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Posted By richards on February 6, 2017

(JTA) A downtown Chicago synagogue was vandalized in what police believe is a hate crime.

The front window of the nearly 90-year-old Chicago Loop Synagogue was smashed early on Saturday morning and copies of swastikas were taped to its front doors.

Police were called at 12:30 a.m. on Saturday to the synagogue after construction workers saw the attack in progress, according to reports.

The vandal was caught on surveillance camera, which was released to the public later on Saturday. The vandal is a white male wearing dark clothing and a dark face mask.

Police told local media they are investigating the incident as a hate crime.

The Chicago Jewish community will not be intimidated by anti-Semitic attacks on a house of worship, AJC Chicago Director Amy Stoken said in a statement.Chicagoans must speak together clearly that the hatred behind this destructive behavior will never be accepted.

Saturday morning Shabbat services went ahead as scheduled.

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Chicago Loop Synagogue Vandalized With Swastikas and Broken Windows - Forward

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Posted By richards on February 6, 2017

Criminal damage and vandalism is shown at a Chicago synagogue on Feb. 4, 2017. (Credit: CNN)

Police are investigating a flurry of swastika vandalism in three major U.S. cities.

Chicago Police released a surveillance video Saturday that shows a man smashing the front window of a synagogue and placing swastikas on the front door.

In the video, the suspect pulls up to the synagogue curb in a dark colored SUV just after midnight, gets out of the vehicle, places the stickers on the front door and then breaks the glass with a metal object. He then gets back in the car and flees the scene.

The man is wearing dark clothing and a dark head mask, police said.

The incident is being investigated as a hate crime.

The Chicago Jewish community will not be intimidated by anti-Semitic attacks on a house of worship, American Jewish Committee Director Amy Stoken said in a statement to CNN.

I have had it with this behavior

Campus police at Rice University in Houston are investigating the swastika vandalism of the schools William Marsh Rice statue.

The university reported that a swastika was drawn on the base of the iconic statue in the academic quad Friday night. The vandalism also included unidentified words according to a Rice statement sent to CNN.

I have had it with this behaviorWe are smarter, we are resolute and we outnumber the hatemongers by far, University Dean John Hutchinson said in the statement.

We will not let hate win

A group of New York subway passengers used hand sanitizer to remove Nazi graffiti from an uptown 1 train on Feb. 4, 2017. (Credit: CNN)

It was not a typical Saturday night getting on the subway in New York City. One man, Gregory Locke, observed a Swastika on every advertisement and every window on a train.

Lockes Facebook post and pictures of the defacement has since gone viral, and even warranted the attention of Chelsea Clinton who tweeted the post.

We will not let hate win, Clinton said.

Passengers were stunned by the acts of hate and one person on the train asked for hand sanitizer which was used to help erase all the swastikas written with a Sharpie, Locke said in his post.

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Police Investigating Swastika Vandalism in New York Subway, Chicago Synagogue, College Campus in Houston - KTLA

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Posted By richards on February 6, 2017

Then an act of kindness revived their spirits -- the leaders of the local Jewish congregation gave them the keys to their synagogue so they could continue to worship.

The leader of the mosque said he wasn't surprised by the gesture.

"I never doubted the support that we were going to get" after the fire, Dr. Shahid Hashmi, a surgeon and president of Victoria Islamic Center, told CNN. "We've always had a good relationship with the community here."

Hashmi said Dr. Gary Branfman -- a member of Temple B'nai Israel in Victoria, as well as a fellow surgeon and friend -- just came by his house and gave him the keys.

And that wasn't the only offer of a temporary worship space that was extended. Hashmi said three local churches said his congregation could use their buildings. Also offered up was an empty office building, which the congregation used for three days before moving into a mobile home on the mosque property, Hashmi said.

"It's a beautiful community," he said.

Though Hashmi always knew his own east Texas community would support the mosque, he was stunned by the outpouring of support from people outside Victoria.

So far, a GoFundMe page set up to help raise money for the mosque's reconstruction has taken in more than $1 million.

That's on top of other donations the congregation has received from people in 90 different countries.

"We were surprised at the donations from around the world," Hashmi told CNN.

The Muslim community in Victoria dates back decades, Hashmi said, but the mosque was just 16 years old. Thanks to all of the financial contributions, he expects they'll be able to rebuild it in less than a year.

Hashmi said the congregants at the mosque are still in shock over the fire. Officials with the Texas State Fire Marshal's Office say no cause has been determined yet, and it may be weeks or months before can they figure out what happened, including whether the fire was deliberately set.

But the love that has grown from tragedy is making all the difference.

"It's given us a sense of hope," Omar Rachid, a member of the Muslim congregation, told CNN. "It's humanity at its best."

CNN's Jamiel Lynch contributed to this story.

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Jews hand Muslims keys to synagogue after Texas mosque burns - CNN

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Posted By richards on February 6, 2017

Texas Jews share synagogue with Muslim peers after mosque destroyed

ByJPOST.COM STAFF

04 February 2017 09:40

A number of churches and an office building also offered up their space.

A security official investigates the aftermath of a fire at the Victoria Islamic Center mosque in Victoria, Texas January 29, 2017. . (photo credit:REUTERS)

The Jewish community of Victoria, Texas, has stepped up to aid the town's Muslim community after their mosque was destroyed in a fire last weekend, CNN reported.

Dr. Shahid Hashmi, the president of the Victoria Islamic Center, told CNN that Dr. Gary Branfman, a friend of his and a member of Victoria's Temple B'nai Israel, stopped by his home to give him the keys to the synagogue so they could use it for their services.

"I never doubted the support that we were going to get," said Hashmi. "We've always had a good relationship with the community here."

The cause of the fire has not been determined yet. CNN reported that a number of churches and an office building also offered up their space, and that the Islamic Center has taken up temporary residency in a mobile home on the mosque property. They hope to be able to rebuild their mosque within the year thanks to generous donations locally and from abroad, including a GoFundMe page that has already raised over one million dollars in support.

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Texas Jews share synagogue with Muslim peers after mosque destroyed - Jerusalem Post Israel News

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Posted By richards on February 6, 2017

New York Times

Israel Ejects Settlers in Last Stand at West Bank Synagogue New York Times Hundreds of angry protesters confronted Israeli police officers as they tried to eject them Thursday from the illegal West Bank settlement of Amona, the second day of clashes there. Several officers were injured as they cleared a synagogue of 200 ... Israel Police Evacuate Amona Synagogue in Last Phase of RemovalForward Activists storm synagogue as bulldozers move inThe Times (subscription) Last settlers removed from Amona synagogue after putting up 'strong resistance'i24news The Times of Israel -rdnewsnow.com all 2,003 news articles »

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Posted By richards on February 6, 2017

Caption + Owner of Temple Aaron in Trinidad Colorado, Randy Rubin, turns off the light possibly for a final time Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. Temple Aaron in Trinidad Colorado is closing down after 132 years of service. (Photo by Nina Riggio/Special to The Denver Post)

The Temple Aaron building in Trinidad, home to the states longest continuously operating synagogue in its original location until it closed last fall, on Thursday was added to the list of Colorados most endangered places.

The move which brings more awareness than action breathes hope into the idea that the 128-year-old Victorian-Moorish building, which is for sale, could be preserved.

This, to me, is a rejuvenation of what weve been trying to accomplish in keeping the temple a sacred place, said Ron Rubin, whose family has run the synagogue for more than 30 years. This is the expansion of efforts to continue the temples history and Jewish faith.

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Shuttered synagogue in Trinidad added to list of Colorado's most endangered places - Colorado Springs Gazette

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Posted By richards on February 6, 2017

Gerard Edery, an expert in the wide-ranging music of the Sephardic Diaspora, will serve as artist-in-residence during the JEWbilation Celebration Weekend Feb. 24 to 26 at Congregation Bnai Amoona.

The weekend of events will culminate in a free concert by Edery and noted Flamenco guitarist and singer Cristian Puig at 7 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 26 in the synagogues sanctuary, 324 S. Mason Road.

Sephardic Jews trace their ancestry primarily to Spain and Portugal and have built a rich and distinctive cultural tradition that encompasses influences from around the Mediterranean region.

Edery was born in Casablanca and raised in Paris and New York City. He graduated from the Manhattan School of Music with bachelors and masters degrees in operatic performance and has sung more than 30 roles with opera companies around the United States. Widely regarded as a master singer and guitarist, Edery performs a range of ethnic folk styles and traditions from around the world, interpreting them for contemporary audiences.

The artist-in-residence weekend is part of Bnai Amoonas yearlong JEWbilation theme, exploring the diversity of Jewish traditions from around the world. Other highlights of the weekend include special Friday night and Saturday morning religious services infused with Sephardic melodies from around the world, led by Edery and Cantor Sharon Nathanson of Bnai Amoona.

The weekend is supported by the Fivel Music Fund in loving memory of Sally and Jack Fivel. Additional support for the Sunday concert is provided by the Hazzan Leon and Michal Lissek Music Endowment Fund. Beth Saltzman is chair of the committee planning the artist-in-residence weekend.

RSVPs for the Feb. 26 concert are required by Friday, Feb. 17 to 314-576-9990, ext. 126, or online at bnaiamoona.com.

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Artist-in-residence will spotlight traditional Sephardic music during weekend of events - St. Louis Jewish Light

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Posted By richards on February 6, 2017

Its 1972, a year before the Yom Kippur War and the great rift it created. Following the Six-Day War, Israel is not engaged in survival battles, is launching the settlement enterprise, is experiencing relative economic welfare but is dealing with internal problems. And the world is noticing that too.

The Black Panthers protest movement. If we ever get peace in the Middle East, we will have civil war at home (Photo: David Rubinger)

Headline of the secret CIA document from 1972

Some of the change in Israeli society is the natural result of the passage of time the aging of the old Zionist pioneers who control the Israeli establishment and the growing numbers of the Israeli-born, the Sabra (named for a desert cactus), who are eager to take over, the document stated 45 years ago.

Golda Meir, a representative of the old Zionist generation, and Yigal Allon, a representative of the Sabra (Photo: Shalom Bar Tal)

Moshe Dayan. Popular among the public, but not in his party (Photo: Fritz Cohen, GPO)

Ashkenazi-descended Sabras tend to fare better economically and politically than those of Oriental descent, says CIA report (Photo: David Rubinger)

Photo: David Rubinger

The CIA on ethnic tensions in Israel

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Posted By richards on February 6, 2017

Getty Images

Interfaith connection not just about Ashkenazi Jews marrying WASPs.

I just read with interest that Hebrew College, in Massachusetts, has introduced the first-ever graduate school of Jewish Education to establish a specialization in our Masters Degree program and a standalone graduate certificate in Interfaith Families Jewish Engagement. IFJEs director is Keren McGinity, who also full if not especially scandalous disclosure edited an intermarriage-themed issue of the Journal of Jewish Identities that my own research appeared in. The program at Hebrew College is now taking applications.

What excites me most about the new initiative is its focus, as McGinity puts it in her program goals, on the ways in which case studies of intermarried Jews and their loved ones can be used to debunk popular culture and stereotypes. While the intermarriage conversation needs a dose of inclusivity, it also, at least as urgently, needs one of modernity.

Perceptions of intermarriage have a way of lagging behind realities. The implied partner is, all too often, a generic representative of mainstream society. White and Christian. Probably a country club WASP. Blythe Danner will play the mother-in-law in the film version. The assumption, usually implicit, is that the Jewish partner (an Ashkenazi, US-born man; do Jews come in other varieties or something?) is the one in the couple with the marginalized identity, as though there could only ever possibly be one.

In life, in the US today, Jews of course marry people of all religious and ethnic backgrounds, including non-Jewish people of color, and including people from other minority religions. Or dont marry, as the case may be: If you want to feel uncomfortable and upset, read Lilian Obens recent Modern Love column about an interfaith romance gone sour: I thought maybe the worst was over, but he went on to state the obvious that I was black and not Jewish. Dude sounds delightful.

For every Jewish family concerned about an intermarriage being the end of a family tradition, theres a non-Jewish family with traditions of its own. Traditions that may involve Christmas trees and reserved passive-aggression following copious scotch consumption, but that just as well might not. If the non-Jewish partner is Buddhist or Muslim, Hmong or Igbo, the usual narrative falls apart. Less urgent, but still important: Even white Christians particularly those whove recently immigrated have specific cultural practices they may not wish to chuck. Not white Christian practices (argh) but, say, Italian or Swedish ones, or Mormon ones, or you get the idea.

The Jewish intermarriage conversation needs to acknowledge that non-Jewish partners are multidimensional human beings, not abstract embodiments of Threat to Jewish Peoplehood. This means welcoming non-Jews into Jewish life, but also accepting that even interfaith families raising Jewish children will be passing along specific cultural traditions from the non-Jewish parent as well.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy edits the Sisterhood, and can be reached at bovy@forward.com. Her book, The Perils of Privilege, will be published by St. Martins Press in March 2017.

The Forward's independent journalism depends on donations from readers like you.

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Posted By richards on February 6, 2017

Every morning when I walk my son Teddy to the subway station at the corner of St. Nicholas Avenue and 145th Street in our Hamilton Heights neighborhood in Harlem, we pass a sea of young men and woman making their way from the trains toward City College.

Founded as the Free Academy of the City of New York in 1847, it was established to provide children of immigrants and the poor access to free higher education based on academic merit alone, according to the colleges website.

Liza Schoenfein

Alexander Hamiltons home, The Grange, with City College towering in the background.

After I wish Teddy a good day at school I turn toward home, walking with the tide of young people carrying backpacks; kids with faces so diverse the school boasts a student body that represents over 150 nations.

They are all on their way to an institution of higher learning thats turned out more Nobel Laureates than any other public college or university in the United States a number of whom were Jewish, including Arthur Kornberg for physiology/medicine in 1959, Herbert A. Hauptman for chemistry in 1985 and Leon M. Lederman for physics in 1988. (In the early 1900s, as the number of Jewish students grew as a result of the migration of Ashkenazi Eastern Europeans to New York, the school did away with mandatory chapel attendance.)

This morning, our path was decorated with messages, one after another, written in colorful chalk on the sidewalk messages of hope and peace and protest and inclusion. I tried to catch them all. Heres what I saw.

Liza Schoenfein

We Are Lucky To Have Each Other

Liza Schoenfein

Freedom Demands Justice

Liza Schoenfein

In the immortal words of Lin-Manuel Miranda, Love Is Love Is Love Is Love Is Love

Liza Schoenfein

Immigrants and Refugees Make Us the Country We Are

Liza Schoenfein

Hate Has No Home Here. Immigrants Do.

Liza Schoenfein

Alexander Hamilton himself (left) keeping an eye on the activity.

Liza Schoenfein is food editor of the Forward. Contact her at schoenfein@forward.com or on Twitter, @LifeDeathDinner

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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On My Morning Walk, Chalk Messages Mark Path of Hope for Immigrants to City College - Forward

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