Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on May 23, 2021

Maybe its because my wife is a therapist. Or maybe its because my favorite religious literature is the writings of Hasidic masters. Both psychology and Hasidic thought aim to understand how our inner thoughts and impulses drive our perceptions of the world. Both recognize that the human soul carries within it many unknowns that create unconscious habits. Without awareness of those instinctual patterns, we tend to repeat ourselves.

Over this past week of warfare between Israel and Hamas, Ive see how quickly we have all fallen into our standard ritualized responses.

Before elaborating, its worth reminding ourselves of how much is at stake. The death toll in Gaza and Israel ticks upwards. Children die. Fear and anger permeate society. Civil unrest and the rule of the mob mark the streets of Israel. Pain rules the day.

While a few brave souls move toward the pain, most of us distance ourselves from it. Pain hurts. It is uncomfortable. We try to avoid it at all cost, even when it can be helpful to our personal or national growth.

There are, of course, many sorts of pain. The horrors of war are first and foremost what occupies us, as they should. But in Israel and the Middle East, everything takes on symbolic meaning. As harsh as it is to state, the sanctity of life is not always the most important factor. Our attachment to our symbolic values helps us fend off pain and allows us a sense of control in what is otherwise a situation of chaos and upheaval. Because it is difficult to sit in a place of pain and loss, we ritualize our values in what is too often a mindless pattern.

What this looks like is easily seen. Whenever violence flares up in Israel, the Palestinians accuse Israel of bearing sole responsibility for the current state of carnage, as do other enemies of the Jewish state.

Within the Jewish world, both in Israel and America, a different set of rituals plays out. One segment of our community will instinctively describe a situation in which Israel is the victim of terror and must defend herself and her citizens. Another equally sizable portion of the community does the very opposite, reducing a complex history to a few talking points. If Israel only did X, Y or Z, or refrained from doing A, B, or C, none of this would have happened. A smaller coterie will attempt to frame the conflict in a complex analysis that seeks to incorporate more information.

Each of these groups is certain that they understand how we got here. Each claims that it knows the real causes, and not responding based on their stance is immoral.

But how do we know this? What sort of analysis has anyone done within a week of the current situation? Id argue that mostly we have fallen back on ritualized patterns and habits. Some of us are psychologically served when we blame the Palestinians. It absolves us of responsibility. Some of us gain moral benefit when we blame Israel for what happened. We also get to wash our hands of moral responsibility by our high-sounding utterances. Others retreat to moral equivalencies. Yes, Hamas attacked, but it was in response to Israels attempts at home evictions (curtailed by Israels Supreme Court). By creating moral equivalencies, we feel we are being even-handed, and this also is a form of psychic cleansing.

We all tend to gravitate to one of these tactics, and most of the time, we arent even aware that we are running through a script, an unconscious ritual of war.

Most of the time, we arent even aware that we are running through a script, an unconscious ritual of war.

Do you remember when Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount, which purportedly sparked the Second Intifada? All of the above dynamics played out. For quite a while, the segment of the Jewish world that likes to blame itself found it convenient to hang all guilt on Sharons admittedly unwise visit. It took a long time before the Mitchell Report made it clear that the Second Intifada had long been in the planning stages and was merely waiting for the proper pretext. The rituals of introspection and self-blame that we Jews do so well (think of teshuvah and Yom Kippur) occurred in a vacuum of knowledge. Once we knew, few who blamed Sharon for inciting the violence publicly recanted. The ritual is too valuable to relinquish in the face of some inconvenient truths.

Cant we all, just for a moment, sit in the pain and devastation? Cant we weep at the loss of life and the terrors of violence? Cant we wail because we are here again? Isnt there a way in which admitting the pain into our hearts and minds can actually have a greater political impact than these reflexive rituals? If that sounds too quietist, lets remember the absolute shock of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The pain of witnessing entire cities vaporized in an instant was so searing that as a consequence, humanity has successfully refrained from nuclear war. Allowing ourselves not to deflect or defend ourselves from that overwhelming grief changed the entire world. In its aftermath, we were able to create international structures meant to reduce the possibility of further nuclear war. If you want to understand Iran and our attempts to curtail her acquisition of nuclear weapons, theres a clear line leading us back.

Finally, I want to state that I stand unequivocally with Israel. Just as saying Black Lives Matter doesnt mean other lives dont, my belief in the right to a Jewish homeland and Israels right to defend itself doesnt mean Palestinians dont deserve a state of their own. I stand with Israel because half of my people live there. I stand with Israel because she represents perhaps the greatest miracle in Jewish history. I stand with Israel because my friends live there. I stand with Israel because she has constantly been besieged throughout her short existence, and still she has thrived beyond anyones wildest imaginings. I stand with Israel because it is where we entered the stage of human history, and it is where we make history today. I stand with Israel not because it is perfect and doesnt make its share of blunders, but because it is the historic and eternal home of the Jewish people. Ain li eretz acheret.

May Israel know peace, and may we all.

David Kosak is the senior rabbi of Congregation Neveh Shalom in Portland, Oregon.

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The Rituals of War: Reflections on Israel and Gaza - Jewish Journal

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Posted By admin on May 23, 2021

We shouldnt interfere with their religious and parental choice as long as the outcomes are good, he told The Forward, a Jewish publication, in February.

That approach has helped him undercut rivals, particularly the Brooklyn borough president, Eric Adams, a former state senator who has a long working relationship with the Orthodox community.

In the 2013 Democratic mayoral primary, Hasidic groups in Borough Park, Brooklyn, backed Bill de Blasio, who had once represented the area in the City Council.

But in the last two presidential elections, neighborhoods with large ultra-Orthodox populations were islands of deep red in overwhelmingly blue Brooklyn. Some precincts in Borough Park voted for President Donald J. Trump by more than 90 percent in 2020.

It remains to be seen how much influence Hasidic leaders will have in the Democratic primary; most ultra-Orthodox Jews support the Republican Party, according to a study published last week by the Pew Research Center, and the 2020 presidential election results in Orthodox Brooklyn seem to bear that out.

Nonetheless, for Hasidic leaders, the decision to endorse a newcomer like Mr. Yang over a known quantity like Mr. Adams highlights their anxiety after a yearslong series of calamitous events: a devastating pandemic, a rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes and a long history of clashes with secular authorities over issues like social distancing, measles outbreaks and high school curriculums.

Mr. Yang comes to city politics without the baggage of those past clashes. Capitalizing on that blank slate, he has won over allies with well-honed rhetoric on religious freedom, a sophisticated messaging campaign in Yiddish media and a willingness to adopt the hands-off approach favored by Hasidic leaders.

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How Andrew Yang Won Over Ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn - News Nation USA

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Posted By admin on May 23, 2021

In Final Account, the filmmaker Luke Holland interviews a series of erstwhile Nazi functionaries: older men and women who seem to have spent a lifetime perfecting the use of the passive voice. Heinrich Schulze, a former Wehrmacht fighter, shows Holland his family farm where a group of escapees from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp once hid until they were picked up.

By whom? Holland asks. And how did they know the prisoners were hiding there? Schulze answers after a pause: Well, we discovered them and reported it.

Final Account captures an array of such evasive pauses, phrases and gestures that belie the delusions required to live with oneself after participating however incidentally in unimaginable horrors. In dry talking-head segments, the interviewees cite innocuous reasons for having joined the SS as children: the enticing uniforms, the sports, the camaraderie. By the time they get to their recollections of guarding gas chambers and monitoring forced labor, most fumble for words. A few respond with outright denial, while others grapple with the term perpetrator, trying it on uneasily for size.

The film proceeds in an unadorned, sequential style, as if gathering evidence for an amnesiac world. But theres one moment that breaks out of this archival veneer. During a college seminar, a student challenges a former SS soldiers admission of shame, suggesting that he has more to fear from immigrants than his own countrymen. Nearly in tears, the ex-soldier looks remorsefully at Holland the grandson of victims of the Holocaust as he implores the students not to be blinded. Its a stinging reminder of what these interviews represent: that the past is awfully close to the present.

Final AccountRated PG-13 for disturbing images and descriptions of genocide. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters.

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Final Account Review: The Banality of Evil - The New York Times

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Posted By admin on May 23, 2021

The current crisis of Palestine/Israel deepens and widens as casualties mount, smoke from destroyed buildings fills the air in Gaza, rioting on the streets of many Israeli and West Bank towns, Israeli police disrupting worshippers in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound and protecting extremist Jewish settlers shouting genocidal slogans death to the Arabs in inflammatory marches through Palestinian neighbourhoods of Jerusalem.

Underlying this entire eruption of tensions between oppressor and oppressed were the flimsy legalised evictions of six Palestinian families long resident in the Sheikh Jarrah, which for Palestinians epitomised their long ordeal of persecution and banishment in what psychologically remains their homeland. While this mayhem continues the lights have remained scandalously dim at the UN. Western leaders pathetically call for calm on both sides as if equal, while perversely affirming the one-sidedness of Israels right to defend itself as if it had been attacked out of the blue.

Also Read: The Delusions Driving Israeli Thinking Have Been Exposed as Never Before

Is this but one more cycle of violence exhibiting the unresolvable clash between a native people overwhelmed by a colonial intruder emboldened by a unique religiously grounded settler sense of entitlement? Or are we witnessing the beginning of the end of the century long struggle by the Palestinian people to defend their homeland against the unfolding Zionist Project that stole their land, trampled on their dignity, and made Palestinians victimised strangers in what had been their national home for centuries? Only the future can fully unravel this haunting uncertainty. In the meantime, we can expect more bloodshed, death, outrage, grief, injustice, and continuing geopolitical interference.

What these events have made clear is that the Palestinians are withstanding prolonged oppression with their spirit of resistance intact, and refuse pacification regardless of the severity of the imposed hardships. We also are made to appreciate that the Israeli leadership and most of its public is no longer in the mood even to pretend to be receptive to alternatives to the completion of their settler colonial undertaking despite its dependence on a weaponised version of apartheid governance.

For Israelis and much of the West, the core narrative continues to be the violence of a terrorist organisation, Hamas, challenging the peaceful state of Israel with destructive intent, making the Israeli response reasonable as both a discouragement of the rockets but as a harsh punitive lesson for the people of Gaza designed to deter future terrorist attacks. The Israeli missiles and drones are deemed defensive while the rockets are acts of terrorism even though Israeli human targets are seldom hit, and despite the fact that it is Israeli weaponry that causes widespread death and destruction among the over two million civilians Gazans who have been victims of an unlawful blockade since 2007 that has crippled an impoverished, crowded, traumatised Palestinian enclave long enduring unemployment levels above 50%.

In the current confrontation Israels control of the international discourse has succeeded in de-contextualising the timeline of violence, having the effect of leading those with little knowledge of what induced the flurry of Hamas rockets to believe falsely that the destruction in Gaza was a retaliatory Israeli reaction to hundreds of rockets launched by Hamas and Gaza militia groups. With abuses of language that might even surprise Orwell Israels state terrorism is airbrushed by the world along with the rebuff of Hamass peace diplomacy over the past 15 years that has repeatedly sought a permanent ceasefire and peaceful coexistence.

Also Read: Palestinians Have a Right to Defend Themselves

For Palestinians, and those in solidarity with their struggle, Israel knowingly allowed the subjugated population of East Jerusalem to experience a series of anguishing humiliations to occur during the holy period of Muslim religious observances in Ramadan rubbing salt in the already opened wounds resulting from the Sheikh Jarrah evictions, which had the inevitable effect of refreshing Palestinian memories of their defining experiences of ethnic cleansing days before the annual May 15th observance of the . This amounted to a metaphoric reenactment of that massive crime of expulsion accompanying the birth of Israel in 1948, intensified by the bulldozing of several hundred Palestinian villages signalling the Israeli intention to make the banishment permanent.

Unlike South Africa, which made never claimed to be a democracy, Israel legitimated itself by presenting itself as a constitutional democracy. This resolve to be a democracy came with a high price tag of deception and self-deception, necessitating to this day a continuing struggle to make apartheid work to secure Jewish supremacy while hiding Palestinian subjugation. For decades Israel was successful in hiding these apartheid features from the world because the legacy of the Holocaust lent uncritical credence to the Zionist narrative of providing sanctuary for the survivors of the worst genocide known to humanity.

Additionally, the Jewish presence was making the desert bloom, while at the same time virtually erasing Palestine grievances, further discounted by visions of Palestinian backwardness as contrasting with Israeli modernising prowess, and later on by juxtaposing a political caricature of the two peoples portraying Jewish adherence to Western values as opposed to Palestinian embrace of terrorism.

Israel has lost the Legitimacy War

Recent developments in the symbolic domains of politics that control the outcome of Legitimacy Wars have scored several victories for the Palestinian struggle.

The International Criminal Court has authorised the investigation of Israeli criminality in Occupied Palestine since 2015 despite vigorous opposition from the leadership of the Israeli government, fully supported by the United States. The investigation in The Hague, although proceeding with diligent respect for the legalities involved, was not openly engaged by Israel, but rather was immediately denounced by Netanyahu as pure antisemitism.

Beyond this, the contentions of Israeli apartheid, which only a few years ago was similarly denounced when an academic report commissioned by the UN concluded that the allegation of apartheid was unequivocally confirmed by Israeli policies and practices of an inhuman character designed to ensure Palestinian victimisation and Jewish domination. In the past few months both BTselem, Israels leading human rights NGO, and Human Rights Watch, have issued carefully documented studies that reach the same startling conclusion that the Israel indeed administers an apartheid regime within the whole of historic Palestine, that is, the Occupied Palestinian Territories plus Israel itself.

While these two developments do not alleviate Palestinian suffering or the behavioural effects of enduring denial of basic rights, they are significant symbolic victories that stiffen the morale of Palestinian resistance and strengthen the bonds of global solidarity. The record of struggles against colonialism since 1945 support reaching the conclusion that the side that wins a Legitimacy War will eventually control the political outcome, despite being weaker militarily and diplomatically.

Also Read: Palestine: The Madness of Netanyahus Annexation Plan

The endgame of South African apartheid reinforces this reassessment of the changing balance of forces in the Palestinian struggle. Despite having what appeared to be effective and stable control of the African majority population through the implementation of brutal apartheid structures, the racist regime collapsed from within under the combined weight of internal resistance and international solidarity. Outside pressures included a widely endorsed BDS campaign enjoying UN backing.

Israel is not South Africa in a number of key aspects, but the combination of resistance and solidarity was dramatically ramped upwards in the past week. Israel has already long lost the main legal and moral arguments, almost acknowledging this interpretation by their defiant way of changing the subject with reckless accusations of antisemitism, and is in the process of losing the political argument.

Israels own sense of vulnerability to a South African scenario has been exposed by this growing tendency to brand supporters of BDS and harsh critics as antisemites, which seems in the context of present development best described as a geopolitical panic attack. It seems appropriate to recall Gandhis famous observation along these lines: first, they ignore you, then they insult you, then they fight you, then you win.

Richard Falk is professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University and a former Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967

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Gaza, Apartheid Israel and the Last Stand of Settler Colonialism - The Wire

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Posted By admin on May 23, 2021

Will Boris Johnson legislate to protect Holocaust denial on university campuses? Labours shadow equalities minister Charlotte Nichols raised the question in the Commons last week, after the universities minister suggested the governments free speech bill would do just that. Cue a hasty clarification from No 10 that Holocaust denial is not something that the government would ever accept.

Forgive me for being facetious, but why not? The entire point of the legislation is, the Tories say, to tackle the chilling effect of censorship on campuses. Holocaust denial, while abhorrent, isnt illegal. There is no reason why it shouldnt be included under a law designed to protect controversial and offensive speech except that the Conservative Party does not stand for anti-Semitism, as the Education Secretary Gavin Williamson insisted. So, are they prepared to censor it? If so, why not racist or homophobic speech too?

It is interesting to see this government belatedly confront the thorny reality of the free speech cause: you cant claim to champion it then only protect speech you like. You also cant use it to stop people disagreeing with you. One of the examples of campus cancel culture cited by the Department for Education was an open letter from academics criticising a professor at Oxford for suggesting the West should be proud of its imperialist history. It is unclear how insulating the professor from opposition would protect his speech without unjustly silencing his critics.

Similarly, when I interviewed the anti-woke London mayoral candidate Laurence Fox earlier this month, he talked with enthusiasm about the importance of free speech while also suggesting people should be banned from calling him racist.

Philosophers have grappled with such contradictions since Voltaire. The row over Holocaust denial suggests the Conservatives still have some thinking to do.

[See also:Alan Rusbridger: The young have no grounding in the classical view of free speech]

We all know about Zoom fatigue and the erosion of work-life balance due to home-working, but I didnt realise until this week the trend could cost lives. According to a global study from the World Health Organisation, 745,000 people died from working long hours in 2016, through increased stress or a rise in unhealthy behaviours such as drinking more and exercising less. Researchers believe the pandemic has exacerbated the problem: under lockdown, the number of hours worked increases by 10 per cent. And on average, people who work from home put in more unpaid hours than those who dont.

Im not disparaging the benefits of home-working I love the flexibility, and Im not shocked by this weeks Ipsos Mori poll showing how little were looking forward to commuting when Covid restrictions end. But now the novelty has worn off, maybe we need a more honest conversation about who benefits most when workers turn their homes into offices. Perhaps its time for a new slogan: Leave Your Desk, Take a Walk, Save Lives.

An indoor pint at a pub might be the symbol of the latest round of unlocking, but for millions theres an even more important liberation: for the first time in months it is no longer illegal to meet inside with someone not in your household or bubble. Ergo, Englands de facto sex ban has come to an end.

So much of Covid policy has focused on families or couples, its easy to forget the three million people who live in house shares, which means no bubbling and therefore, unless you strike up a pandemic fling with a housemate, no sex.

Im not entirely certain everyone has been sticking rigidly to these rules, which have made non-cohabiting intimacy illegal across parts of the country for most of the past 14 months. Still, I predict a summer of romance, as released singletons embrace the freedom and opportunity theyve been denied this past year. The Covid baby boom we were told to expect at the start of the pandemic never materialised it turns out spending 24 hours a day together isnt conducive to passion. But I suspect the picture could look rather different in nine months.

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First Thoughts: Some speech is freer than others, the danger of the desk, and sex resumes - New Statesman

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Posted By admin on May 23, 2021

Over 6,000,000 Jewish people were killed during the Holocaust. USA TODAY

Luke Holland's last mission to bring his "Final Account" to the world has beenfulfilled with the Friday release of the late director'ssearing Holocaust documentary.

Spurred to urgent action in 2008, the documentary filmmaker,whose grandparents were murdered in the Holocaust, sought to interviewthe last living architects of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich.

Notthe monsters from the history books, but ordinary German men and women who participated or were silent through the monstrous atrocities of the Holocaust from former SS members andconcentration camp guards to farmers and housewives. After completing 300 interviews and editing the completed work, Holland, 71, died in July after a prolonged battle with cancer.

"The film itself is the culmination of a lifetime's work and mission," says his longtime friend and film associate producer Sam Pope. "Lukewas supremely happy to have finished it, to make it over the final line. He completed hismission."

Director Luke Holland during the film of "Final Account."(Photo: Courtesy of Focus Features LLC.)

Pope, who met the filmmaker at age 6when his familymoved to his small village in East Sussex, England, believes his filmmaking mentor was building towards making the "Final Account" his entirelife.

The U.K-born Holland found out when he was 14 that his mother was a Jewish refugee who had fled Vienna, Austriajust before the Germans marched in. Jews were rounded and sent off to to concentration camps, including Holland'sgrandparents, who died.

"Learning of his family'smurder set off a spark, and informedhis life and work," says Pope.

Holland became a documentary filmmaker, making films such as "Good Morning Mr. Hitler!" (1993)which showed Hitler and high-ranking Nazis up-close throughdiscovered home movies, and"I Was a Slave Labourer" (2000), focusing on a formerNazi slave laborer's campaign for compensation.

A young German man gives the Nazi salute in "Final Account.'(Photo: Courtesy of Focus Features)

But in 2008, Holland realized he faced a closing window to get the last word from a passing generation on the horrors that took place.

"He was spurred on knowing thiswas the final moment he'd ever have to capture these interviews. Time was always up against him, this generation was dying," says Pope. "He initially set out to meet the people who had murdered his grandparents and ask them 'Why?'But if he couldn't meet them, then he could meet people like them."

Holland dealt with a decade of financial and logistical issues gathering the interviews, often sleeping on friends' couches in Germany to save money. But the German speaker'sability to draw out conversations with everyday people ledto startling revelations, some they hadnever whispered before, inhumble rooms with cuckoo clocks and a retirementhome. Some interviewees continuedto deny any knowledge.

What to stream this weekend: Netflix's 'Army of the Dead,' Amazon Prime's Pink documentary

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Klaus Kleinau appears in the documentary "Final Account."(Photo: Focus Features LLC.)

One formerWehrmacht fighter pointedout the family farm where escapees from the nearby Bergen-Belsen concentration camp hid. In further prodding by Holland, the man admitted, "Well, we discovered them and reported it."

Holland continued to work on the film through his 2015 terminal cancer diagnosis. "We didn't know how much time we would haveto finish this film. But he kept going," says Pope.

Dr. Stephen Smith, executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation, was in touch with Holland since the project's origin. He calls the completed film "a remarkable contribution,the first time we've really seen the history of the Holocaust presented through the eyes of those who were part of the infrastructure that the Nazis built."

Having the darkrevelationscome from seemingly upstanding members of the community is vital, especially today.

"Seeing them as human beings really makes the movie's point that there were no monsters. They were human beings that did monstrous things and were living with the consequences," says Smith. "The final account is Lukeholding them to account to some degree and shows us the fragility of human nature, how easily we're beguiled by ideology and by putting on a uniform."

Pope says he calledHolland's widowYvonne Hennessy, mother of the couple's two sons, as the film has neared release and found a powerful mix of family emotion.

"It's a difficult and emotional experience for all of them," says Pope. "But tohave gotten to this point, for Luke to have achieved this, to see the questions he wanted to pose be heard and understood they are so incredibly proud of him."

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'Final Account' Holocaust documentary is the searing last mission for late director Luke Holland - USA TODAY

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Posted By admin on May 23, 2021

The film bears a dedication to Holland's murdered grandparents. The British filmmaker died last year, at the age of 71, adding a poignant coda to this extraordinary undertaking.

The documentary presents starkly shot interviews with elderly Germans, some of whom were civilians, while others served in the army, as camp guards and as Hitler Youth during the 1930s and '40s. Those discussions are garnished with chilling color video of children saluting a Swastika flag, or signs that translated read "Jews are not welcome here."

The interviews find a range of responses, with the participants sometimes contradicting themselves moments apart regarding their awareness at the time about what was happening. During one session with a group of what looks like nursing-home residents, when one pleads ignorance about the camps, another quickly follows by saying it was impossible not to know.

The conversations are never really confrontational, but the questions occasionally prove telling. When a woman says she was too young to have a reaction to the persecution of Jews prior to the war and the events of Kristallnacht, the off-camera interviewer replies, "Fourteen?"

Even in these recent discussions, the subjects can still remember the "hiking songs" they sang, and frequently express pride in serving in elite units of the Waffen-SS.

"I didn't feel any pity for the Jews," one says, while another notes that at 16, "When you're caught up in it, you keep your mouth shut."

A few of those interviewed are notably unapologetic, while others express shame and regret. The ringing message throughout "Final Account" comes from the famous quote attributed to Edmund Burke, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

"Final Account" premieres May 21 in select theaters.

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'Final Account' explores the memories of Germans who lived through the Holocaust - CNN

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Posted By admin on May 23, 2021

Bleachers collapsed at a Hasidic synagogue in the Israeli settlement of Givat Zeev, just northwest of Jerusalem, with dozens being reported as injured some in serious condition and two dead.

Magen David Adom, Israels emergency service, has reported that around 54 people were injured, with some becoming trapped under the rubble after the collapse. Of the dozens injured, five are in serious condition, and Fire and Rescue Services Commissioner Brig. Gen. Dedi Simchi has reported there are deaths at the scene, but did not specify how many, according to the Jerusalem Post. Media reports have signified at least two are dead.

Footage of the collapse has landed on social media showing the synagogue bleachers giving way from the back first, and dozens scrambling at the scene.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that soldiers from the Home Front Command and medical personnel have been dispatched to the scene.

Local media have reported there were approximately 600 people inside the synagogue at the time of the collapse.

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Synagogue bleachers COLLAPSE in Israeli settlement ...

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Posted By admin on May 23, 2021

A Brooklyn man was charged with setting fire to a building housing a synagogue and a yeshiva, and federal prosecutors said on Saturday that it was the second time in less than a week that the man had sought to damage a religious institution.

The man, Ali Alaheri, 29, was accused of carefully arranging and then igniting piles of garbage bags on Wednesday near the side of the building that housed the synagogue and the yeshiva.

Hours later, on the same block in the Borough Park neighborhood, Mr. Alaheri approached a Jewish man, who was described in court documents as wearing traditional Hasidic clothing, and punched him multiple times in the head. A description of the mans injuries was not provided.

Mr. Alaheri was also accused of defacing a Catholic church and of attacking a Black man in a New York City subway station this month. He was arrested on Friday in Dobbs Ferry in Westchester County, the police said, and appeared to be in possession of a stolen bicycle.

Ashley Burrell, a lawyer for Mr. Alaheri, who appeared virtually in court on Saturday afternoon, declined to comment.

If convicted of the arson charge, Mr. Alaheri could face up to 20 years in prison. Federal prosecutors said they were not pursuing hate crime charges against Mr. Alaheri; they declined to say why.

The accusations against Mr. Alaheri came a day after another man in Brooklyn was arrested on hate crime charges after a Jewish man was hit and beaten by several others while he lay in the street.

Jewish organizations have raised concerns over research that shows that both face-to-face and online cases of anti-Semitism have risen across the nation alongside the conflict in the Middle East.

In New York, at least 27 people were arrested after clashes erupted in Midtown Manhattan on Thursday between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

One man faces charges, including assault as a hate crime, after he was accused of attacking a 29-year-old Jewish man, Joseph Borgen, who was punched, kicked, pepper-sprayed and hit with crutches by a group of several people as he lay in the street.

Mr. Borgen left the hospital early on Friday morning. The police said they were looking for five to six other people in connection with the assault.

In the charges against Mr. Alaheri, prosecutors said he had meticulously lined up piles of garbage bags outside the door of the building on 36th Street in Brooklyn early in the morning.

He is accused of then setting the bags on fire, and court documents say that it is clear from the manner in which the defendant placed the bags in a line against the yeshivas door that he intended the fire to damage or destroy the yeshiva. The extent of the damage was not described in court records.

Hours later, Mr. Alaheri attacked a Jewish man who was near the building and sitting outside. He took the mans cellphone before later dropping it, court records said.

Five days before the synagogue and yeshiva fire, Mr. Alaheri defaced a Catholic church, federal prosecutors said.

At St. Athanasius Roman Catholic Church in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, he set fire to an American flag outside the building on May 14, court documents said.

Mr. Alaheri can be seen on surveillance video later walking in the direction of a cross and a statue of Jesus. The next morning, they were found toppled, court documents said.

Another statue of Jesus at the same church was also found defaced with markings from a hammer. A man matching Mr. Alaheris description was seen hours earlier carrying a hammer as he attempted to steal a bicycle in the area, court documents say.

Mr. Alaheri is not facing federal charges related to what happened at the church. The Brooklyn district attorneys office said it was not pursuing charges against Mr. Alaheri.

Msgr. David Cassato at St. Athanasius said on Saturday that a parishioner had called him early in the morning to an outdoor shrine, where he first noticed the damage.

A million thoughts and feelings went on inside of myself, from anger, to rage, to hurt to the whole question of who would do such a thing, Monsignor Cassato said, adding that the Bible verse Father, forgive them for they know not what they do had come to mind.

It really ripped me tremendously, he added.

In unrelated episode, officials said that Mr. Alaheri had punched a Black man as he stood in an unspecified New York City subway station on May 5. The two had not had any prior interactions, court documents said.

Federal prosecutors said that video evidence connected Mr. Alaheri to each of the episodes.

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Man Charged in Arson at Brooklyn Synagogue and Yeshiva, Officials Say - The New York Times

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Posted By admin on May 23, 2021

A photograph of the vandalism that occurred at Congregation Chaverim at some point between 8:30 p.m. Tuesday and 8 a.m. Wednesday, May 19, 2021.(Photo: Congregation Chaverim)

Days after a Tucson synagogue welcomed members back inside for the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a vandal smashed the door, leading some in the area's Jewish community to worry they're being targeted due to rising tensions over theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict.

The vandalism happened at Congregation Chaverim at some point between 8:30 p.m. Tuesday and 8 a.m. Wednesday, according to the Tucson Police Department.

The department said the synagogue's front door was damaged, leaving a "rock-size hole not big enough for anyone to enter."

No suspects had been identified as of Wednesday afternoon.

Among the synagogue's members is state Rep. Alma Hernandez, D-Tucson, who posted about the incident on Twitter and said she was a "complete mess in tears."

Hernandez told The Arizona Republic the synagogue is "fairly small" and tucked inside of a community, making it unlikelythat the incident was accidental.

"Someone deliberately, purposefully went to do this," she said. "That's what's so unsettling and makes us feel so unsafe."

Hernandez said she believes the incident is tied to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has heightened in recent days and left scores of people dead as others around the world, including President Joe Biden, urge a cease-fire.

Rep. Alma Hernandez, D-Tucson, left, and Rep. Jennifer Pawlik, D-Chandler, are sworn in during the opening of the Arizona Legislature at the state Capitol Monday, Jan. 11, 2021, in Phoenix.(Photo: Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press)

Hernandez said she's seen "a lot" ofanti-Semitic discourse and misinformation regarding the conflict moving throughout social media and other channels, leading to "more anger and hate" toward Jews.

She's been vocal about those concerns on Twitter, but also told The Republic that attacking Jewish people because of the actions of the Israeli military is "wrong."

"We shouldn't have to pay the price here in Arizona, or anywhere, for what's going on in the Middle East," she said.

Hernandez said whoever committed the vandalism is trying to intimidate the congregation, adding that it's "scary" to think about what could happen in the days ahead as the conflict overseas continues.

"Right now, it's a thrown rock and breaking the front door. Next week, it could be putting the building on fire or something of that nature that I don't wish on anyone," she said.

Hernandez said sheand others at the synagoguewon't letfear win.

"We're not going to be scared, we're not going to back down and we're not going to stop showing up at services," she said.

The synagogue has hired off-duty police officers as security during services for the last several years, but Rabbi Stephanie Aaron said they're hoping to boost security detail and add cameras and fencing in response to the vandalism.

Though Aaron said there's been small vandalism incidents at the synagogue over the years, the latest was "much worse."

"This felt very huge, very large a very huge piece of hatred aimed at us as Jews," she said. "That feels frightening."

Aaron said the synagogue had just returned to in-person services earlier in the week, after pivoting to virtual services and ceremonies since last March because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We joyously reentered the synagogue, only to have this happen basically a day later," she said.

Though she and others at the synagogue are shaken by the vandalism, Aaron said what she most wants is a conversation with whomever is responsible.

"My feeling really is to reach out and say, 'Let's speak to each other if you have things to say,'" she said. "That's really what I feel. I'm feeling shocked by it, I'm feeling frightened by it. I would like to say to this individual or individuals, hatred really will never get us anywhere."

Aaron said she grew up in Tucson and has always felt a sense of "mutual respect for all religions and all types of people."

Though she said the congregation feels "wounded" by what happened,she emphasized her community's strength and willingness to"make a place of shalom," the Hebrew word for peace,for everyone.

Hernandez said a vigil to show solidarity with the synagogue and larger Jewish community would be held at the synagogue at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Reach the reporter at bfrank@arizonarepublic.comor 602-444-8529. Follow her on Twitter @brieannafrank.

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'We're not going to be scared': Rep. Alma Hernandez decries vandalism at Tucson synagogue - The Arizona Republic

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