Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on August 7, 2021

The grassroots organization End Jew Hatred will be holding a march to protest Ben & Jerrys decision to stop conducting business in the Occupied Palestinian Territory on August 12 in New York City.

The protesttitled No Ice Cream for Jew!will take place in front of the New York City Public Library, where attendees will be given free ice cream and educational materials about the dangerous Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, according to the End Jew Hatred website. Attendees will then march to Ben & Jerrys and receive free ice-cream from its competitors who dont engage in Jew-hatred and discrimination.

Ben & Jerrys illegal boycott is the biggest act of corporate antisemitism since Airbnbwhich ended up settling multiple lawsuits and reversing its discriminatory policy, the organizations website states. Ben & Jerrys act creates an atmosphere where Jew-hatred is legitimized, and emboldens violence against Jews. Just this past weekend, mobs demanding global violence against Jews took to the streets of Brooklyn. This is a consequence of normalizing Jew-hatred, which is what Ben & Jerrys is doing.

Among those attending are New York State Democratic Assemblymembers Simcha Eichenstein and Daniel Rosenthal, New York City Councilmember Kalman Yeger, and various Jewish organizations including StandWithUs, The Lawfare Project and Club Z.

The protest comes after 30 Ben & Jerrys franchisees in the United States urged the company to rescind their decision in a letter. It has imposed and will to continue to impose, substantial financial costs on all of us, the letter stated, adding that their respective families and communities have shamed us personally for doing business not just with a company that draws controversy, but with one that continues to consider the calculated negative affect on its franchisees as acceptable collateral damage.

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End Jew Hatred to Hold NYC Protest Against Ben & Jerry's - Jewish Journal

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Posted By admin on August 7, 2021

There is no question that Artem Dolgopyat is a national hero. To bring home a gold medal from the Olympic Games in Tokyo is a tremendous achievement, of which not only he, but the entire country can be very proud. We look forward to his return and the celebration for him and the other medal winners.

Artem belongs to the large number of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, for whose release to move to Israel under the Law of Return (enacted in 1950), Jews worldwide campaigned.

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In 1970, the law was amended to grant the right of return to anyone with one Jewish grandfather whether matrilineal or patrilineal and regardless of their own belief, as well as to their non-Jewish married spouses. This controversial change was based on the Nuremberg laws enacted by the Nazis in 1935 which determined that a person with even one Jewish grandfather is a Jew, with the prescribed consequences including the cancellation of citizenship and withdrawal of certain rights.

It is scandalous that Jewish law of immigration should be based on Nazi doctrine without even definitive proof. Applications for immigration by non-halachic Jews should be considered on an individual basis rather than given a blanket dispensation.

In the late 1980s when the government of Mikhail Gorbachev opened the borders of the USSR and allowed Jews to leave the country, nearly one million Soviet Jews and their non-Jewish relatives and spouses immigrated to Israel between 1989 and 2006.

According to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, 26% of those immigrants were not considered Jewish by Orthodox interpretations of Jewish law.

That created great difficulties with the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, which by the law of 1980 is recognized as the only rabbinic authority for Judaism in Israel with sole control over the regulations of marriage, so that only approved religious leaders can perform marriage. Israeli law does not permit civil marriages.

On the express pronouncement of his mother, Artem Dolgopyat is not Jewish, because she is not Jewish. Now our Olympic hero wants to marry but finds no sympathy in Israels laws.

Because of the high profile gained by his Olympic achievement, the powers of Israels Chief Rabbinate are again being questioned; not as you might think by the protagonist himself who is adversely affected by the law, no, he keeps a low profile as if reluctantly accepting the situation. The movement to change the law is stirred by the high school dropout Foreign Minister Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid head), whose knowledge of Halacha, religious law, fits onto a small postage stamp.

In order for a Jewish wedding in Israel to be recognized by the State, it must be carried out under the auspices of Israels Chief Rabbinate. The Chief Rabbinate operates according to Orthodox Halacha (Jewish law), which specifies various requirements and prohibitions regarding marriage. Civil marriages performed outside of Israel are recognized for purposes of national statistics, but not personal status. Similarly, common law marriages afford couples some marriage-related rights and protections, but not full recognition.

According to reports, Lapid said that it is intolerable that someone can fight on our behalf in the Olympics win a gold medal and not get married in Israel. No, Minister, it is arrogant and disdainful to equate even a great achievement in sport with our age-old Torah laws. As MK Arye Deri (Shas) said: Winning a medal, doesnt make him Jewish.

Aided by this post-Zionist government, there are dark forces at work, that are aiming to transform the only Jewish State finally established after 2000 years of trying into a Country for Jews based on tribalist traditions.

The founding of a private organization to rival the Chief Rabbinate for all its functions, including establishing questionable Jewish roots to enable marriage is the beginning of the loss of the Jewish identity of our beloved Jewish state. It is the thin end of the wedge.

The writer, at 97, holds the Guinness World Record as the worlds oldest active journalist and oldest working radio talk show host. He presents Walters World on Israel National Radio (Arutz 7) and The Walter Bingham File on Israel Newstalk Radio. Both are in English.

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Letting Dolgopyat marry leads to the end of the Jewish identity -opinion - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on August 7, 2021

Funerals are notoriously expensive and often loaded with unexpected fees. They come at a time when people are at their most vulnerable, intimidated and perhaps unable to make judicious decisions amid their grief.

Consequently, many bereaved family members make costly mistakes and find themselves at the mercy of funeral homes whose driving motive is profit.

These are the circumstances that gave birth 20 years ago to New Yorks leading nonprofit Jewish funeral home, Plaza Jewish Community Chapel.

At the time, New Yorks funeral home market was largely controlled by Service Corp. International, or SCI, a Houston-based behemoth that owned four of the five Jewish funeral homes in Manhattan and seven of 18 in Brooklyn. An anti-trust complaint by New Yorks attorney general resulted in an out-of-court settlement in 1999, and SCI was forced to sell some of its funeral homes, including Plaza Memorial Chapel in Manhattan.

In stepped a group of Jewish philanthropists and community leaders along with UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Communal Fund who in 2001 came up with a $2.25 million loan to buy the facility and create Plaza Jewish Community Chapel, a nonprofit Jewish community funeral home.

Two decades on, Plaza not only has helped reduce the costs of Jewish funerals and bring unprecedented transparency to the process Plazas fees are about 35% less than comparable funeral homes, and Plaza was the first area chapel to post pricing on its website but it has become a leader in educating and supporting the Jewish community in end-of-life issues.

Our mission is to ensure that every member of the Jewish community receive a dignified Jewish burial, to take the profit motive out of funerals, and to provide education and bereavement support around the end-of-life conversation, said Stephanie Garry, Plazas executive vice president of communal partnerships.

The funeral chapel serves all Jewish denominations, from haredi Orthodox to the most progressive. It helps train clergy, educators and Jewish community professionals. It runs programs in synagogues and Jewish community centers on Jewish rituals surrounding death, including a curriculum for bnai mitzvah students designed to take the mystery out of death.

When Mount Sinai hospital was establishing its now nationally renowned palliative care program, it was given a significant boost from Plaza Jewish Community Chapel in the form of a sizable grant.

Palliative care was a relatively new medical specialty focused on improving the quality of life for people living with serious illness, their caregivers and an entire clinical team, recalled Dr. Diane Meier, a professor in the hospitals Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine.

The movement to provide palliative care in hospitals was so new at the time, and Plazas grantwas very helpful and really important in gaining support and endorsement from the community, Meier said.

Over the past 20 years, Plaza has spent more than $1 million on grants for end-of-life education and support, as well as sponsored or co-sponsored some 20 conferences dealing with loss and bereavement. It also runs about 50 educational programs annually, including in cities throughout the country. A 57-member board of directors comprised of clergy, social service executives and community lay leaders runs Plaza.

We built a whole model based upon helping people rather than trying to make a profit, said Alfred Engelberg, Plazas founding board chair. We support programs around end-of-life issues. Our funeral directors dont work on a commission; they get paid a salary. More than half of our funerals use a plain pine box.

Much of the community education Plaza does, Engelberg said, reflects the fact that many Jews today arent as familiar as previous generations with Jewish rituals surrounding death and therefore often need more guidance to provide the end-of-life options their parents want.

Among Plazas major initiatives is helping establish and sustain What Matters: Caring Conversations about End of Life, which focuses on advanced care planning to ensure that a persons health care wishes are known and honored. The program is a collaboration between the Marlene Meyerson JCC in Manhattan, the New Jewish Home (a long-term care facility in Manhattan) and the Center for Pastoral Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

What Matters focuses on an individuals values, goals and preferences, said Sally Kaplan, the groups program director. It asks what health care choices you would want made for you if you were ever in a position in which you could not speak for yourself. One of our goals is to help people complete the health care proxy and appoint an agent who can speak for them.

Plaza also has provided major grant funding to the Westchester End of Life Coalition for a program at Westchester synagogues called Can We Talk?

We go to synagogues that request us to raise their awareness regarding end-of-life issues, said Heidi Weiss, a volunteer with the coalition who is a health care social worker at Westchester Jewish Community Services in White Plains. The grant enabled us to produce videos and buy a card game called Go Wish that helps people discuss end-of-life care. It helps them verbalize their wishes and priorities.

Clergy in training go to Plaza for training and facility tours. Plaza works with rabbinical students from the Conservative movements JTS, the Reform movements Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, the Orthodox movements Yeshiva University, the pluralistic Academy of Jewish Religion and the Modern Orthodox Yeshivat Chovevei Torah.

We pull the curtain back, Garry said. We show where it all takes place. We never lose sense of the fact that people are uncomfortable in a funeral chapel.

But when they leave our space after a tour or educational engagement, they understand and appreciate death as a lifecycle event. They understand and appreciate the Jewish rituals surrounding it. And they understand and appreciate the continuity of our shared Jewish existence and observance.

One of the issues Plaza is working on with clergy and community lay leaders is how to deal with end-of-life issues surrounding trans Jews. The Jewish ritual of tahara, washing the dead, is performed typically by volunteers of the same gender as the deceased. How should a tahara be performed for a trans Jew?

We need to ensure that everyone has a respectful burial whoever they are, and that those in marginalized communities know there is a voice that will be advocating for them as well, she said. Our communal conversations are on the side of inclusion, and Plaza sees one of its roles in the community as advancing that notion within end-of-life spaces.

Now entering its third decade, Plaza has captured a growing segment of the Jewish funeral business in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

People reach out to us when they hear we are nonprofit, Garry said. Since we opened our doors our business has more than tripled, and we are now one of the leading Jewish chapels in the metropolitan New York area. I believe we are the gold standard in terms of providing service to our families, and in being a thought leader and forward thinker for what we do to support the community.

This article wassponsored by and produced in partnership withPlaza Jewish Community Chapel,a nonprofit organization whose mission is to ensure that every member of the Jewish Community receives a dignified and respectful Jewish funeral. This article was produced by JTAs native content team.

By Stewart Ain

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Leading Nonprofit Jewish Funeral Chapel is Transforming Approach to End-of-Life Issues Detroit Jewish News - The Jewish News

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Posted By admin on August 7, 2021

(JTA) A Jewish college student sits alone in a dark room watching a series of short videos. They are filmed altercations from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, often violent, with some showing Israeli soldiers and citizens attacking or abusing Palestinian civilians. A camera trained on the student records her reactions as she watches. Occasionally a man, speaking on a microphone from another room, intervenes to ask her to clarify her thoughts.

This is the premise behind the documentary The Viewing Booth, a deceptively simple setup that becomes a complex meditation on how different audiences can interpret the same images of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and on whether filmmaking can truly be a tool for social change. The films Israeli director, Raanan Alexandrowicz (the man on the microphone), created the concept to better understand the impact of such images on audiences who may not agree with their contents.

What he found, Alexandrowicz said, caused him to question his own worldview.

Working from Temple University in Philadelphia, Alexandrowicz invited seven students to participate in the booth, filming them as they watched the footage in a technique calling to mind director Errol Morris Interrotron. Ultimately, though, The Viewing Booth focuses on only one participant: an undergraduate named Maia Levy, a last-minute addition during filming who identifies herself as strongly pro-Israel.

Levy is skeptical of much of the footage that Alexandrowicz shows her depicting Israelis in a negative light. Yet shes drawn to it all the same.

You should take all of these with a grain of salt, she says while viewing footage distributed by the Israeli human rights organization BTselem. There is 100% bias to this footage, but its still footage that I think still deserves some type of recognition.

As Levy reflexively questions the content and motivations of the images, she and Alexandrowicz discuss the nature of truth and preconceived belief systems. The film climaxes with Levy returning to the booth, this time to watch the video of herself from the first session a cinematic hall of mirrors.

Opening at New Yorks Museum of the Moving Image on Friday after a two-year festival run, The Viewing Booth will also be available for free streaming on the BBCs REEL website Aug. 18. Alexandrowicz is no stranger to uncomfortable interviews his previous film was the acclaimed 2011 documentary The Law in These Parts, in which he interrogated the architects of the legal system that Israel imposed on the Palestinian territories it captured in the Six-Day War.

I started [my career] by trying to document Palestinians for Israelis, Alexandrowicz told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. And Ive moved on from that. I feel its more important to represent to ourselves, as Jews, the mechanisms that we are constructing. If we are able to stare into them and understand them, we might want to disassociate ourselves from them.

Ahead of his films release to the U.S. public, the filmmaker spoke to JTA about how he views The Viewing Booth. (This interview has been condensed and edited.)

JTA: How did you decide on the idea for the experiment, and what you were looking to learn from it as a filmmaker?

Alexandrowicz: Experiment is definitely the feel this film has, but I just want to make sure that it doesnt come off as if I yielded some data. Its a film that has the form of an experiment.

Its a long journey that actually started five years earlier. I was questioning the effect of my previous work; I was also looking at the work of colleagues, specifically about this subject of Palestine and Israel, which Ive devoted a few films to and is very important for me. And I asked myself, what is the role of documentation [when] trying to make change in the context of this historical event? Finally, what I came up with was that I need to try to understand what people get from the work that filmmakers, media makers, people who are making audiovisual documentation of any form, are doing.

I tried filming different viewers in different kinds of situations. I tried filming people in their natural situations at home. And I couldnt find the right form. I decided to put out an open call at the university, asking people to come who are willing to be filmed while theyre watching these videos, and to verbalize their experience. I felt that something so constructed as asking people to watch and respond needed to be filmed in a way that would make visible its very constructedness.

In the film, you say that you put out an open call specifically for students who are interested in Israel.

Yeah, I would say that there was even more of a bias to it because I hoped I would find people who are very supportive of Israel. With earlier works, my primary audience was always Israeli. But in the U.S., I was very interested in Jewish audiences and in Jewish audiences that were on the other side of the political map. Thats where I thought my work might have some sort of effect. So I published a call from the [Temple University] Hillel Facebook page, in the Jewish studies department, in places where there would be people who were very pro-Israel.

Im often asked, Why is this film only about Maia Levy and not about the other students who participated? The reason I decided to make the film only about her is that she was most invested. These images were important to her as much as theyre important to me, although in a very different way. While hearing her responses, I understood that she is really an ideal viewer for myself as a filmmaker because on one hand, shes very different from me politically. But on the other hand, she was a very open-minded, curious and authentic viewer.

I did try to edit sequences of a number of viewers watching certain videos while highlighting the differences between them. If [a participant] had the experience, for instance, of, while being Jewish, also being perceived as a brown person in the U.S., their experience of watching, for instance, that video of the home search [a BTselem-distributed clip of the Israeli military conducting a home search of a Palestinian familys residence in Hebron] was different than the experience of Maia because theyve had some previous experiences with police in the U.S.

After a few weeks I went back and looked at all of the footage that I had from Maia. There were about 100 minutes from that first session, and I felt that there was the heart of a more interesting film than the one I had intended. And that was when I started to think of inviting her back.

Maia is an American Jew; youre an Israeli filmmaker. Do you intend for her to stand in for a broader American Jewish response? If not, what do you see her viewing experiences as representing?

Thats really important that you mentioned that because the one thing that I dont want is to come off as if Im trying to give some sort of an objective statement. Its more of a case study of a conversation between one viewer, a set of images, and a filmmaker. So Maia doesnt represent the group of people who answered the call. She definitely doesnt represent American Jews. She represents one American Jewish viewer who I, as a filmmaker, would have wanted to understand something from the media that I make which is not the media in the film.

Raanan Alexandrowicz is the director of The Viewing Booth. (Zachary Reese)

In the film, we see that Maias responses are causing you to question your own role as a documentary filmmaker. Can you break down that conversation? What was going through your head?

It made me question what it means to document the world now, or specifically to document Palestine and Israel and all the injustice that I see there, and all the things that have to change there.

Its a film about miscommunication, of noncommunication. But in a strange way it becomes a dialogue of the different ways in which we look at images.

So, for example, we are looking at a video of this home invasion. So [the Israeli army is] coming into a home in [the West Bank city of] Hebron in the middle of the night, waking up the children and the family, conducting a search. Maia looks at it and sees it in a certain way. I look at it and see it in a different way. Now what I wanted, what I would have wished Maia as a viewer to do, was to take this image of the home invasion and read it through the context of 50 years of the military regime in the West Bank in which every night in those 50 years, homes are invaded, children are woken up from minute one of the occupation until now.

And I would have wanted her to zoom out, to use a cinematic metaphor, and ask herself: What does this image mean if, in these last 50 years, every night you have so many of these? What she wants to do, and Ill use another metaphor from cinema: She wants to pull the dolly back, to see the father holding a camera and filming the whole situation, filming his children being woken up.

At one point she asks, What if there was a complaint about a bomb? And there I do push back a little bit. I say, Where did you get that context from? She realizes that shes actually taking this context from things she saw on Fauda, a dramatic series on Netflix. And in that way, again, she introduces something we should be thinking about: the way that fiction and nonfiction images at the moment are in a certain kind of relationship. The boundary between them is becoming more and more blurred.

You completed this film in 2019. How do you feel now after the last few months of videos from the latest violence in Israel and Gaza circulating online and people reacting to them? Does that affect how you view your own film?

Well, it doesnt because I feel that this cycle is just repetition. What is the difference between this and what happened before? I think the images are out there all the time, but theyre now getting a lot of attention. Maybe more people are seeing them than only the people who usually seek them out, so there are more responses, more dialogue and thats where what we see in the film fits in because it gives a language, or suggests a new language, for looking at arguments about images.

If anything, something that really changed the perspective of the film is COVID and the fact that we lived in viewing booths. Its become our life.

Youre doing a joint Q&A with Maia in New York to promote the film. What is her response to the film, and what is your relationship like now?

We never had any conversations with each other outside of the film until the first time we presented together at (the Tel Aviv documentary film festival) Docaviv. And that was the first time that I had some idea about her background and her familys background, and how they came to be in the U.S. And of course, I also discovered that the more I knew about her, the more that I had boxed her into some definitions that werent necessarily true.

Maia likes the film. I think she feels that the film is her, or at least a portrayal of her at that time now a few years have passed. Some viewers completely decide not to listen to her, and in that way they apply their own defense mechanisms: What does she know about anything? I dont feel like she can teach me anything. Ive heard that from people who program human rights festivals. For me, it signals they just dont want to deal with what she brings up.

But I think the wider response to the film is that of people who, while they think very differently from her, respect the way that shes able to reflect, the way that shes able to be authentic, the way that shes able to present us with a mirror of ourselves. Whether our political views are similar to hers or different, we all view things in this way: We all bring our own biases to things we see. We all work with these types of defense mechanisms, trying to position what we see so it fits with our worldviews.

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What happens when American Jews 'watch' the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? 'The Viewing Booth' offers a glimpse. - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By admin on August 7, 2021

Tom Stoppards sweeping drama Leopoldstadt, which draws on his own Jewish background, is set to return to the West End this week.

The Olivier Award-winning play received critical acclaim after it opened in early 2020, playing seven weeks of sold-out performances before closing during lockdown. It reopens at Wyndhams Theatre this weekend and rusn until the end of October.

In the early 1900s, Leopoldstadt was the old, crowded Jewish quarter of Vienna, but times have moved on for manufacturer Hermann Merz, a baptised Jew married to a Catholic woman, Gretl, and they now live ina more fashionable part of the city.

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Assimilated and ambitious to become members of the social elite, the Merz family look upon this era with optimism and opportunity.

Tom Stoppard

However, by the time Stoppards sweeping drama has come to its conclusion, Austria has borne the scars of war, revolution, impoverishment, annexation by Nazi Germany and for the countrys Jewish community the murder of 65,000 of them during the Holocaust.

Directed by Patrick Marber, the play features Cara Ballingall, Arty Froushan, Aidan McArdle and Macy Nyman alongside original cast members Sebastian Armesto, Jenna Augen, Rhys Bailey and Faye Castelow.

Leopoldstadt plays at Wyndhams Theatre from 7 August to 30 October, http://www.leopoldstadtplay.com

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Leopoldstadt set to return to the West End this week - Jewish News

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Posted By admin on August 7, 2021

WASHINGTON, D.C. Today, during a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) examining racially, ethnically, andreligiously motivated domestic terrorism, U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV) questioned Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), about extremists exploiting social media platforms as tools for disinformation and hate, often serving as catalysts for violence. A transcript of the Senators exchange can be found below, and a video of the Senators full exchange can be foundhere.

ROSEN: Id like to build on what some of my colleagues have talked about on online radicalization. You know, these tools of extremism, the theories, the disinformationwe know that theyre bringing and spreading quickly online. They just can morph overnight, right?

And so, Im relieved to see companies like Facebook and Twitter taking some long-overdue steps to curb the rise of hate, like prohibiting Holocaust denial content. However, were seeing extremism resurface on alternative social media platforms, like Gab, which we know is a recruitment tool for neo-Nazis and was the website where we mentioned the Tree of Life Synagogue shooter posted right before that massacre.

So, Mr. Greenblatt, all too often, what enables extremist groups and individuals is the hate messaging to the American public and algorithms, like you said, that are on social media. So, what specific steps do you think platforms should take to ensure that hateful content does not escalate to violence? And what checks should we put in place to ensure that this violence isnt celebrated and amplified on these platforms?

GREENBLATT: Well, first and foremost, thank you very much for the question. I mentioned section 230 reform. Its really critical. We need to do it in such a way that protects the targets of harassment and has transparency, push the companies for independent audits.

And we really need to deal with the overall problematic business model, Senator, and the anti-competitive marketplace we have. So, you mention alternative platforms. Theres Gab, theres Discord, and theres Getter, and Parlor is trying to reemerge, et cetera.

But lets be clear. Facebook is literally a trillion-dollar corporation that earned $80 billion in revenue last year, $24 billion in profit. They have more users than any country on the planet has citizens. This is one of the most innovative businesses in the history of capitalism. They -- if they chose to -- could apply their resources to solve this problem tomorrow. It simply requires them enforcing their own terms of service.

But the reason ADL, along with the NAACP, Color of Change, LULAC, Common Sense Media, and others, launched the Stop Hate for Profit Campaign last year was the companys failure to deal with anti-black racism, antisemitism, other forms of hate on the platform.

It was only when they came under sever reputational pressure that the company finally made a series of concessions. So, I cant understate enough the power that you have. Because, while they may be immune to revenue pressure because of their size and fiduciary pressure because of their confidence, these companies are not immune to reputational pressure and regulatory pressure.

So, it is Facebook that is first and foremost, and our own studies show us that three times the number of people who are literally targeted and harassed online, it happens on Facebook more than anywhere else. But, again, TikTok and Twitter, Clubhouse, and Google, and so many of these other companiesthey all have challenges, and they all merit our attention.

ROSEN: Well, thank you. Like I said, I appreciate the work that ADL doesthat everyone here on the panel, the panels weve had in the pasteverything you all are doing to make sure that we have all the information that we need here in Washington to partner with our communities all across this country and all across the globe to do the right thing to stop hate.

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During Hearing on Domestic Terrorism, Rosen Discusses the Role of Social Media in Spreading Disinformation and Extremism Online - Jacky Rosen

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Posted By admin on August 7, 2021

RestaurantsIncluding a vegetarian Reuben sandwich, dirty rice arancini, and watermelon beer.Anthony Caldwell cooks shrimp at 50Kitchen. David L Ryan/Globe Staff

Wondering what to eat and drink in Boston this weekend? The Dish is a weekly guide to five things in the local restaurant and bar scene that are on my radar right now.Shoot me an e-mail at[emailprotected]to let me know what other dishes and drinks I should check out.

Call it Mamalehs 2.0: The Kendall Square delicatessen opened a second location this week in Brookline, operating daily from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 1659 Beacon St. More Mamalehs, more excellent bagels and lox but also more of their fantastic sandwiches, like this vegetarian Reuben special thats running throughout August. Its got everything that a typical Reuben has rye bread, Russian dressing but the deli uses Mrs. Goldfarbs plant-based cornd beef instead of the usual corned beef. A portion of the sandwichs proceeds will go toward the Anti-Defamation League.

When I chatted with Dan Bazzinotti in June, the chef at Somervilles new Premiere on Broadway ran through a list of Italian-American dishes that he was planning to serve at the restaurant and live music venue. Among the carbonara and fresh pasta and mozzarella antipasti, Bazzinotti told me about his plans for dirty rice arancini, giving the classic Sicilian appetizer a Cajun spin (the chef spent some time cooking in New Orleans). Premiere on Broadway debuted on August 5, so now we can all try these fried mozzarella balls filled with expertly spiced rice.

Its been a while since Ive taken a shot via bone marrow luge, but after coming across JM Curleys new menu addition, I might have to get back in the game. The downtown eatery recently started offering a roasted bone marrow dish for lunch and dinner, complete with onion jam, pressed ciabatta, and decadent garlic butter. After you finish scooping out the rich bone marrow, order your shot of choice or maybe even a small glass of sherry and send it down the luge straight into your mouth.

One look at Lamplighters newest beer and suddenly Im in the mood for a huge slice of watermelon. The Cambridge brewery released Little Slice on Friday, a refreshing ale brewed with watermelon and Hll Melon hops. Its juicy, its sessionable (4.6 percent ABV), and its available both on draft and at Lamplighters retail counter. Bonus: There arent any seeds to contend with.

For the next two weeks starting on Sunday, more than 100 participating restaurants across the Greater Boston area will take part in Dine Out Boston, when multi-course lunches ($15$25) and dinners ($28$33) abound. The list can be a little overwhelming to choose from, but here are a handful of options that caught my eye: 50Kitchen in Dorchester will offer both lunch and dinner, and if you havent had a chance yet to try chef Anthony Caldwells chicken and waffle sliders or chicken satay with peanut sauce, now is the time. TsuruTonTan in the Fenway/Kenmore neighborhood specializes in udon, and during Dine Out Boston you can get a side of udon noodles with both the omakase dinner and the three-roll combo lunch. And because I can never say no to a great taco, Im planning to visit Para Maria, which started popping up at the Seaports Envoy Hotel in May. Both the three-course lunch and dinner menu feature tacos, but also patatas bravas and cheese and shrimp quesadillas.

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The Dish: 5 things to eat and drink in Boston right now - Boston.com

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Posted By admin on August 7, 2021

Experts want people to stop blaming space lasers as the cause of the wildfires raging in California an old conspiracy theory that seems to have popped up again on social media this week.

Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA, on Wednesday tweeted that he was going to lose it if he kept hearing the conspiracy theory.

If I hear about space lasers as the cause of Californias wildfires one more time...I think Im gonna lose it, Swain wrote in a tweet that has garnered a lot of responses.

Thats still a thing?? one user responded.

Ohhh yes, wrote Swain.

The false theory received attention earlier this year when a report by Media Matters for America, a left-learning research outlet, showed that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., claimed in a now-delated Facebook post that Pacific Gas and Electric Co. started the devasting 2018 Camp Fire with space lasers in a failed clean-energy experiment.

Greene speculated that a range of people or groups were involved in the fire, including former California Gov. Jerry Brown, Pacific Gas & Electric and Rothschild Inc., an investment firm that is a frequent target of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories monitored by the Anti-Defamation League.

What actually sparked the Camp Fire, the states deadliest blaze, was PG&E electrical equipment. The company pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter and agreed to a $13.5 billion settlement with the victims of the fire.

This year, wildfire season arrived early in California, with most of the state in extreme or exceptional drought conditions. On Wednesday, the Dixie Fire swept through the town of Greenville in Plumas County ravaged its historic buildings, and by Thursday morning, it became the states sixth-largest blaze. The cause of the fire remains under investigation, but space lasers are not suspected.

We do a fire investigation on every single wildfire within our jurisdiction. We send out a trained fire investigator to every single one to find the origin, as well as the cause of the fire, and the [space lasers] theory thats out there is not one that we have ever even mildly seen as a potential cause, said Daniel Berlant, assistant deputy director for Cal Fire.

Burning debris and equipment use, such as tractors and lawn mowers, are the most common ways that wildfires are sparked in California, said Berlant.

Fire causes are actually oftentimes people burning or cutting down vegetation to try to reduce the fire risk around their area, but theyre doing it in an unsafe manner or with the wrong tool, added Berlant.

Lightning can also spark wildfires, he said, although it is less common.

In a response to his original post, Swain tweeted that it was striking to see people either supporting the false space laser theory or suggesting new conspiracy theories.

Ive never understood why its so hard to believe that its just really easy to spark fires on a famously flammable landscape amid record drought... wrote Swain.

Berlant agreed. He said the state is seeing more severe wildfires due to a changing climate.

A drier California coupled with more people out in the wild land, he said, and that has led to the increase in severity of wildfires.

Jessica Flores is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jessica.flores@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jesssmflores

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No, California wildfires arent caused by space lasers, and experts want people to stop asking about it - San Francisco Chronicle

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Posted By admin on August 7, 2021

The rise in anti-Asian racism spurs six friends, including three locals, into collective action and activism.

Although Ting, who is in his mid-50s, had encountered racism before, he was dismayed that it continues to be so prevalent. He also worried about his son and two daughters: Would their generation still be treated like outsiders? What could be done to create awareness about the concerns of Asian Americans?

These things that were happening were a downer, he says. We wanted to do something positive for the [betterment] of our community. Within a couple of months, he and Chen, an entrepreneur and investor, formed LAAUNCH (Leading Asian Americans to Unite for Change) with four equally passionate friends: financier Ed King, who, like Ting and Chen, lives on the Peninsula; Tings cousin in New York, Richard Ting, a director at Twitter; and twin sisters Ming and Wah Chen, the Hong Kongbased chief culture officer at EF Education First and the Los Angelesbased co-founder of real estate company InSite Development, respectively. Our mission is to engage and empower Asian Americans to fight racism, increase representation and share community resources, says Norman Chen.

Through Zoom calls last fall, they homed in on their first goal: drive more Asian Americans to the polls during the 2020 election. As a nonpartisan organization, we werent telling people who to vote for, says David Ting. We were encouraging them to get out and vote to make sure that their voices were heard. Historically, voter turnout among AAPI communities has been low, with language barriers as well as a lack of outreach and Asian American candidates as possible contributing factors. LAAUNCH worked with APIAVote to fund campaigns on social media, targeting swing states in particular. In the eight states where the campaigns ran, they garnered close to 25 million impressions. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the turnout rate among Asian Americans jumped 10 percentage points between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections the biggest increase of any racial or ethnic group.

Next, the LAAUNCH board comprising all the founders except Ming Chen and now also including Facebook executive Eric Toda, who resides in the East Bay created a survey called the STAATUS Index (Social Tracking of Asian Americans in the United States), which collects data on perceptions of Asian Americans and is intended to help address the root causes of racism and discrimination. It was a meticulously coordinated endeavor. To craft the questions, they consulted with Asian American academics and enlisted a survey consultant with 20-plus years of experience from Research Rockstar. Savanta Research designed and conducted the online survey, while data visualization experts The DataFace analyzed and presented the information. Ona Creative assisted with branding, and a web design specialist designed an entirely new website. And finally, the Edelman San Francisco team spearheaded publicity for the STAATUS Index, generating widespread media coverage that included a segment on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Nearly all of the firms worked pro bono or at a discount. (LAAUNCHs early initiatives were backed by its founders, with later contributions from East West Bank, BTIG and individual donors. Donations to the nonprofit can be made online at laaunch.org.)

The inaugural STAATUS Index surveyed 2,766 adults in all 50 states, with the weighted sample reflecting the U.S. population (for parameters such as race, age, gender and education). The report was released in May to coincide with Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. One finding was especially startling: When asked to name a prominent Asian American, 42 percent responded with Dont know. When they did provide a name, 11 percent answered Jackie Chan, and 9 percent Bruce Lee. Noting that Chan is a Hong Kong actor and Lee has been dead for close to 50 years, David Ting attributes the lackluster responses to the invisibility of AAPIs.

Another key takeaway: Almost 80 percent of Asian Americans believe they are discriminated against in the U.S. In light of the data gathered, LAAUNCH is now focused on increasing awareness of AAPI issues through traditional and social media; building relationships with other ethnic communities; supporting stronger laws against anti-AAPI crimes; and promoting education of AAPI history.

Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League, describes LAAUNCHs efforts as critical. ADL, the oldest anti-hate organization in the country, has conducted attitudinal surveys of the American Jewish community and about how non- Jews think about the American Jewish community since the 1960s, he says. Greenblatt notes, You need to understand the extent of the problem in order to develop the right solutions to address it.

In partnership with the Asian American Education Project, LAAUNCH recently commissioned award-winning Boston-based comic book author Amy Chu for a graphic novel about Asian American history, aimed at fifth to eighth graders. David Ting points out the need for educational tools like this to bring attention to historical landmarks such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers to the U.S. and was not repealed until 1943. Slated to come out this fall, the novels publication roughly aligns with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Marvels first film centered on an Asian superhero, hitting theaters September 3.

Unless people understand our history, they cannot appreciate where we came from, what our challenges are, and where we hope to go in the future, Norman Chen explains. Utilizing our entrepreneurial spirit, we strive to create a better future for Asian Americans via innovative research and impactful programs.

Indeed, the founders professional acumen and experience may prove to be one of their greatest strengths. I am impressed by the commitment of the leadership who dont come from the nonprofit world or field of advocacy, but have shown a kind of dedication, focus and smarts that we dont see frequently enough, says Greenblatt. They arent just lamenting the problem; these individuals are applying their business skills to solve it.

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Impact: Agents of Change - Nob Hill Gazette

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Posted By admin on August 7, 2021

(Left to right) Hon. Lilian Wan, Hon. Dena Douglas, Brooklyn Democratic Party Chair Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, Hon. Joy Campanelli and Hon. Gina Levy Abadi.Photos courtesy of Kings County Democratic Party

The seven judicial nominees for open bench seats on the Kings County Supreme Court that were chosen Thursday at the Kings County Democratic Partys judicial convention are the most diverse slate of judicial candidates to date in Brooklyn with an unprecedented number of women candidates.

The nominees are: Consuelo Connie Mallafre-Melendez, Gina Levy Abadi, Dena Douglas, Carolyn Walker Diallo, Richard Montelione, Joy Campanelli and Lillian Wan.

Hon. Mallafre-Melendez is the first Cuban-born immigrant to run for the Kings County Supreme Court bench. Hon. Levy Abadi, who is currently serving as a Civil Court judge, is the first Orthodox Sephardic woman to run for the bench. Hon. Walker Diallo is the first Muslim judge to ever serve in Kings county.

Additionally, Hon. Wan is currently the first female Asian-American judge to serve on the New York Court of Claims and is the first Asian-American woman to run for the Supreme Court bench. Hon. Montelione adds to the diversity slate as being an openly gay judge in the court.

The Brooklyn Democratic Party is committed to electing experienced and culturally competent judges who will deliver equitable, fair, and honest justice for each and every Brooklynite, said Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, who is also chair of the Brooklyn Democratic Party.

I am thankful for all the Kings County District Leaders leadership in making this happen, including our Law Chair Frank Carone and (Executive Director) Jeff Feldman, who convened and chaired the convention, she added.

Justice Abadi has proven herself to be a highly competent and dedicated Civil and Criminal Court Judge who has brought equity and reform to the courts, said Bichotte Hermelyn. Abadi is a proud Orthodox Sephardic woman whose parents came to the U.S. to practice their faith openly. She has never forgotten her roots, and relentlessly fights for unbiased justice.

Justice Abadis nomination was secured with the help of Councilmember Mark Treyger (D-Coney Island-Gravesend-Bensonhurst), the Sephardic Community Federation and many Jewish leaders in Flatbush and Borough Park.

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My district and I are so grateful to Brooklyn Democratic Party Chair Rodneyse Bichotte and to all of my colleagues for their support to advance Judge Gina Levy Abadi as the Democratic nominee for New York Supreme Court, said Treyger. Judge Abadi assumed office as a Brooklyn Civil Court judge after serving for 17 years as a law clerk for Justice Donald Kurtz.

Carolyn Walker Diallo is a highly-recognized and trailblazing justice, said Bichotte Hermelyn.

As the first Muslim to serve as a judge in the State of New York, who faced death threats while being sworn in [in 2015, when she was sworn in as a Civil Court judge on the Koran], she has a first-hand understanding of the barriers facing minorities and has tirelessly fought to bring equity and reform to our justice system, Bichotte Hermelyn added.

Justices Consuelo Connie Mallafre-Melendez, Dena Douglas, Joy Campanelli, Richard Montelione and Lillian Wan also have proven track records of progressive judicial and courtroom achievements, and have continued to help bring fairness and impartiality to the courts, despite the challenges of the pandemic.

Im confident that Brooklyns legal system will be in capable hands when these justices are elected, concluded Bichotte Hermelyn.

July 29 |Brooklyn Eagle Staff

July 28 |Associated Press

July 26 |Brooklyn Eagle Staff

July 23 |Associated Press

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New Democratic judicial nominees are a cross-section of Brooklyn - Brooklyn Daily Eagle

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