Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By simmons on May 7, 2016

New York, NY, October 25, 2011 Growing connections, overlapping cultures and increasing crossover between outlaw motorcycle gangs and white supremacist groups have created a disturbing new trend the formation of explicitly white supremacist biker gangs, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

In a new report, Bigots on Bikes: The Growing Links between White Supremacists and Biker Gangs, ADL found that increased social and criminal connections between the two movements have led to the formation of these gangs, which are either independently operated or subsidiaries of larger white supremacist groups.

The most common, and visually obvious, pathways between the two groups can be found in their shared use of symbols from Nazi Germany, such as swastikas, SS lightning bolts, and Nazi war eagles. The groups also share a similar language, especially when discussing brotherhood and loyalty, as well as similar rituals, especially those related to recruitment and orientation. Thus, as subcultural overlaps between the two movements have increased, actual connections between them have also increased, manifesting themselves both in crossover membership as well as in new biker groups that are explicitly white supremacist.

"Though they are still small, the appearance of these groups is cause for concern," said Deborah Lauter, ADL Civil Rights Director. "The white supremacist movement and the outlaw biker movement both engage in considerable violence and criminal activity. The more people from the two movements who cooperate and join forces, the more dangerous both movements can become."

These white supremacist biker gangs are primarily located in the Sunbelt Region (Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Arizona and California) and the Midwest (Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and Missouri). The following are some examples of these gangs:

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.

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Press Release - ADL

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Posted By richards on May 5, 2016

(Photo: Christopher Anderson/Magnum Photos/New York Magazine)

By last spring, the atmosphere at school board meetings had become angry and bombastic. One activist parent had compared board members to Pontius Pilate; behind closed doors, one board member called another a moral degenerate. The chairman, an Orthodox family attorney named Daniel Schwartz, decided to escalate the fight by giving a speech denouncing anti-Semitism in the district. Elementary-school children, he said, were telling their teachers that they hated the Jews; high-school students were appearing before the board and questioning its moral authority. He cited St. Augustines instruction that Jews could be tolerated but not accepted, a sentiment that he said was alive in Auschwitz and the crematoria of Treblinka and that was alive in Ramapo today. The districts demographics, he said, werent changing; the Hasidim could not be wished away. You dont like it? Schwartz told the audience. Find another place to live.

This past winter, my wife and I flew to Miami for the long weekend with our infant daughter. Shortly after we got on the plane, a family in Hasidic dress boardeda mother, a father, and nine children. Just a generation ago, secular Jews like my mother tended to regard the Hasidim as peculiar but unimportant, a discarded evolutionary branch. To be Jewish now, though, is to exist in some relation to the ultra-Orthodox. The Hasidic family filed into their seats, occupying one full row of the plane and spilling politely into two others. Here, in my family, was Judaisms German-socialist strain, so relaxed about integration and intermarriage that it had reduced itself to a generation, my daughters, containing exactly 0.25 Jews. There, a row away, was the ultra-Orthodox strain, 36 times as successful. I felt a twinge of tribal guilt, that simply through reproduction I had abandoned an important fight. In some final accountingin the accounting that has been rapidly transforming Israelall politics is biology.

Ill give you your story in one word, a Hasidic real-estate developer named Shaya Glick told me when we met in the lounge of a Holiday Inn in Ramsey, New Jersey, a few miles from Monsey. His companion, also Hasidic, rolled his eyeshed heard the shtick before. One word, Glick insisted. Demographics.

Glick moved here from Brooklyn when he was a boy, and he can trace the communitys transformation over the past three decades. Where there were once horse farms, there are now large townhouse developments all up and down Route 306. Each shopping center has been reoriented: Gone are bars and Pathmarks, replaced by Judaica stores and kosher supermarkets. Glick had recently looked at a commercial property for sale in downtown Monsey. During each weekday, 22,000 cars passed by the store; on Saturday, when Orthodox Jews do not drive, there were only 4,000. The area has been so completely altered that on Saturdays, Hasidim will simply walk to shul in the middle of the road because there is such little danger of any motor vehicle passing.

The few converts to Hasidism here are rare enough to be objects of community fascination: The beatific, blond German in the Satmar matzo factory, the Puerto Rican with payess. Mostly, the growth has come from within. Demographers estimate that Hasidic families average more than five children, and one 2011 study put the average at 7.8. Sometimes it seems as if everyone is making plans for the coming population swell. When I toured a new Orthodox yeshiva in Spring Valley, its administrator showed me the schools vast, 8,000-square-foot ballroom, complete with ornate molding and chandeliers, that he hoped to rent out for weddings and bar mitzvahs.

One way to think about the villages of Ramapo is as a mature stage in an experiment begun a half-century ago, by a rabbi named Joel Teitelbaum. Before World War II, Teitelbaum had been the chief rabbi of a Romanian village called Satu Mare, and after he was liberated from Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, he made his way to Brooklyn, where he started to accumulate followers among the other Holocaust refugees.

Teitelbaum had an acute sense of the demonic, a conviction that the world around him was abundant with false promises of salvation. Even in Romania, he had been an advocate of Jewish separatism, but in the aftermath of the Shoah, this message had a particular appeal. Separatism was of such importance, Teitelbaum would say, quoting an older rabbi, that even if a city had no wicked Jews, it would be worthwhile to pay some wicked Jews to come and live there so that the good Jews would have something to separate themselves from.

In the early seventies, Teitelbaums followers bought empty farmland in Orange County, half an hour north of Monsey, and then in 1977 petitioned the New York State Legislature to make their acreage a village, a discrete political unit named Kiryas Joel, after Teitelbaum. In a jurisdiction as small as this, with a community committed to voting together as a bloc, the Satmar could use local politics to control their own government, free themselves of outside interference, and shape a miniature society. Soon, small as it was, Kiryas Joel became a powerful force in state politics, according to David Myers, a UCLA historian who has studied the community extensively. The community that formed there was, in many respects, more insular, more homogeneous, and more exclusive than the European shtetl.

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Them and Them - New York Magazine - NYMag.com

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Posted By simmons on May 2, 2016

A final comment for the day directed at our trolls.

You're right. We're a bunch of uneducated, racist bigotted bogans.

Not by definition of course, but because you say so.

How wrong of us to use islamic doctrine as reasoning for our concerns. How wrong it is to back this up by presenting examples of how it has influenced people to behave. We are indeed, just as bad as the terrorists, simply for finding solace in a facebook page.

Get real.

The days of trying to reason with you are finished. Unlike your ridiculous terrorist-loving pages, we've many times provided you with the freedom to speak. We've many times presented points of views, facts, examples, and logical reasoning behind our cause, and each time has been responded with ignorance, lies, and hypocrisy.

Accordingly, we will just ban you as we see you. Clearly, there is no opportunity to reason with you.

We get that we are racist (by your definition), even though what we oppose is a religion, not a race.

We get that we are uneducated, bigotted bogans, despite you having proven this in yourself by calling us racists, defending terrorism, and demonstrating that you either don't know what you're talking about, or you're a muslim engaging in takiya.

If you're not a muslim and sincerely find it hard to believe us, consider buying a quran. Then google "allah akbar" and treat yourself to the many beheadings, stonings, burnings, hangings, and other islamic acts readily available on the internet.

We make no apology for our existence, our justified concerns, and our opposition to islam. We do not like it, and we don't want it to have any influence in our lives.

We do not care what you or your handful of tree-hugging cheese appreciating hippie friends that you invited here to troll & provide moral support, think.

We care about preserving the great Australian way of life, ahead of backward, barbaric ideology. Do please forgive us for that.

That moral high-ground you think you occupy, doesn't even exist.

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ADL (Australian Defence League) - Facebook

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Posted By admin on May 2, 2016

Learning more about B'nai B'rith Parkview Apts

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Posted By admin on May 2, 2016

Each May, EDSITEment celebrates Jewish American Heritage Month by pointing to the rich array of educational resources on the history of the Jewish people in America. Many of the programs and websites highlighted have been funded in part by grants from theNational Endowment for the Humanitiesover the past decades.

One of the most innovative ways for students to learn about the Jewish American experience of the early years of the 20th century is through Mission US 4: City of Immigrants, where players navigate New Yorks Lower East Side as Lena, a young Jewish immigrant from Russia. Trying to save money to bring her parents to America, she works long hours in a factory for little money and gets caught up in the growing labor movement.

The idea of America as both a haven and a home for the religious faiths of the myriad diverse groups who, over the centuries, have immigrated to the United States is one that deeply resonates with most Americans. The blessings of religious and political liberty that these immigrants found in America were captured eloquently inGeorge Washingtons letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport, Rhode Island in 1790. In this letter, Washington quotes a sentence from the Book of Micah of the Hebrew Bible:

May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitantswhile every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.

A few sentences earlier, Washington addresses American Jews as equal fellow citizens (the first time in history that any national leader had done so):

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

Washington's letter was in response to one written by Moses Seixas, Warden of the Jeshuat Israel Synagogue in Rhode Island. The principles of civil and religious liberty extolled in this letter and embodied in our Constitution encouraged and rewarded active participation in the social, political, and cultural life of the nation with results that will be celebrated in this feature.

A brief history of the Jewish American religious experience in the 19th and 20th centuries can be found in Divining America: Religion in American History from the National Humanities Center.

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A good place to begin if one wants to understand Jewish life in America would beThe Jewish Americans, broadcast on PBS stations and partially funded byNEH. The series website offers a treasure trove of video clips, images, and student interactives on such topics as:

A related NEH-funded website,Jews in America: Our Story,documents the growth of the Jewish community from a group of 23 refugees fleeing from the Portuguese Inquisition in 1654. This comprehensive website on the history and culture includes an interactive historical timeline, with a gallery of over five hundred artifacts drawn from the library, archival, and museum collections of the Center for Jewish History and its partners.

The Humanities magazine article Jewish Pioneers tells the stories of the new lives that European Jews made for themselves west of the Mississippi in the 19th century. According to one scholar there wasnt a single settlement west of the Mississippi of any significance which had not had a Jewish mayor in 1900.

Back to Top

Over the years, NEH has supported the production of many episodes of the long-running series American Experience. Whether the programs are devoted to well-known figures such as Emma Goldman, the passionate radical, or on the long forgotten New York lawyer,Samuel Leibowitz, who defended the Scottsboro boys, the American Experience website offers new and often surprising insights into the diverse roles that Jewish Americans played in the larger national story.

Another PBS program on American historyThe People v. Leo Franktells the story of the most famous lynching of a white man in American history. According to the program, there were two conflicting legacies of the Frank case, one was the revival of the Klu Klux Klan as an anti-Semitic outfit and the other was the establishment of the Anti-Defamation League as defender of civil rights and social justice for all Americans.

Back to Top

The Holocaust is one of the greatest tragedies in modern history. Its enormity is difficult for students to comprehend, particularly if it is presented as a general historical event. One effective way of approaching this topic is for students to hear the testimony of individual survivors.Coming of Age in the Holocaust Coming of Age Nowis a free, interactive curriculum for middle and high-school students and their educators created by theMuseum of Jewish HeritageA Living Memorial to the Holocaustin New Yorkand Jewish Resistance Heritage Museum in Israel.

The Diary of Ann Frank remains a classic high school text. EDSITEments lessonsAnne Frank: One of Hundreds of Thousands andAnne Frank: Writeroffer opportunities for your students to examine the historical conditions which impelled Annes family to go into hiding and the writing strategy she employed.

PBSAmerican Mastersoffers rich resources for investigating the exemplary contributions of Jewish Americans to such fields as music, theatre, film, and television. Where would American music be without the dynamic rhythms ofLeonard BernsteinandAaron Copland,or the swinging melodies ofBenny Goodmanand his orchestra? American Theatre would be poorer without the complex characters and conflicts ofArthur Millers plays, the dazzling directing talent ofJerome RobbinsandHarold Clurmanand the brilliant actors developed underthe mentorship of Stella Adler. Similarly, listen to howAllen Ginsbergs life and poemsHowl and Kaddish inspired the counterculture of America in the midpoint of the century or howAnnie Leibovitzturned celebrity photography into an art. It may come as something of a surprise to discover that American Mastersalso produced a program on one of the greatest scientific thinkers of all time, Albert Einstein. Yet he surely deserves recognition in a series devoted to examining the lives, works, and creative processes of our most outstanding cultural artists.

Hank GreenbergandSandy Koufax, two Jewish Americans who excelled at the national pastime, are featured on the Ken Burns series Baseball. Further resources on these legends and other players can be found on Chasing Dreams Baseball and Becoming Americanfrom the National Museum of American Jewish History.

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Jewish American Heritage Month 2016 | EDSITEment

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Posted By richards on May 2, 2016

Each May, EDSITEment celebrates Jewish American Heritage Month by pointing to the rich array of educational resources on the history of the Jewish people in America. Many of the programs and websites highlighted have been funded in part by grants from theNational Endowment for the Humanitiesover the past decades.

One of the most innovative ways for students to learn about the Jewish American experience of the early years of the 20th century is through Mission US 4: City of Immigrants, where players navigate New Yorks Lower East Side as Lena, a young Jewish immigrant from Russia. Trying to save money to bring her parents to America, she works long hours in a factory for little money and gets caught up in the growing labor movement.

The idea of America as both a haven and a home for the religious faiths of the myriad diverse groups who, over the centuries, have immigrated to the United States is one that deeply resonates with most Americans. The blessings of religious and political liberty that these immigrants found in America were captured eloquently inGeorge Washingtons letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport, Rhode Island in 1790. In this letter, Washington quotes a sentence from the Book of Micah of the Hebrew Bible:

May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitantswhile every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.

A few sentences earlier, Washington addresses American Jews as equal fellow citizens (the first time in history that any national leader had done so):

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

Washington's letter was in response to one written by Moses Seixas, Warden of the Jeshuat Israel Synagogue in Rhode Island. The principles of civil and religious liberty extolled in this letter and embodied in our Constitution encouraged and rewarded active participation in the social, political, and cultural life of the nation with results that will be celebrated in this feature.

A brief history of the Jewish American religious experience in the 19th and 20th centuries can be found in Divining America: Religion in American History from the National Humanities Center.

Back to Top

A good place to begin if one wants to understand Jewish life in America would beThe Jewish Americans, broadcast on PBS stations and partially funded byNEH. The series website offers a treasure trove of video clips, images, and student interactives on such topics as:

A related NEH-funded website,Jews in America: Our Story,documents the growth of the Jewish community from a group of 23 refugees fleeing from the Portuguese Inquisition in 1654. This comprehensive website on the history and culture includes an interactive historical timeline, with a gallery of over five hundred artifacts drawn from the library, archival, and museum collections of the Center for Jewish History and its partners.

The Humanities magazine article Jewish Pioneers tells the stories of the new lives that European Jews made for themselves west of the Mississippi in the 19th century. According to one scholar there wasnt a single settlement west of the Mississippi of any significance which had not had a Jewish mayor in 1900.

Back to Top

Over the years, NEH has supported the production of many episodes of the long-running series American Experience. Whether the programs are devoted to well-known figures such as Emma Goldman, the passionate radical, or on the long forgotten New York lawyer,Samuel Leibowitz, who defended the Scottsboro boys, the American Experience website offers new and often surprising insights into the diverse roles that Jewish Americans played in the larger national story.

Another PBS program on American historyThe People v. Leo Franktells the story of the most famous lynching of a white man in American history. According to the program, there were two conflicting legacies of the Frank case, one was the revival of the Klu Klux Klan as an anti-Semitic outfit and the other was the establishment of the Anti-Defamation League as defender of civil rights and social justice for all Americans.

Back to Top

The Holocaust is one of the greatest tragedies in modern history. Its enormity is difficult for students to comprehend, particularly if it is presented as a general historical event. One effective way of approaching this topic is for students to hear the testimony of individual survivors.Coming of Age in the Holocaust Coming of Age Nowis a free, interactive curriculum for middle and high-school students and their educators created by theMuseum of Jewish HeritageA Living Memorial to the Holocaustin New Yorkand Jewish Resistance Heritage Museum in Israel.

The Diary of Ann Frank remains a classic high school text. EDSITEments lessonsAnne Frank: One of Hundreds of Thousands andAnne Frank: Writeroffer opportunities for your students to examine the historical conditions which impelled Annes family to go into hiding and the writing strategy she employed.

PBSAmerican Mastersoffers rich resources for investigating the exemplary contributions of Jewish Americans to such fields as music, theatre, film, and television. Where would American music be without the dynamic rhythms ofLeonard BernsteinandAaron Copland,or the swinging melodies ofBenny Goodmanand his orchestra? American Theatre would be poorer without the complex characters and conflicts ofArthur Millers plays, the dazzling directing talent ofJerome RobbinsandHarold Clurmanand the brilliant actors developed underthe mentorship of Stella Adler. Similarly, listen to howAllen Ginsbergs life and poemsHowl and Kaddish inspired the counterculture of America in the midpoint of the century or howAnnie Leibovitzturned celebrity photography into an art. It may come as something of a surprise to discover that American Mastersalso produced a program on one of the greatest scientific thinkers of all time, Albert Einstein. Yet he surely deserves recognition in a series devoted to examining the lives, works, and creative processes of our most outstanding cultural artists.

Hank GreenbergandSandy Koufax, two Jewish Americans who excelled at the national pastime, are featured on the Ken Burns series Baseball. Further resources on these legends and other players can be found on Chasing Dreams Baseball and Becoming Americanfrom the National Museum of American Jewish History.

Back to Top

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Jewish American Heritage Month 2016 | EDSITEment

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Posted By richards on May 1, 2016

Rabbi TobaSpitzer

Id like to share with you a Hasidic teaching that I talked about 11 years ago on Yom Kippur (just in case any of you have really good memories). Ive decided that after 10 years Im allowed to recycle a teaching! Its good environmental practice, so that we dont have an overflow of rabbinic words clogging up theatmosphere.

But seriously, its a beautiful and important teaching, and worthwhile to bring again. And this year I see some new things in it. This teaching comes from Rabbi Simcha Bunem of Pershyscha. It was said of Reb Simcha Bunem that he carried two slips of paper, one in each pocket. On one he wrote: Bishvili nivra ha-olamfor my sake the world was created. On the other he wrote: Vanokhi afar veferI am but dust and ashes. He would take out each slip of paper as necessary, as a reminder tohimself.

I think the notion of these two slips of paper can be very helpful to us in our work of teshuvah. The two pockets suggest a kind of balance that we need to achieve, as we walk through this world. You may want to think about which pocket you need to look into this Yom Kippur. My suggestion would be to look into the one that feels a bit difficult, or alien. The one that is less natural toyou.

Some of us are quite comfortable with the idea that the world was created for our sake. Maybe its hard to admit, but if you carry yourself with a certain sense of entitlement, an expectation that the worlds doors should open easily before you, if you tend to think that most of the time youre right and the world around you is getting it wrong, then perhaps its time to spend a little time in the dust and ashespocket.

Dust and ashes helps cut through our arrogance; our conviction that were always right or that we need to be right. It helps put our life and our ego in perspective. Its a really important reminder to think about how much of lifes bounty we really are entitled to, and do we perhaps enjoy a far greater share than any one person might reasonably expect. Once we have that realization, its amazing how generosity and abundance can open up in our hearts and in ourlives.

Vanokhi afar veferI am but dust and ashesis also a call to an awareness of our finite-ness, our mortality, our smallness in the cosmic scheme of things. If this thought frightens you, then that might be another reason to spend some time in this pocket. We all struggle so mightily against this reality, and that struggle causes us a lot suffering. To know that really truly we are of this earth, that we will one day return to this earth, and that ultimately thats okay, is a real spiritual achievement. Its a reminder that it is a great gift to just to be alive each day. Its something tocultivate.

But there are those of us for whom the dust and ashes pocket is a bit to familiar, who live with this awareness to an excessive degree. Those of us who never attend to our own needs, who are constantly putting ourselves down, feeling worthless, small, as if we and our lives amount to very littleindeed.

If that is your tendency, then your challenge over these next 24 hours is to dive into the pocket of for my sake was the world created. This pocket reminds us that we are all created in the image of God. It is a reminder that as bnei Adam, children of the first human, our inheritance is all the blessings of Creation. This world is here for us,too.

There is another Hasidic teaching, brought by Martin Buber, that echoes thismessage:

Every person should know and consider the fact that you, in the particular way that you are made, are unique in the world, and no one like you has ever been. For if someone like you had already been, there would be no reason for you to be in this world. Actually, everyone is something new in this world, and here we must work to perfect our particular being, for because we are still imperfect, the coming of the Messiah is delayed! (Ten Rings: Hasidic Sayings, MartinBuber)

For those of us who spend too much time in the dust and ashes pocket, we may forget that we are unique and necessary creations. For our sake the world was created. And not only thatwe each have our own particular work to do. Our task is not to become someone else, not to achieve what the people we are forever comparing ourselves to are achieving. No, each of our tasks is to simply become our full selveswhat is called here perfecting our particular being. Not being perfectthere is no such thing. But doing what it is that we are put here to do, that which is unique to each of us. Each of us has some work to do in this world, something to repair, that only we can do. To ignore or shirk that task by pleading our own incompetence or unworthiness is a kind of affront to God, to the Source ofCreation.

Shame can be a very great obstacle on the road to teshuvah. It is not the same as taking responsibility. Each of us needs to take responsibility for what we have done right, and what we have done wrong. But the kind of shame that cuts at our very sense of self, that convinces us that we have nothing to offer, or that well only mess up if we try make our offeringthat is the voice of doubt, the negative urge that keeps us off our path. When it rises in your mind, in your heart, pull out this piece of paper, and say to it, Bishvili nivra ha-olamfor my sake the world wascreated!

And if you are not sure what your particular gift to this world is, then perhaps over this coming day you can look for it within yourself. What is the task to complete that is especially and uniquely yours? What are the qualities within yourself that you will need to cultivate to complete thattask?

Most of us, I would imagine, fall somewhere between these two pockets, sometimes knowing that the world was created for my sake, sometimes feeling like dust and ashes. It is good to move back and forth between the two pockets, as Reb Simcha Bunem used to do. And perhaps best of all is to experience both at the same time: the radical humility of dust and ashes, and the acceptance and love of self of the world was created for my sake. We can spend this Yom Kippur seeking that integration, trying to cultivate both of these qualities within ourselves. May each of us find the balance that will allow us to walk through this world gently but powerfully, offering each of our gifts to the task of creating a world of wholeness, andpeace.

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Two Pockets | Congregation Dorshei Tzedek

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Posted By richards on May 1, 2016

Nelida Ortiz

More reading on Sephardic Jews

RE: "Tracing roots of Sephardic Jews of Spain," April 17

Recently, Herb Canales wrote a forum with Jackie Ben-Efraim on the Sephardic Jews and the Carvajal family. Luis Carvajal was a "converso," one of the Spanish Jews who adopted the Catholic faith under pressure from the Spanish Inquisition.

If anyone is interested in learning more about this time period and this remarkable man, I recommend that they read a book in the genealogy reference section of the La Retama Central library. This book tells the story of the Carvajal family and how the Inquisition killed most of the members of the family. The book is called "The Carvajal Family, The Jews and The Inquisition" and was written by Alfonso Toro.

Editor's Note: An earlier version of this letter included incorrect information about the founder of Monterrey. Diego de Montemayor was the founder.

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Posted By admin on April 27, 2016

Combating Hate: Domestic Extremism & Terrorism

April2,2004

Over the past two years, what began as a small collection of racist skinheads in Stratford, Connecticut, has grown into the largest and most active extremist group in the state. Known as the Connecticut White Wolves, the group describes itself as a "white nationalist skinhead organization" and promotes an ideology espousing hatred of Jews and racial and ethnic minorities. Members, though typically young, have been involved in a number of criminal acts in Connecticut and have forged ties with nationally recognized hate groups, including the National Alliance, the Creativity Movement, White Revolution and the Ku Klux Klan.

The White Wolves were founded by Kenneth and Matthew Zrallack, two brothers from Stratford. Ken Zrallack is the White Wolves' recognized leader, although the group initially made its presence known in the community in 2002, after Matthew Zrallack and another student appeared on the cover of Stratford High School's 2002 yearbook giving a Nazi salute. Around that time, the Zrallack brothers and a few of their friends set up a White Wolves Web site and an Internet message board called "The White Order" to attract new recruits and spread their message.

Although based in Connecticut, the White Wolves have not limited their activities to that state. From the group's inception (ostensibly on April 20, Adolf Hitler's birthday), members have sought to expand the group's influence and attract new members outside of Connecticut by traveling to other parts of the country and reaching out to established hate groups. In August 2002, the White Wolves attended a rally in Washington, D.C., to protest U.S. support for Israel that was sponsored by the neo-Nazi National Alliance.

The following year, the group took part in "White Unity Fest," a racist event held by the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Osceola, Indiana, and participated in a cross burning. White Revolution member Mark Martin described Ken Zrallack and his group in Osceola: "Shortly after I arrived I met Ken and his Whitewolves from CT. Talk about a brilliant display in their black T-shirts, black pants, red suspenders and boot laces! Meeting Ken was truly one of the high points of the weekend. We had communicated several times over the last month and his motivation, determination and yes, tattoos, came through loud and clear"

Two months later, in October 2003, members of the White Wolves joined an anti-immigrant rally at Liberty State Park in New Jersey organized by white supremacist radio talk show host Hal Turner.

The group's attempt to link to other hate groups paid off in 2003 when Kenneth Zrallack, recruited by Mark Martin, was named the Connecticut contact for White Revolution, an Arkansas-based neo-Nazi group with regional chapters throughout the country. "We are now part of an elite force," Zrallack proclaimed. This new position provided Zrallack with the opportunity to enhance the groups' contacts among other like-minded racists locally and nationally.

In Connecticut, the White Wolves have gained notoriety for a series of assaults and other crimes. In September 2002, Hamden police responded to an incident at a bar involving Arthur Legere, a member of the White Wolves. Legere and two other men, including Louis Wagner, a Grand Titan for the Connecticut White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, allegedly made threats against bar patrons. By the time police arrived, Legere had struck a customer in the head with a pair of brass knuckles. Legere was arrested and charged with second degree assault, breach of peace and carrying a dangerous weapon. In April 2003, Legere was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison (the White Wolves consider him to be a "prisoner of war"). No charges were filed against Wagner or his companion.

Legere's arrest was just the first of several run-ins between the White Wolves and local law enforcement. On May 21, 2003, several White Wolves tried to disrupt a meeting of a lesbian and gay rights group at the Stratford public library by chanting and holding up signs that read "Homosexuality Is a Sin," and "No Way Will CT Turn Gay." After being ordered by Stratford police to leave, Matt Zrallack was arrested for grabbing a plainclothes officer by the throat. Zrallack was convicted on third degree assault and breach of peace in January 2004, and sentenced to six months in prison with an additional three years probation. At his trial, Zrallack denied membership in the White Wolves and claimed he did not share his brother's beliefs.

Another White Wolf, Brian Staehly of West Haven, currently awaits trial on charges of bias intimidation and second degree mischief stemming from an incident in Trumbull in September 2003. Local police, responding to a noise complaint at an underage party, witnessed several white teenagers surround a car containing two African-Americans and their white friend. When the car attempted to pull away, Staehly punched out the rear window with his fist, according to police. Staehly faces up to three years in prison if convicted.

In December 2003 in West Haven, after receiving a call from a woman who complained that her neighbors had yelled racial slurs at her, police showed up at the scene and identified several members of the White Wolves; one member was cited for breach of peace and interfering with police officers, but was later released. Fliers and other materials from Resistance Records, a distributor of racist records, were found at the scene.

Like other established hate groups, the White Wolves promote their hateful ideology through leafleting neighborhoods with white supremacist propaganda. Over Valentine's Day weekend in 2004, numerous local businesses and residences in Milford and Stratford were leafleted with fliers promoting the Wolves' ally, White Revolution.

The Wolves have also shown up at events not normally associated with racist skinheads, including anti-war protests, assemblies held by regional civil rights' committees and other community meetings in Connecticut. In several instances, members of the National Alliance and the Creativity Movement also took part in these events. The Wolves did not gain any converts through these efforts, but garnered considerable publicity.

The White Wolves have received far greater media attention than most other racist skinhead groups, which unsettles Connecticut citizens who fear that the group is trying to recruit new members, especially in area schools. In response, local government and community groups in Stratford, Milford and Trumbull have taken steps to decry hate and reiterate that their communities are accepting of all people. These steps have included town council resolutions reiterating a commitment to acceptance, police training for officers from across the region, the creation of an anti-hate task force, community forums on issues of bigotry and discrimination, the creation of a "Declaration of Tolerance" for local residents to sign and anti-bias educational initiatives.

Despite these efforts, however, police and community leaders in Connecticut will likely continue to contend with ethnic and racial tensions created by the White Wolves.

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Posted By admin on April 25, 2016

The Woodland School in East Meadow Advocacy Summit, Congressman Steve Israel

About

ADLs New York Region unites Long Island residents who are dedicated to fulfilling ADLs mission: to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.The Long Island Advisory Committee leads this effort and helps implement multiple programs and engagement events throughout the year.

ADL Long Island Programs

ADL is empowering middle school, high school, and college students to combat and respond to anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias through ourWords to Action programs.Most recently, we facilitated programs at Temple Sinai in Roslyn, The Barry & Florence Friedberg JCC,The CHAI Center in Dix Hills, Shelter Rock Jewish Center and Central Synagogue in Rockville Centre.

ADLsA WORLD OF DIFFERENCE Institute is a leader in the development and delivery of anti-bias and anti-bullying training for pre-kindergarten through 12th grade students, educators and families. In addition, our No Place For Hate initiative creates inclusive communities and empowers schools to challenge all forms of bigotry.

No Place for Hate is featured in the Great Neck Record!

We are currently working with the following Long Island Schools:

Are you affiliated with a school, synagogue or JCC that would welcome ADLs educational programming? Please let us know.

Law Enforcement and Society (LEAS)

Law Enforcement and Society (LEAS) is an innovative training that increases law enforcement personnels understanding of their roles as protectors of the American people and the Constitution. ADL, in partnership with the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County, trains officers and recruits from the Nassau and Suffolk County Police Academies.

Long Island Advisory Committee

The Long Island Advisory Committeeempowers local supporters to serve as ambassadors for the ADL through: meaningful educational and service opportunities, relationship-building with community leaders, and programmatic expansion throughout the region; in addition to contributing to the advancement of ADLs mission through philanthropic leadership.

The Long Island Advisory Committee is led by Chair,Louis P. Karol and Vice-Chair, Julia Fenster.

To get involved with the committee or to learn more about ADLs expansion on Long Island, please contact Gabrielle Carlin Sherb, Director of Development at gcarlinsherb@adl.org or 212.885.7985.

ADL Long Island Events

The ADL hosts a number of events throughout Long Island during the calendar year, some in partnership with local institutions. ADL on Long Island, our annual community outreach event takes place in the spring and brings together hundreds of ADL supporters. Click here for photos from the 2015 event.

Our other main event, is Cocktails and Conversations with ADL. This event takes place in the fall and is an intimate gathering for ADL supporters. This years event was held at the David Filderman Gallery at Hofstra University in partnership with Hofstra Hillel. The topic wasConfronting Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israel Bias on Campus. Click here for photos.

Upcoming Events

May 18, 2016: ADL on Long Island, Engineers Country Club (Roslyn)

Join our mailing list to learn more about upcoming events

Past Events

January 24, 2016: Screening of the nationally acclaimed film Rock in the Red Zone with Jewish Without Walls (JWOW) at the Cinema Arts Center, Huntington

December 2, 2015:The Status of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS), an International Campaign to Deligitimize Israel: A Conversation with Susan Heller Pinto, Oceanside Jewish Center.

November 9, 2015:ADL partners with The Torah Restoration Project for a Kristallnacht Commemoration and Re-Dedication of a Holocaust Torah Scroll

October 27, 2015: Confronting Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israel Bias on Campus. Cocktails and Conversations with ADL at the David Filderman Gallery, Hofstra University Museum. Jointly presented with Hofstra Hillel.

July 29, 2015: Words to Action with Hofstra University Hillel

April 30, 2015: ADL on Long Island first annual Spring outreach event.

April 19, 2015: ADL participates in A Night of Unity, in response to an off-campus incident involving Commack High School students. See ADL press release here.

March 29, 2015: ADL led a discussion with Second Generation Holocaust Survivors at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County

March 24, 2015: Evan Bernstein speaker presentation at Temple Am Echad in Lynbrook

March 11, 2015: Frank Meeink: A Former Skinheads Fight Against Prejudice

Cosponsored with Hofstra Hillel, JCRCLI, Hofstra Cultural Center and Ask Big Questions

February 24, 2015: ADL Becoming An Ally: Responding to Name-Calling and Bullying Behaviors teacher training at Hofstra University

To get involved with the Advisory Committee or to learn more about ADLs expansion on Long Island, please contact Gabrielle Carlin Sherb, Director of Development, at gcarlinsherb@adl.org or 212.885.7985

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