of a religious school staff five years after I was hired accused me of teaching our students to steal, stating in an email to a principal that We Jews Those were heartbreaking days when I had to wake up out of complacency and expectations of normalcy and fight. I had become an educator on something many of supervisors and fellow teachers never thought they would need sensitivity training. Simply put, many had never thought or planned on sharing the role of Jewish educator with a Black, gay Southern man who came from modest means and didnt share the same zip code.

Above and beyond those flash points were moments where I couldnt thank G-d more for my fate. Most of my students gave back the love I gave them and their families. As selfies became a thing, one of their favorite things to do was take a picture with me to win arguments at school when they were challenged on whether not Jews who were Black existed. I became a prized resources for Jewish students of color, and not just those who were of African descent. My students asked me questions about my identity and the African American condition, and I, knowing that I might not get another chance, took advantage of those times to show them family pictures, share recipes made kosher, and demonstrate the aesthetics of a Jewish person equally in love with his African heritage.

One of my students was a really cool kid, Ashkenazi as they come, but very much influenced by African American culture. He played football, many of his friends, teammates and love interests were of color and in particular, Black. He became a class aide and music player in pocket, bopping around the the shul listening to Lil Wayne and Jay-Z. We would sit together at the end of class making up beats and he would improvise raps. I sent him off with the words my own Grandmother used and he never forgot them, Get your lesson and walk with the Lord, which I changed to Hashem.

Part of Black history is that moment where you use your history to recreate and reinvigorate yourself. You listen to the Ancestors and then you become ennobled and emancipated by contact with them. Being woke, as young people say now is nothing new. For us woke, was knowing where we came from, being dedicated to going someplace our forebears could never dream, and taking everyone with us in the spirit of intellectual excellence and social responsibility. This young man I taught did not just absorb the pop culture, he taught himself about Malcolm, Martin, Marcus, and Mandela.

One day he was down, due to family trouble. Divorce was eminent. I dragged him in the synagogue library and asked if he knew where he came from. His last name was telltale, pointing me in the direction of a city and a Hasidic dynasty to whom some of his family once belonged in days of old. I copied the map so he could point to it and know that he came from this storied town. The very next day I gave him my old tefillin and taught him to wrap them. He never forgot that moment and neither did I.

In those small moments, I have almost forgotten, multiplied times the hundreds of kids that walked through my door, soul by soul, I realized I had carved out my own piece of Black history; and it was a legacy not for a month, but for a lifetime.

Michael Twitty writes the blog Afroculinaria and is the author of the forthcoming book, Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African-American Culinary History in the Old South (Harper Collins). He can be followed on Twitter, @Koshersoul

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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My Black History Spans More Than a Month - Forward

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Posted By richards on February 8, 2017

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Posted: Feb 08, 2017 10:16 AM

NEW YORK The White House recently issued a statement by President Donald J. Trump to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

"It is with a heavy heart and somber mind that we remember and honor the victims, survivors, heroes of the Holocaust. It is impossible to fully fathom the depravity and horror inflicted on innocent people by Nazi terror.

"Yet, we know that in the darkest hours of humanity, light shines the brightest. ?As we remember those who died, we are deeply grateful to those who risked their lives to save the innocent.

"In the name of the perished, I pledge to do everything in my power throughout my Presidency, and my life, to ensure that the forces of evil never again defeat the powers of good. Together, we will make love and tolerance prevalent throughout the world."

No one could question the sincerity, gravity, and compassion in those words.

No one, that is, until the Trump haters started screaming.

Wake up and smell the anti-Semitism in the White House, bellowed Steven Goldstein, executive director of The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect. President Trump and his administration are engaging in the kind of Holocaust denial we have seen elsewhere from the most offensive scoundrels of history.

This is what Holocaust denial is, Senator Tim Kaine (D Virginia) told NBCs Meet the Press on January 29. Its either to deny that it happened or many Holocaust deniers acknowledge, Oh, yeah, people were killed. But it was a lot of innocent people. Jews werent targeted.

Why whitewash Jews from that statement? Meet the Press host Chuck Todd demanded of White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.

Holocaust denial is alive and well in the highest offices of the United States, Deborah Lipstadt complained in The Atlantic.com. The Holocaust was de-Judaized.

These explosions began soon after Trumps statement emerged. It made no specific mention of the monumental suffering of the Jews in the Holocaust, nor the fact that the Nazis designed the entire blood-soaked exercise in order to erase them.

The notion that this was a deliberate effort to trivialize the Holocaust or promote anti-Semitism is belied by the fact that this proclamation was written by an individual who is both Jewish and a descendant of Holocaust survivors, as White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer explained.

Furthermore, Politico reported that this aide is Boris Epshteyn, a former Trump campaign aide who now serves as a special assistant to the president. Epshteyn was a Russian Jew who immigrated to America. His relatives were among the 6 million Jews whom Adolf Hitler destroyed.

These details are immaterial, when Trump is the big target to be brought down, at all costs.

Trump cannot win.

Had he mentioned Jews in this statement, the Human Rights Campaign would have issued a press release saying, Why did Trump not include the gay people Hitler killed? Trump is a homophobe!

If Trump had cited Jews and gays, the American Psychological Association would have moaned: How dare Trump overlook the mentally disabled whom the Nazis murdered?

And so on.

If Trump really were an anti-Semite, why would his inner circle include people like Treasury nominee Steve Mnuchin, senior policy aide Stephen Miller, deputy campaign manager and political hand Michael Glassner, and U.S. Ambassador to Israel nominee David Friedman?

Never mind them.

What kind of anti-Semite lets his gentile daughter marry an Orthodox Jew, and then convert to Orthodox Judaism herself? Ivanka Trumps husband is Jared Kushner, President Trumps senior adviser and son-in-law. Why would anti-Semite Donald J. Trump have let his nine-month-old Jewish grandson Theodore toddle across a White House carpet for the first time on January 26?

There are so many high-level Jews around Americas 45th president that Israels Haaretz newspaper last November dubbed them Trumps Jewish inner circle.

Nothing in the statement suggests anti-Semitism, says Dr. Alex Grobman, a Holocaust scholar who earned his Ph.D. at Jerusalems Hebrew University. Trump is surrounded by Jews in his administration. Some are committed Orthodox Jews, unlike those nominal Jews in previous administrations. Grobman also is a consultant with the America-Israel Friendship League, which sponsored the 2013 media tour on which I first visited the Jewish state.

Were President Trumps actions upon coming into office to bow to the Saudi King, or reach out to the Muslim Brotherhood, or have Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel use a side door when visiting the White House, then one might suggest there is underlying anti-Semitism, said my colleague at the London Center for Policy Research, Eli Gold, an Orthodox Jew and yeshiva graduate. But given Trumps long support for Israel, his immediate outreach to Netanyahu, etc., I would suggest it was just a case of poor judgement not to mention Jews in that Holocaust proclamation.

Should that document have mentioned Jews? Sure. That certainly would have kept many feathers unruffled. It also would have underscored the Jews centrality to the Shoah, as this mass genocide is known in Hebrew.

Nonetheless, citing the Jews in a Holocaust memorial text is a bit like discussing the black slaves in the antebellum South. Everyone knows that those who were enslaved below the Mason-Dixon Line were black. Likewise, the Holocaust is equated with Jews. In that sense, the word Holocaust is definitional: The Nazis deliberate, systematic extermination of European Jewry. There is no mystery about this, and failing to employ the phrase the Jewish Holocaust or the Holocaust against the Jews is hardly a calculated affront against those of Jewish faith and heritage.

The frenzied accusations that President Trump is a Holocaust denier and, deep down, an anti-Semite are revolting, despicable, and far beneath the Trumpophobes who spew them.

Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor.

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