Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on June 8, 2022

With a history of breast cancer in her family, Andrea Cronin has been careful to get annual mammograms since she was in her early 30s.

Like a lot of women, though, she skipped the test in 2020 due to the pandemic. She was relieved when her 2021 test came back negative, but she wanted more reassurance. Cronins mother was diagnosed with breast cancer 28 years ago, and the cancer has since metastasized to her stomach and bones. Cronin also has dense breasts, which can make reading a mammogram more difficult.

With my mothers history, I just wanted to be proactive, recalled Cronin, 47, who is from Haddonfield. My doctor suggested alternating mammograms and MRIs every six months.

This past January, Cronins MRI showed a tumor, which was confirmed by an ultrasound. She was diagnosed with stage II invasive ductal carcinoma.

Cronins hunch that she needed further testing paid off. Not waiting another year to find the cancer means her prognosis is good, said Zonera Ali, Cronins oncologist at the Lankenau Institute for Medical Research.

But her situation is unusual, her doctor and experts stressed.

Most patients cancers are picked up on the mammogram, but about twice a year I see a patient whose cancer is found through the MRI, said Ali. When cancers are detected earlier, chances of cure are much higher.

For Cronin, getting additional testing made sense, given her mothers bouts with breast cancer. But that is not advised for women without a family history of cancer. The increased sensitivity that MRIs offer can show something that looks like a problem but may not actually be a problem, said Richard Bleicher, leader of the Breast Cancer Program and professor of surgical oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center.

MRIs can result in three times more unnecessary biopsies than mammograms, he noted.

We end up doing a lot of biopsies, more testing and interval testing, and sometimes unnecessary surgeries that cause pain and discomfort for women, not to mention costs and anxiety, he said.

When Cronins cancer was detected, she was given the option of having a lumpectomy, in which just the lump and surrounding tissue would be removed, but opted to have both breasts removed in a double mastectomy, given her mothers history of recurrence.

This would require only one surgery and get me back into my life of dentistry quicker, Cronin said.

Her mother, Joyce Makarczyk, was first diagnosed with breast cancer through a routine mammogram in 1993, at the age of 46.

I was going to go for a second opinion but the doctor said it was an aggressive cancer so I shouldnt waste any time, recalled Makarcyzk, who lives in Mays Landing. Cancer was also discovered in her lymph nodes, so she had one breast removed, followed by chemotherapy and radiation.

About 10 years later, the cancer returned in her right breast. She had a lumpectomy and radiation and was cancer-free for five years. But then she started having stomach problems. The cancer had metastasized into her stomach and bones.

READ MORE: Maria Quiones-Snchez went public after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Now she begins the next chapter of her story. | Helen Ubias

Makarczyk, now 75, has taken the targeted therapy Ibrance ever since and has PET scans every six months. A couple of times, the scan showed cancer cells in her stomach, which were surgically removed.

Im feeling OK, she said. The cancer doesnt cause me any trouble at all.

During Cronins double mastectomy in March, cancer was found in one of the 11 lymph nodes tested. In late April, she started eight sessions of chemotherapy over four months, which will be followed by one month of radiation.

Once cancer escapes into the lymph nodes, the chance of that cancer going somewhere else is higher, said Ali. Especially in women below the age of 50, we recommend chemotherapy and post-mastectomy radiation.

After Cronins cancer diagnosis, her older sister Erica Toffenetti also is seeking additional screening.

The fact that my sister showed no symptoms, it wouldnt hurt to have these tests done for a baseline, said Toffenetti, 51, from Buena, N.J. Im feeling a little nervous but also more relieved. With my mother Ive been dealing with breast cancer more than half my life.

Toffenetti, who has two children, had genetic testing done in 2012 and again in 2019 as the testing became more advanced. Like her sister, she doesnt have the BRCA gene associated with higher risks of cancer.

Both sisters have dense breasts, as do nearly half of all women age 40 and older who get mammograms, according to the NIH. Dense breasts have relatively high amounts of glandular tissue and fibrous connective tissue, which make it more difficult to see potential tumors.

The American Cancer Society recommends mammograms as a choice for women aged 40 to 44. Women aged 45 to 54 should get a mammogram every year; and women 55 and older should switch to a mammogram every two years, or can continue yearly screening.

At this time, experts do not agree what other tests, if any, should be conducted in addition to mammograms in women with dense breasts, according to the American Cancer Society website.

ACS recommends mammograms for dense breasts without any other high-risk factors, said Karen E. Knudsen, chief executive officer of the American Cancer Society and former enterprise director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson Health.

When Renee Anderson, Cronins ob/gyn at Pennsylvania Hospital, sends mammogram results to patients with dense breasts, she includes an explanation of what it means.

In those cases, Anderson gives her patients the option for more testing, and about half, most often those with a family history of cancer, choose to have an MRI or ultrasound.

When you get a discrepancy like what you have with Andrea, it could have been missed because of dense breasts, she said. Or whats more worrisome is that you could have a very aggressive form of cancer that started quickly and is growing quickly.

READ MORE: The war on cancer at 50: How a socialite citizen-lobbyist started a movement

Cronin, whose cancer is slow growing, was fortunate that her insurance covered the MRI. Thats not the case for every woman. In 2020, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf signed into law legislation requiring insurers to cover breast MRIs or ultrasounds for women at increased risk of breast cancer. But the patient still may be responsible for co-pays and deductibles, which can be costly.

Anderson stressed that the most important form of self-care is seeing your gynecologist and having a mammogram annually, especially for older women. The ACS guidelines say screening should continue as long as a woman is in good health and is expected to live 10 more years or longer.

For some women as they get older, 50 and above, they dont think they need to come to a gynecologist, so nobody is doing an exam, she said.

Breast cancer is associated with the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, but just 0.25% of the general population who have breast cancer have the BRCA gene, said Ali, Cronins oncologist. That number jumps to 2.5% among Ashkenazi Jewish women.

With an 11-year-old daughter, Cronin was eager to have genetic testing. She was tested for 35 different genes related to an increased risk for certain cancers and was negative for all of them, including the BRCA genes.

Unfortunately, I feel that I still have to worry about her, because I dont have the gene but still got cancer, she said.

Cronin shared her experience in an email to her dental patients, alerting them to the fine print disclaimer at the bottom of some mammogram reports that says extreme breast density decreases the sensitivity of mammograms. Please discuss family history and any concerns with your provider.

So many patients have thanked me directly for being so transparent with them, Cronin said. Specifically, two patients told me that after sharing my emails, their mothers demanded more testing after first being told no. Its so important to be your own patient advocate.

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An MRI detected breast cancer in this Haddonfield woman. Should you consider having one? - The Philadelphia Inquirer

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Posted By admin on June 8, 2022

The future we are shaping now, is the past that we will share tomorrow. Former Swedish Prime Minister Gran Persson

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance unites governments and experts to strengthen, advance and promote Holocaust education, research and remembrance and to uphold the commitments to the 2000 Stockholm Declaration.

The IHRA (formerly the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research, or ITF) was initiated in 1998 by former Swedish Prime Minister Gran Persson. Today the IHRAs membership consists of 35 member countries, each of whom recognizes that international political coordination is imperative to strengthen the moral commitment of societies and to combat growing Holocaust denial and antisemitism.

The IHRAs network of trusted experts share their knowledge on early warning signs of present-day genocide and education on the Holocaust. This knowledge supports policymakers and educational multipliers in their efforts to develop effective curricula, and it informs government officials and NGOs active in global initiatives for genocide prevention.

Former Swedish Prime Minister Gran Persson speaks at the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust in 2000. IHRA

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About Us - A world that remembers the Holocaust | IHRA

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Posted By admin on June 8, 2022

When Mary McElveen was in seventh grade, a boy in her French class told her she shouldnt exist. Because she is Jewish. Because of the Holocaust. Because, to his mind, Hitler was right.

I dont remember what prompted him, McElveen explains, but he said to me, The Jews deserved it. They were taking over the government. Hitler did what he had to do to protect his people. He should have killed them all. You shouldnt be here.

McElveen was one of the only observant Jews at her small Charleston, S.C., school. She was offended. She was scared. She was also young and didnt know how to respond. I just sort of looked at him, she says. Im sure I didnt handle it well. Thankfully, my teacher intervened.

But when school administrators asked if she wanted them to pursue expulsion, McElveen declined. I said no because, at the end of the day, that would have caused more issues. Also, it would have taken away the opportunity for education, where we could learn from each other.

After the incident, the school revamped its curriculum to include more Holocaust literature. And while the boys attitude persisted, eventually, in 10th grade, he apologized. It was a small victory but, for McElveen, a meaningful one. I do think there was a change in him, she says. He said he recognized how terrible the things he said were, that he was immature. He went through a whole spiel.

Now a junior at the University of South Carolina and vice president for religious events and cultural programming with Hillel, the universitys Jewish student organization, McElveen is committed to peer education. Its one reason she took part in a training session at the Anne Frank Center, where she plans to become a docent.

The focus of the training is student-to-student education, McElveen says. As opposed to standing in front of a group and talking, its Lets start a conversation. Hopefully after someone has toured the Anne Frank Center, they can guide their own peers in discussions and have a ripple effect.

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Turning on the Light - UofSC News & Events - SC.edu

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Posted By admin on June 8, 2022

This was a lockdown project, Dov Forman said modestly in a video interview from the London home where he interviewed Lily Ebert, his 98-year-old great-grandmother, for several hours a day at the peak of the pandemic.

Those conversations, and her detailed, painful, heartbreaking and, later, meticulously fact-checked memories of surviving the Holocaust, are the basis of Lilys Promise, which debuted at No. 2 on the paperback nonfiction list. The book follows Ebert from her hometown in Hungary to Auschwitz (she fiercely protected two younger sisters after their mother and two other siblings were killed) and then to Switzerland and Israel, where she rebuilt her life after the war. Rebuilt doesnt adequately encompass the enormity of starting all over again as a young adult in an unfamiliar place with limited resources, and after surviving unimaginable atrocities.

Ebert had three children, and now has 10 grandchildren and 36 great-grandchildren. Forman, who is 18, described the queen of our family as being very much involved in everyones life, wanting to know what everyone is getting up to. The two were always close, even before Forman launched Ebert into social media stardom (her TikTok account has 1.9 million followers), so it made sense that he would help her keep a promise to tell the world what she had endured. Words can barely describe what happens next, Ebert writes of the journey to Auschwitz. But words are all I have.

For years, Ebert didnt talk about the Holocaust. It was always very hard for her to speak to her children; she never really did, Forman said. And then to her grandchildren, it was also very difficult. And then when it got to her great-grandchildren, it was less so. At 98, she has that urgency. She knows how important it is to transfer her testimony not only into history but from history into memory.

While other teenagers played video games and FaceTimed with friends, Forman recorded his great-grandmothers stories of hiding a beloved pendant in a piece of bread stashed in her armpit; of receiving a telegram from her long-lost older brother; of holding her first baby and missing her mother, who bravely lit candles in a field during their last Sabbath together.

The Holocaust survivors have lit their own lights, Forman said. They shone that light on the world for so many years. Now its our responsibility to continue to relight that candle.

Elisabeth Egan is an editor at the Book Review and the author of A Window Opens.

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Dov Forman Wants You to Know His Great-Grandmothers Holocaust Story - The New York Times

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Posted By admin on June 6, 2022

TUNIS, Tunisia The annual Jewish pilgrimage to El-Ghriba synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba has rekindled the popular and political debate over the issuance in Tunisia of a law criminalizing normalization with Israel.

The Palestinian cause is an issue that the majority of Tunisians support, even if this backing is often superficial.

In a May 26statement,the moderate Islamist Ennahda movement denounced what they claimed was the exploitation of the pilgrimage to El-Ghriba synagogue to officialize forms of normalization with Israel. Most Tunisians have expressed their rejection of normalization, as the minimum support they can offer the Palestinian people, the statement said.

Yet Ennahda said that it values coexistence between religions and respect for religious rituals.

On May 22, the Tunisian leftist Workers Party also issued a denouncing statement. It decried hosting those it described as symbols of normalization with the Zionist entity in Tunisia under the pretext of performance of religious rites, noting that a large part of the Jewish pilgrims came via direct flights from Tel Aviv.

In the same statement, the party lashed out at Tunisian Prime Minister Najla Bouden for posing for photos with Jewish pilgrims in Djerba, a move it described as a blatant disregard of the feelings of the Tunisian people and the brotherly Palestinian people.

Mohsen Arfaoui, member of theEchaab(People's) movement, which is close to President Kais Saied, and member of the now-suspended parliament, called on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Interior Ministry to clarify the entry of Israelis into Tunisia.

Speaking to Al-Monitor, Arfaoui blamed Saied for showing leniency in terms of normalization with Israel, especially since the president had equated normalization to high treason in his election campaign.

In aMay 19 statement, the Tunisian Popular Current (Tayyar Chaabi) said the pilgrimage to El-Ghriba turned into an annual occasion to further consecrate normalization with the enemy entity and an opportunity for its most dangerous terrorist members to enter Tunisia. The movement reiterated its insistence on the need to issue a law criminalizing normalization with Israel.

Meanwhile, Bouden was widely criticized for taking a picture standing next to French-Tunisian Imam Hassan Chalghoumi, known in Tunisia as the pro-normalization sheikh. She later deleted the photofrom the official page of the governments office.

Ghazi Chaouachi, secretary-general of the Democratic Current (Attayar), told Al-Monitor that the Tunisian state should respect the positions of the Tunisian people in support of the Palestinian cause, urging the president to issue a decree criminalizing normalization at all levels.

He recalled that Saieds anti-normalization slogan during his electoral campaign gained him significant popularity.

Thousands of Jews from around the world flocked to TunisiaMay 18-19 to perform the annual pilgrimage to El-Ghriba synagogue.

Preparations for the success of this important tourism event started weeks before, witharrangements to ensure security throughout the pilgrimage season. Tunisian security forces were heavily deployed in the entry ports on the island and in Riyadh where the synagogueis located to ensure the safety of the pilgrims.

Thepilgrimage season was inaugurated May 18 in the presence of Bouden and a number of ministers, most notably Tourism Minister Mohamed Moez Belhassan, Minister of Religious Affairs Mohamed Ibrahim al-Shaibi and several government officials, as well as many foreign political and religious figures, including Chalghoumi, who heads the France-based Forum of Imams.

In a speech at the inauguration, Bouden said the annual pilgrimage to El-Ghriba bears witness to the fact that Djerba is an island of coexistence as it houses synagogues, churches and mosques built side by side.

On May 18, Belhassan said in apress statementthat the pilgrimage to El-Ghriba synagogue heralds the start of the summer tourism season and sends messages to the world of coexistence, peace and tolerance in Tunisia, pointing to the presence of 50 journalists and many distinguished personalities from 14 countries who attended the inauguration of the pilgrimage season.

Perez Trabelsi, head of the Jewish community in Tunisia, which organizes these annual celebrations, told Al-Monitor that this year's pilgrimage season registered an exceptionally high turnout of between 3,000 and 6,000 visitors from several countries, including prominent local and international figures. Trabelsi said that the pilgrimage to El-Ghriba has kicked off strongly after a two-year hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Abdul Sattar Amamou, professor of history and intangible heritage at the University of Tunis, told Al-Monitor that about 1,850 Jews live in Tunisia, 1,000 of whom live on the island of Djerba, while a small number of Jews are distributed in the rest of Tunisia, such as the province of el-Kef, in the northwest.

He explained that El-Ghriba is one of the oldest synagogues in Africa and an ancient Jewish pilgrimage site dating back 2,500 years. Locals believe that it contains the oldest copy of the Torah in the world. It is believed that this synagogue was built with stones brought by displaced Jews from the altar of the destroyed Temple of Solomon [in Jerusalem] in 586 B.C., he said.

Amamou pointed out that the origin of the name of Ghriba (Arabic for female stranger) refers to a Jewish woman who came to the island after miraculously surviving a fire. The residents later started to visit her to get her blessing and seek healing from infertility. This temple was founded by a Jewish woman, a stranger to the area, hence the name, he said.

He explained that the pilgrimage is a very important religious ritual for the Jewish community in Tunisia and around the world. The Tunisian people respect this religious sanctuary for the Jews who are a minority in Tunisia, he said.

But despite the great support for the pilgrimage, many Tunisians see it as a form ofnormalization with Israel.

Several social media campaigns criticized the entry of Israelis to Tunisia, reminding Saied of his statements during his election campaign in which he labeled normalization with Israel as "high treason."

In October 2019, before his election, Saied had asserted that he would not allow anyone with an Israeli passport to enter Tunisia, not even to visit El-Ghriba synagogue in protest of some Arab countries normalizing ties with Israel.

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Jewish pilgrimage to Tunisian island stirs calls for criminalizing normalization with Israel - Al-Monitor

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Posted By admin on June 6, 2022

Our May 19 editorial was written after the massacre of Black people in a Buffalo, N.Y., grocery store. This is how that editorial ended: One day someone will write a book titled Bury My Heart at Newtown (26 dead); or Bury My Heart at Charleston (nine Black men and women murdered in their church); or Bury My Heart at El Paso (22 dead in a Walmart); or Bury My Heart at Pittsburgh (11 murdered in a synagogue). Now we can add Bury My Heart at Buffalo (10 dead) to that list. Just change the location and a new book can be published every few months.

We should have said weeks, not months. The murders that took place May 24 in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, (21 dead) adds yet another title to the growing library of American disgrace and, once again, points to a country incapable of addressing its problems and, with that failure, speeding its own decline.

We wont waste more space decrying our national politicians, a laughingstock of party hacks who cant get anything done, even when the lives of children are at stake. What we would like to address is a concept that is vital to the day-to-day well-being of a democracy: the common good. Its been a long while since we heard any politician speak to it.

Go back into American history for an idea of what the words mean. See American soldiers, many of them the same age as the Texas murderer, landing on the Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944. The 78th anniversary of that momentous event is next Monday. They put their lives on the line to end genocidal fascism for the common good.

Or see the March 7, 1965, march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., by civil rights activists who were beaten up by state troopers in what became known as Bloody Sunday. They were marching not only for their rights but for something larger than themselves the common good.

An 18-year-old purchases two military-style assault rifles and nearly 2,000 rounds of ammunition, posts his murderous intent on social media and no one alerts the authorities. Why?

Because he has a right to purchase all of that. His rights trump the common good. How did we fall so far?

The common good is on life support in America, buried under a mountain of spent AR-15 casings and disregarded by politicians who place holding on to power above all else. Also on life support is the concept that we should be able to trust our elected politicians at the national level to face a crisis head-on and to pursue solutions for the common good.

By contrast, some of them have made complete fools of themselves. In the aftermath of Uvalde, one U.S. senator said the slaughter occurred because of woke philosophy and because critical race theory is taught in our schools.

CRT is the shiny object one wing of the GOP is pushing, even though they know what they are saying is false. Its not taught in our schools. They made this all up, and a large portion of the population swallowed it whole to shout out at school board meetings. In some parts of America school board members need bodyguards.

Woke, whatever you think it is, had nothing do with the murders. Having said that, there is an intolerant form of McCarthyism on the left, where if a professor says the wrong thing hes run out of town. But thats not what happened in Texas.

When asked why any American should be able to buy an AR-15, another U.S. senator said people in his state needed them to shoot feral pigs. A congressman from Arizona said the 18-year-old murderer was a transsexual, leftist, illegal alien. This dim bulb of an elected official hit all the buzzwords in his warped view of whats wrong with America in a single tweet. None of these labels apply to the murderer. Yes, the border with Mexico needs regulation and a system that allows people to come here in the proper way, but again, this had nothing to do with events in Texas. While they have the podium, the Democrats should do more to try to fix the crisis at the southern border if that is at all possible in the current political climate.

How do we find the common good? How do we stop the decline of this country?

For starters, dont elect officials who have their own version of the truth, who say our elections are rigged when their candidates lose, who think even a troubled teenager has a right to own whatever weaponry he fancies, damn the rest of us, and who think our history should be edited to leave out what actually took place.

The politicians who put the interests of gun manufacturers and the gun lobby ahead of the common good, ahead of the interests of children, should be consigned to the ash heap of history.

One day, someone or some group really does need to drain the swamp.

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Editorial: Does the common good mean anything anymore? - The Suffolk Times - Suffolk Times

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Posted By admin on June 6, 2022

On June 20, we celebrate World Refugee Day.

My grandparents came to the United States as refugees. My grandfather was a child when most of his family was murdered by an anti-Semitic mob who locked their Jewish neighbors in the synagogue where they had gone to pray and set it on fire.

He was a married man, with one daughter, when Germany invaded Poland, killing his wife and child and sending him to Auschwitz. He met my grandmother, a fellow prisoner, in a displaced persons camp.

They came to the United States and built a family and a life.

Every time Jews pray, we remember we were slaves in Egypt and our exodus. We remember being refugees. Every year at the Passover Seder, we reenact the day of our liberation. We tell this story in the first person.

My grandfather would wear his uniform from Auschwitz on Passover. For him, the story truly was his firsthand experience.

Jews are often only a generation or two away from a refugee story. Having a history of persecution, we have had to find new homes again and again. Many in Miami can relate.

We are a city of immigrants; trying to build a better life in a more inviting world.

Temple Beth Am has partnered with Jewish Community Services to welcome refugees. We have been with Afghan refugees at the airport, helped find housing, appropriate Miami clothing, jobs, schools, and more. The work continues as we welcome refugees from the Ukraine.

We do the work because we are commanded over 36 times in the Torah to welcome the immigrant.

We do the work because we were once refugees.

We do the work because its personal.

Join us.

For additional information on how to help, please contact Rabbi Rachel Greengrass at rgreengrass@tbam.org

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We've Been Here Before | Miami's Community News - Miami's Community Newspapers

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Posted By admin on June 6, 2022

A DJ clicked play on a Lionel Richie song, and the percussive early bars of All Night Long began wafting through the air as people gathered in line to pick up that evenings meal. It was a sunlit weekday afternoon along Jefferson Avenue on Buffalos East Side, where several days earlier, 10 people were shot to death and three wounded at a Tops Markets store.

The suspect, a white supremacist, claimed in a hate-filled screed to be targeting Black people.

He intended to kill, and he succeeded. He also failed, in his own broken humanity, to break theirs.

You can never, ever replace those 10 individuals, said Tim Hogues, the personnel commissioner for Erie County and a resident of this neighborhood.

But life is about adjusting to difficult situations and tragedy, Hogues added, and so I believe the East Side of Buffalo is a strong-knit community. Thats why it hurts so much.

Tim Hogues,the personnel commissioner for Erie County, stands on Welker Street in Buffalo on Friday.

A growing roster of communities across the nation from Pittsburgh to Charleston, S.C., to Orlando to El Paso and many more knows that hurt. They, too, have lost loved ones murdered by madmen brandishing weapons. The people closest to those tragedies already know the lesson that people on Buffalos East Side are just now learning.

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Hearts break, but spirits rebound. Over time, communities shattered by the trauma of a mass shooting dont necessarily heal, but slowly, they move forward, forever changed.

On June 17, 2015, a 21-year-old white supremacist entered the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., and killed nine people in a prayer group. Seven years later, the community is still coming to terms with a tragedy that is so deep, so public, so cruel.

Just be patient with each other, said Rev. Eric S.C. Manning, pastor of Mother Emanuel, and encourage each other that with each day, your strength will be renewed and have the hope and the confidence that you will become stronger.

Police tape surrounds the parking lot behind the AME Emanuel Church in Charleston, S.C., on June 19, 2015, as FBI forensic experts work at the crime scene of the racist fatal shooting of nine members of the Black congregation.

The process of forging ahead is non-linear, complicated by a revolving swirl of emotions: Hurt. Anger. Resolve. Confusion. Heartbreak. Sorrow. Determination.

Initially theres a fear, theres a shock to it, especially when it happens in your community, said Isidro Torres, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness El Paso.

On Aug. 3, 2019, a white supremacist targeting Hispanic people entered an El Paso Walmart, killing 23 and injuring 23 more.

In the last few weeks, Torres has focused on the tragedy in Buffalo one similar in setting and hate-filled intent to what happened in El Paso and the May 24 elementary school shooting that happened 500 miles from him in Uvalde, Texas, and left 19 children and two teachers dead, and another 17 people injured.

There is a range of emotions: a lot of confusion, a lot of sadness, Torres said, noting that from Buffalo, the angry question of Why? resonated in El Paso.

Why? Why has this country been so divisive that this is still happening to our communities to our Black community, to our Hispanic community? he said. But I think its important that everybody understand and validate those feelings.

Especially for people who are closely tied to a mass shooting survivors and witnesses and first responders; those who lost loved ones; people who are part of the group that was targeted hearing news of another shooting can evoke trauma and make older memories feel raw.

Its not that youve just lost a loved one, said Michele Rosenthal, whose brothers Cecil and David were among 11 people killed by a white supremacist at Pittsburghs Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018. It is so public. Everyone wants to share in it, and think they know what youre going through, and they have sometimes good intentions I would like to think most of the time but no one can relate.

Taking care and embracing patience are crucial components toward healing, which in itself is likely to feel elusive.

People pay their respects at a makeshift memorial outside the Tree of Life Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh on Nov. 2, 2018. Eleven people were killed in a shooting on Oct. 27, 2018, while worshipping.

"Theres a difference between 'healing' and 'healed,'" said Maggie Feinstein, a mental health counselor who is director of Pittsburghs 10.27 Healing Partnership. After another shooting where you have to see more people murdered by white supremacists, no one is going to feel healed in those moments.

Anguish is slow to recede. Years after Orlando and its gay community faced an unprecedented trauma on June 12, 2016, when a gunman murdered 49 people and wounded 53 others at Pulse, a gay nightclub, the Orlando United Assistance Center is still serving more than 100 family members and survivors.

Trauma comes in many forms, said George A. Wallace, executive director of the LGBT+ Center Orlando, which formed the center in the wake of the shooting. My biggest piece of advice is to find a support system so you can care for yourself and your mental health needs. Do not be afraid to ask for help. Grieving is different for everyone.

In Buffalo, the work of processing a hate-driven mass murder is in its earliest stages.

I think for some people, 100% healing will never occur, said Bishop Darius Pridgen, senior pastor of True Bethel Baptist Church on the East Side and president of the Buffalo Common Council. Coping, and moving on, may. But 100% healing? No.

On that late May afternoon along Jefferson Avenue, children were coloring the sidewalks in bright chalk. Gathered among hundreds of bouquets and makeshift memorials for 10 lives suddenly lost on May 14, people were praying, filming videos, trading stories. A man on a scooter told a companion about his plan for an after-school sports program to help kids combat the grip of poverty.

Valerie Munroe of Batavia and her grandson Masyn, 6, color a message of love in chalk on the sidewalk at a memorial to the victims outside of the Tops on Jefferson Avenue.

A chain-link fence surrounded the Tops, which is the sole grocery store in the neighborhood, now shuttered indefinitely.

And there, on the fence outside the closed supermarket, was a sign that the lightness in the air didn't mask the shadow of pain. It was a sign that this tragedy will leave an indelible scar.

The sign read: Stop! No! ENOUGH!

People are hurting, said Tye Pope, vice president of specialty substance use disorders services and housing at BestSelf Behavioral Health. Its vital, she said, to allow them to feel that hurt, and then help usher them into that recovery when they say theyre ready for it.

Pope is one of the leaders of the agencys Black Mental Health team, which has about 20 counselors and support staff all people of color working in the Jefferson neighborhood.

The first step is always to acknowledge exactly what it is, and call it out to be intentional about the narrative and the story that were looking to help people recover from, she said. This was not just a mass shooting. It was a racially motivated mass shooting. It was racism at its best.

'I'm going to be there for people'

Post-traumatic stress isnt limited to the witnesses of mass shootings or to those who lost a loved one. People who live nearby and heard the sirens could be affected, said Dr. Angela Moreland, a psychologist and associate professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, which runs the Charleston-based National Mass Violence Victimization Resource Center. The stress could be inflicted on anyone who shops at Tops, even outside the neighborhood. It could impact any Black person, anywhere or anyone from any group that feels marginalized and potentially in danger.

The center has surveyed more than 6,000 people in communities where earlier incidences of mass violence occurred, and its findings provide a chilling lesson for people from Buffalo. People who have experienced any type of prior trauma including sexual assault or physical assault were really greatly impacted, Moreland said, and showed significantly higher levels of PTSD than the general population.

Any such people and plenty of others may feel shaken or scared or sad in the wake of an event like the Buffalo shooting. What's important, Moreland said, is for people to realize when their behavior is changing in ways that signal that they need help.

One of the main things that we tell people afterwards is take care of yourself, Moreland said, noting that adequate sleep, healthy eating and hydrating are essential. This sounds like common sense, but when someones going through a trauma, those are the first things to go, she said. You don't sleep. You don't eat well. You maybe replace these things with unhealthy coping: drinking a lot more, using drugs, doing things that may work as far as short-term coping but that arent healthy.

Experiencing those behaviors or feeling too sad or upset to go about a daily routine is a signal to seek professional help.

In Buffalo, those conversations are starting to happen.

Carlton Steverson, 28, was working in the Tops deli when the shooting started. He grabbed co-workers and customers and herded them into a cooler, then rushed them out of the store through an emergency exit as the shooting grew closer.

For several days afterward, Steverson'sshock overwhelmed his ability to absorb the thanks he received from people whose lives he helped save. Steverson described the feeling as a pain in my heart. It feels like Im having an asthma attack, but Im not. Its just there.

Carlton Steverson holds his son Caiden with his friend Lauren Celenza, a local World Central Kitchen volunteer he met in front of the Frank E Merriweather Jr. Library in Buffalo. Steverson was working in the deli department at Tops when the attack happened and helped several people hide and then get out of the store. He says making new friends like Celenza and meeting with his fellow Tops employees is helping him cope with the trauma.

But each day the pain has eased a little more. Steverson largely credits Tops support for the employees who worked at the store. Steverson had worked there a month and didnt know many of his co-workers until after the mass shooting. Since then, he has been attending support meetings held by Tops management at the Frank E. Merriweather Jr. Library down the block from the store, daily at first and now three to four days a week.

Tops has continued to pay the stores 80-plus workers, supply them with gift cards and home goods, welcomed their ideas for how to reopen the store and allowed them to share their stories in a safe space thats open to workers from noon to 5 p.m. several days a week. The street corner outside the library is also serving as a World Central Kitchen site where Steverson has made several connections including a volunteer, Lauren Celenza, who has become a close friend.

The way I was raised, I never had too many people, so I was always quiet and just kept to myself, Steverson said. But everyone here makes me feel comfortable to talk to them about it and they want to hear how I feel. It makes me feel like Im in a big old family.

His Tops family is planning trips to Six Flags Darien Lake and a comedy show to help them continue to bond and heal. Steversonhas a referral for a therapist he hasnt seen yet, but says the support group has served as therapy.

A good thing that has come out of it is, I feel a part of something, he said, adding, This has changed me and made me look at stuff a lot different. Like, I love everyone, and when the time comes to go back to work, Im going be there for people

I plan to help people and maybe that will help me too.

This June 10, 2019, file photo shows an outside view of the Pulse nightclub temporary memorial before a news conference to introduce legislation that would designate the Pulse nightclub site as a national memorial in Orlando, Fla.

Minutes after the shooting happened, Tim Hogues was on-site in the Tops parking lot. Nearly two weeks later, on that afternoon in late May, the county personnel commissioner was standing four blocks away, outside the Johnnie B. Wiley Amateur Athletic Sports Pavilion, where FeedMore WNY was running a drive-through food distribution.

Hogues motioned to people walking into a set of doors nearby. Through the county and community partners, mental health professionals, religious leaders and other people who are skilled listeners were making themselves available for conversations with anyone who needed to talk.

The African American community, typically we don't by and large seek professional counsel, Hogues said, echoing a point made by BestSelfs Pope, who noted in a separate interview that there has been a huge ask around Black counselors.

Hogues was encouraged that people were choosing to walk in, talk, be vulnerable, and pursue healing even if healed is a state of being that may not be achieved.

Its OK to not be OK, he said, and to have a conversation with someone.

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'A lot of confusion, a lot of sadness:' The slow steps of moving forward after a devastating shooting - Buffalo News

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Posted By admin on June 6, 2022

Reverend Jeff Rock at the Metropolitan Community Church in Toronto on May 5.Tijana Martin/The Globe and Mail

Inclusivity isnt just a buzzword at the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto. Its evident everywhere in the century-old Simpson Avenue building in the citys east end, from the diverse faces of its congregation to the Buddha head statue perched atop a bookshelf in the pastors office.

On this spring afternoon, Rev. Jeff Rock is preparing for a Sunday service that touches on Asian Heritage Month, Jewish Heritage Month, Mothers Day, and the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Its this weird mash-up of everything together, says Mr. Rock, referring as much to the church hes been with since 2017 as his service. While the MCC Toronto has the traditional elements of a Christian church, including communion and the Lords prayer, its also known to play show tunes during service.

Now the MCC Toronto is adding to its eclectic mix. Late last month, the church launched its Elevation Campaign, aimed at raising money to reach the $5-million needed to open the Paul Austin Human Rights Centre. (It has already raised $4.75-million through private donations over the past years; and, since the public launch, it received an additional $50,000 in funds, looking to hit their target by end of year.) The goal is to take its human-rights work to the next level, says Mr. Rock, transforming the church into a gathering place to educate and empower people around issues such as Islamophobia, antisemitism and ableism.

Weve always been a human-rights church. This campaign is just having us be bold enough to declare it a little bit more loudly, Mr. Rock says.

Hes talking about the churchs long legacy of social justice in the LGBTQ community: protesting against police violence in the Toronto bathhouse raids in the early 1980s, HIV/AIDS advocacy and support, and recognition as the site of the worlds first same-gender marriages in 2001.

MCC Toronto is moving into the human-rights space at an uneasy time for organized religion. In Canada, Catholic and Anglican churches are facing a reckoning for the wrongs committed against Indigenous people, and religious affiliation is on the wane. Canadians who identify as having a religious affiliation fell to 68 per cent in 2019, down from 90 per cent in 1985, according to Statistics Canada data from 2021.

At the same time, hate crimes are on the rise. Statscan notes 2,669 criminal incidents motivated by hate were reported to Canadian police in 2020 an increase of 37 per cent from the previous year. While hate crimes based on race and ethnicity topped the 2020 list, particularly against Black and Jewish people, 10 per cent of victims were targeted because of their sexual orientation.

Mr. Rock is aware of these troubling trends, as MCC Toronto looks to build on its legacy of social justice work set out by his predecessor, Brent Hawkes, by establishing a human-rights centre.

MCC Toronto aims to hire a director for the human-rights centre this summer as well as start a youth empowerment program this fall, where, he says, the vision is to unite LGBTQ, Indigenous, racialized and disabled youth to learn the ropes of activism, such as petition writing, organizing a protest and how to make a deputation at city hall.

This is how you fight for your rights and how you fight for each others rights and how you get your peers involved, Mr. Rock says.

In addition to educational initiatives and building repairs, the campaign would also help the church leverage technology to amplify its message globally, he says, adding that IP addresses from more than 160 countries have tuned into the churchs offerings online.

Currently, Mr. Rock says, upward of 500 parishioners attend MCC Toronto services (online and in-person) each week about one-quarter of the membership. While some congregates are still apprehensive about in-person gatherings because of the COVID-19 pandemic, he senses the human-rights centre will contribute to the recovery.

Reaching beyond the walls is one way for some denominations to regain popularity, but, if churches are going to attract younger members, they have to be inclusive, Mr. Rock says. If youre not an inclusive church, why would anybody whos a millennial go there?

In such a polarizing time, what remains universal is the human struggle for meaning and a sense of belonging, he says.

Reverend Jeff Rock is a senior pastor at the church, which recently launched its Elevation campaign to raise the remaining $225,000 needed to meet its $5-million goal to bring about the Paul Austin Human Rights Centre.Tijana Martin/The Globe and Mail

Sheryl Pollock has attended MCC Toronto for three decades. Throughout that time, the church has rolled out initiatives such as the LGBTQ refugee program and the Triangle Program, where LGBTQ students attend high school out of the church.

I love that the human-rights centre were working on is so much broader than my life, says Ms. Pollock, a part-time worship logistics lead at the church.

The energetic mix of tradition and progressiveness is what draws people in, she says, adding, Were all genders, ages, races.

Congregate and volunteer Andre Langlois is enthralled with the music during services, but the sermons hit home in a way that previous experiences didnt deliver. Here, I feel the connection and, also, of course, shame is put aside.

Elevation Campaign co-chair Anne Brayley has been a congregate for about 35 years. She also previously served as board chair from 2014 to 2017, when Mr. Hawkes retired.

She traces the churchs social justice work back to Mr. Hawkes advocacy for equal rights. However, she says, given the current climate of rising hate crimes and inequality, the role of human-rights activism is only increasing.

We can have a larger role locally to bring many communities together to address these issues.

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Toronto's Metropolitan Community Church wants to take its social-justice work to the next level with plan for a human-rights centre - The Globe and...

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Posted By admin on June 6, 2022

Rabbi Michael Schudrich, chief rabbi of Poland, is slated to speak at the Jewish Federation of Clevelands 118th annual meeting on June 9 at the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland at 1800 Warrensville Center Road in Cleveland Heights.

The event, which will be from 7 to 9 p.m., will also include remarks from outgoing board chair J. David Heller and an election of Federation trustees. The 2022 Charles Eisenman Award for Exceptional Civic Contributions will also be presented to Renee Chelm.

Schudrich was born in New York City in 1955 and was educated in the Jewish day schools in the area. He graduated from SUNY at Stony Brook in 1976, where he studied as a religious studies major. Schudrich received smicha through the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1980 and then later through Yeshiva University in 2000 and received a Master of Arts degree in Jewish studies from JTS in 1978 and a Master of Arts degree in history from Columbia in 1982.

He served as rabbi for the Jewish Community of Japan from 1983 to 1989. In 1990, he began working for the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation and spent 1992 to 1998 residing in Warsaw, Poland. In June 2000, Schudrich returned to Poland as the rabbi of Warsaw and Lodz, which led to his appointment to chief rabbi of Poland in 2004.

Schudrich has received several awards and medals, including the Polish Presidential Medal of Honor, the Menorah Award, the Jan Karski Award, Guardians of Memory Award and the Tygodnik Powszechny Award.

There will be a desert reception, with kosher dietary laws observed.

To register, visit bit.ly/3mzogKh.

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Poland Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich to speak at Federation annual meeting June 9 - Cleveland Jewish News

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