Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on May 13, 2014

NASHVILLE, Tenn. Three people were arrested for breaking into West End Synagogue after they were caught trying to sell the stolen items.

Around 1 a.m. Monday, police said the burglars broke into the Synagogue at 3810 West End Avenue. An affidavit said they stole more than $10,000 in silver decorations from inside the building.

When they attempted to sell the items at Cashville Gold and Siliver Buyers on Franklin Pike, the clerk called police.

Police arrested 26-year-old Justin Exum, 20-year-old Woodie Arendall, and 19-year-old Chelsie Roake. All three reportedly admitted to the crimes during interviews with detectives.

All of the items stolen during the break-in have been recovered.

Exum, Arendall, and Roake were charged with theft and burglary. All three were being held in lieu of $10,000 bond each. Police said Exum is a convicted felon with a previous cocaine possession conviction.

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3 Charged In West End Synagogue Burglary

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Posted By richards on May 13, 2014

NASHVILLE, TN (WSMV) -

Three people have been arrested in connection to a burglary at a Nashville synagogue, and members of the synagogue were able to help capture the people accused of the crime.

About $10,000 in silver religious ornaments was taken from West End Synagogue on Monday morning around 1 a.m.

Officials say three people then showed up to Cashville Gold and Silver Buyers on Franklin Pike on Monday afternoon and tried to sell the stolen items. What they didn't know is that they were being set up and were about to get a big surprise.

As soon as synagogue members Jerry Levine and Josh Levine had learned the sacred silver was stolen from their place of worship, they jumped into action.

"I was angry that somebody would do that," Jerry Levine said.

The Levines had even given one of the pieces to the temple.

"There was actually one that was donated to my grandparents from my great-grandparents in honor of their 50th wedding anniversary," Josh Levine said.

So the father and son pair, who have spent decades in the business of buying precious metal, alerted other gold and silver shops around Nashville just in case the crooks showed up to sell the stolen goods.

Sure enough, they got a call from another buyer.

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3 arrested in connection to burglary at Nashville synagogue

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Posted By richards on May 13, 2014

AVENTURA, Fla. -- Two and a half years ago David Bassan, a Venezuelan Sephardic Jew, was vacationing in Israel when a relative was kidnapped in Caracas while driving the car Bassan had loaned him.

The relative was released and Bassan quickly realized it could have been him. Shortly after, he moved with his wife and four children to the U.S., settling in the Miami suburb of Aventura.

That was the drop that spilled the glass, said Bassan, sipping an espresso at a local caf.

His decision to relocate was a culmination of events, which he blames primarily on the violence that has ravaged Venezuela. According to an April 2014 United Nations report on homicide around the globe, Venezuela is the only South American country with a "consistently increasing homicide rate since 1995."

There were approximately 2,000 Venezuelan Jews living in Miami-Dade County in 2004, according to a study conducted by Ira Sheskin, of the University of Miami. There is little doubt the number has increased significantly since then, said Sheskin, who will be releasing an updated report in October.

Venezuelas Jewish community has decreased by 60 percent during the past 12 years, according to the Federation of Jewish Institutions of Venezuela (CAIV). In the meantime, Miamis Venezuelan Jewish population has exploded.

Most Venezuelan Jews have settled around the area of Aventura, which already had a robust Jewish population with a network of synagogues and Jewish schools. According to Rabbi Ariel Yeshurun of Sky Lake Synagogue, their temple was really an old age home until flocks of young Venezuelans began arriving.

"You come here and you feel youre in a Latin Schul. You hear Spanish being spoken, said Yeshurun, who grew up in Israel. He said he will soon give his first sermon in Spanish; he speaks "un poco" and has been learning.

Rabbi Ariel Yeshurun of Aventura, Florida's Sky Lake Synagogue said their temple was really an old age home until flocks of young Venezuelans began arriving.

Last year the synagogue had to set up a tent to accomodate an additional 200 people during the high holidays. Now known as the Venezuelan synagogue, Sky Lake recently purchased two pieces of adjacent land to build another 30,000 square feet, including a social hall to accommodate up to one thousand people for weddings and bar-mitzvahs.

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Venezuelan Jewish Families Transform Miami Suburbs

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Posted By richards on May 13, 2014

AVENTURA, Fla. -- Two and a half years ago David Bassan, a Venezuelan Sephardic Jew, was vacationing in Israel when a relative was kidnapped in Caracas while driving the car Bassan had loaned him.

The relative was released and Bassan quickly realized it could have been him. Shortly after, he moved with his wife and four children to the U.S., settling in the Miami suburb of Aventura.

That was the drop that spilled the glass, said Bassan, sipping an espresso at a local caf.

His decision to relocate was a culmination of events, which he blames primarily on the violence that has ravaged Venezuela. According to an April 2014 United Nations report on homicide around the globe, Venezuela is the only South American country with a "consistently increasing homicide rate since 1995."

There were approximately 2,000 Venezuelan Jews living in Miami-Dade County in 2004, according to a study conducted by Ira Sheskin, of the University of Miami. There is little doubt the number has increased significantly since then, said Sheskin, who will be releasing an updated report in October.

Venezuelas Jewish community has decreased by 60 percent during the past 12 years, according to the Federation of Jewish Institutions of Venezuela (CAIV). In the meantime, Miamis Venezuelan Jewish population has exploded.

Most Venezuelan Jews have settled around the area of Aventura, which already had a robust Jewish population with a network of synagogues and Jewish schools. According to Rabbi Ariel Yeshurun of Sky Lake Synagogue, their temple was really an old age home until flocks of young Venezuelans began arriving.

"You come here and you feel youre in a Latin Schul. You hear Spanish being spoken, said Yeshurun, who grew up in Israel. He said he will soon give his first sermon in Spanish; he speaks "un poco" and has been learning.

Rabbi Ariel Yeshurun of Aventura, Florida's Sky Lake Synagogue said their temple was really an old age home until flocks of young Venezuelans began arriving.

Last year the synagogue had to set up a tent to accomodate an additional 200 people during the high holidays. Now known as the Venezuelan synagogue, Sky Lake recently purchased two pieces of adjacent land to build another 30,000 square feet, including a social hall to accommodate up to one thousand people for weddings and bar-mitzvahs.

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Caracas Jews find US home

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Posted By richards on May 13, 2014

By Gwynne Dyer

The Spanish parliament still has to pass the new citizenship law, but the cabinet has already approved it and Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardn is sure there wont be a problem. In Spain, a clear majority realize we have committed a historical error and have an opportunity to repair it, so I am sure that law will pass with an immense majority in parliament, he said.

Historical apologies are in fashion ex-South African president F.W. De Klerk apologized for apartheid, ex-British prime minister Tony Blair apologized for the slave trade and the Irish potato famine, and Pope John Paul II apologized for the Crusades, the Inquisition and the Churchs historical oppression of women.

But Spain isnt just saying sorry for expelling its Jews 522 years ago.

Its offering to give their descendants back their citizenship.

Spains Jews were given only four months in 1492 to choose between becoming Christian or leaving their homes forever. Most left, settling in Muslim-ruled North Africa and the Ottoman Empire or in other parts of Christian Europe. They kept their Spanish language in the form of Ladino Castilian written in the Hebrew script and became know as Sephardic (i.e. Spanish) Jews.

Ladino is now a dying language, but the Sephardim have retained their distinctive identity and are estimated to number up to a third of the worlds 13 million Jews today. Spains planned new law potentially covers almost all of them, for it is written very broadly.

Applicants for Spanish citizenship need not speak Ladino or even be religious. They need only be able to show a link to Sephardic culture (it could be as little as a Sephardic family name).

In most cases, however, the simplest route to Spanish citizenship would be to have a local rabbi certify their Sephardic ancestry, or to get certification of their Sephardic heritage from a recognized Spanish-Jewish community.

Spains justice minister reckons only about 150,000 Sephardic Jews will take him up on the offer (which will remain open for two years), and he doesnt think that many of them will actually want to move to Spain. But he promises the government will not be strict in deciding who qualifies as Sephardic We are opening the door, he said and he may be surprised by how many actually apply.

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Reclaiming Spains Jews

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Posted By richards on May 13, 2014

Two Dozen Adherents Move to Rural Village

getty images

Stranger and Stranger: Women in the Lev Tahor sectwear a burqa like uniform that has led some to call the group the Jewish Taliban.

Published May 12, 2014.

More members of the controversial haredi Orthodox sect Lev Tahor appear to have left Canada and are living in a shack in Guatemala.

Eight sect members two adults and six children fled Ontario to Guatemala in March ahead of a court hearing to determine whether the children should be placed in foster care. They appear to have been joined in the Central American country by at least 25 other Lev Tahor adherents, according to the Montreal Gazette.

A relative of the children told the newspaper that he recently travelled from Israel to see the family in the village of San Juan de Laguna, about two hours east of Guatemala City. He said he counted about 30 adults living in a two- or three-room shack.

The man referred to as K because a youth court has ordered the identities of the children to be protected spent the month of April in Guatemala tracking down his sister. He made several visits to the shack where the adults were living before he was finally permitted to speak with her.

Armed with a metal bar for protection, I told her that if she did not come out, I would break in. So she finally agreed to come outside and talk with me, the man told The Gazette through a Hebrew interpreter.

Through members of the local Jewish community in the village, K found out that the children were sleeping on the dirt floor of the shack, and that there is no plumbing. He said they receive barrels of fresh water once a week.

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Canadian Memebers of Lev Tahor Hasidic Sect Live in Guatemala Shack

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Posted By richards on May 13, 2014

MIAMI -

An estimated 500,000 South Floridians run the risk of having a baby with severe genetic disorders. However, knowing their risk factors in advance can play a major role in family planning.

"Looking back, it was one of the hardest things I had to do," said Shari Debowsky, who underwent genetic testing.

Debowsky is the proud mother of two healthy children, but there was a third. Several weeks into her first pregnancy, doctors discovered her baby had a fatal genetic defect.

"Because I had to terminate that pregnancy, everything I do now is based on what happened there," said Debowsky.

Debowsky devotes much of her time to the Victor Center at Miami Children's Hospital, which is dedicated to the prevention of Jewish diseases.

One in four people of Ashkenazi Jewish descent have a 25 percent chance of carrying one of 19 recognized gene mutations.

"Which means one four people are walking around with one of these genes but they don't know it because they're asymptotic, and they would only know if they're tested for it," said Dr. Parul Jayakar, a Miami Children's Hospital geneticist.

According to Jayakar, the risk of having a child born with defects from the gene mutations is 25 percent with each pregnancy.

"Generally these kids are born normally, then they have seizures, developmental delays, vision problems, can't walk and then death," said Jayakar.

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Ensuring your baby's health with genetic testing

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Posted By simmons on May 13, 2014

Ido Shoam feat. Axum - Yallah Balkan (Empty Ortal Israel Remix) LIKE SHARE FOR MORE FRESH MUSIC! SUBSCRIBE ALSO OUR NEW CHANNEL: http://youtube.com/ElectronicalCityTV FOLLOW US: Facebook: http://facebook.com/ElectronicalCityTV ELECTRONICAL... By: Electronical City TV

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Ido Shoam feat. Axum - Yallah Balkan (Empty & Ortal Israel Remix) - Video

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Posted By simmons on May 13, 2014

Anti-Semitism #39;Infects #39; One In Four People, Global Survey Finds A sweeping new survey has found only 54 percent of people polled globally are aware of the Holocaust and an alarming 32 percent of them believe the mass genocide of Jews was a myth or has... By: Newsloop Top News

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Anti-Semitism 'Infects' One In Four People, Global Survey Finds - Video

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Posted By simmons on May 13, 2014

Want a LIBERTARIAN PARADISE?

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Want a LIBERTARIAN PARADISE? Then Move To The GAZA STRIP - Video

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