A force for constructive communal consciousness
(JTA) – Secret recording devices and other surveillance activities were discovered at one of Kiev’s main synagogues, according to a chief rabbi of Ukraine who said this “discredits the state.”
Rabbi Moshe Azman, one of two chief Orthodox rabbis in Ukraine, announced the discovery this month in a statement Tuesday. [Read more…]
(JTA) – A woman was elected mayor of Haifa for the first time, while the mayor’s race in Jerusalem will go to a runoff following municipal elections held across Israel on Tuesday.
In Tel Aviv, Ron Huldai will serve a fifth term as mayor after defeating his deputy.
In Jerusalem, voters will return to the polls in two week to choose between Municipal Council member Moshe Lion and former deputy mayor Ofer Berkovitch, who each received about 30 per cent of the vote, failing to reach the 40 per cent threshold to avoid a runoff. [Read more…]
An estimated 4,000 people protested Donald Trump as he visited the Squirrel Hill neighbourhood of Pittsburgh, near site of the Tree of Life mass shooting, Oct. 30, 2018. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
PITTSBURGH (JTA) – Thousands of protesters turned their backs on U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday as his motorcade approached the synagogue where a gunman killed 11 worshippers.
At the Tree of Life Congregation, Trump and his entourage met with its spiritual leader, Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, and placed stones on an outdoor memorial for the 11 victims. Inside, they lit candles for the dead.
The president was accompanied by his wife, Melania, along with his Jewish daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, as well as the Treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, who is Jewish. Also present was Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer. [Read more…]
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addressing the Palestinian National Council in the West Bank city of Ramallah, April 30, 2018. (Flash90)
(JTA) – A PLO decision-making body passed a motion to suspend its recognition of Israel until Israel recognizes a Palestinian state.
Monday night’s decision by the Central Committee would bring an official end to the Oslo Accords signed in September 1993. However, the decision is nonbinding, the official Palestinian Authority (PA) news agency WAFA reported, and requires the approval of PA President Mahmoud Abbas. [Read more…]
Brothers David (left) and Cecil Rosenthal were among the 11 Jews murdered at the Tree of Life synagogue during Shabbat services on October 27, 2018.
PITTSBURGH (JTA) – Cecil Rosenthal would always ask after your sick mother or inquire about your marriage – or divorce. His brother, David, a jokester, loved the police and every year would buy the same sunglasses with mirrored lenses.
At a moving ceremony Tuesday, relatives stood before a funeral home packed with mourners to share fond memories of the brothers, who were the first to die in Saturday’s mass shooting at the Tree of Life Congregation here.
David, 54, and Cecil, 59, who were intellectually disabled, were greeting worshippers at the synagogue as they did most Saturday mornings when they were struck down by Robert Bowers, the alleged gunman. They were laid to rest following a funeral at Congregation Rodef Shalom in Shadyside. [Read more…]
Leslie Kaufman, vice-president of corporate services for the Jewish Federation of Ottawa. (Howard Sandler)
While the Shabbat massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighbourhood of Pittsburgh on October 27 hit close to home for virtually all members of Jewish communities around the world, it hit particularly close to home for Leslie Kaufman, vice-president of corporate services for the Jewish Federation of Ottawa, who grew up in the neighbourhood and offers these thoughts.
I grew up in Squirrel Hill. My parents’ house was just three blocks from Tree of Life, and around the corner from the home of Mr. Rogers (yes, that Mr. Rogers). A quiet residential neighborhood with a vibrant business district, it was the Jewish hub blended into a culturally diverse community. The iconic street corner is Forbes and Murray, which we called “up street.” If you watched the Saturday night vigil, you saw that intersection – filled with thousands of people of all faiths, coming together with candles and umbrellas to pray and give support.
Within steps from that corner, you find the kosher butcher, grocer, and baker. You find the JCC, a Jewish senior living centre, small and large synagogues, and Jewish day schools. [Read more…]
Rabbi David Lau, Israel’s chief Ashkenazic rabbi, is shown on March 29, 2018. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
(JTA) – Israel’s Chief Rabbinate may deserve a lot of the criticism it gets from non-Orthodox Jews in this country, who see their official expressions of Judaism disrespected and their followers disenfranchised by the rabbinate’s tight hold on Israel’s religious affairs.
But it appears that Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau did not deserve headlines, including one in JTA, suggesting that he refused to identify the site of the deadly shooting in Pittsburgh as a “synagogue.” [The JTA article in question has been removed from the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin website.]
In fact, according to a translation of his full interview with the Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon, Lau did use the Hebrew word for a synagogue – “beit knesset” – to refer to synagogue’s like Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh, and at the same time offered a full-throated, and even perturbed, dismissal of those who would make such petty distinctions at a time of tragedy. [Read more…]
More than 550 people attended a vigil organized by the Jewish Federation of Ottawa and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs for the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, October 28, at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre. (Martin Sampson)
Eleven chairs, each with the name of a murdered victim from the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, and each with a lit memorial candle, at the memorial gathering for the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, October 28, at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre. (Alex Sarna)
More than 550 people filled the Soloway Jewish Community Centre social hall to capacity for a memorial gathering, October 28, in solidarity with Pittsburgh’s Jewish community, after a mass murder shooting spree at the Tree of Life Synagogue there.
The shootings at the synagogue, located in Pittsburgh’s historic Squirrel Hill neighbourhood, happened during Shabbat morning services on October 27, the day before. Eleven worshippers were killed and six others – including four police officers responding to the incident – were injured.
At the memorial gathering, quickly arranged by the Jewish Federation of Ottawa and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, 11 empty chairs and memorial candles were set on the stage in honour of those who lost their lives.
“We are here today to mourn together, lament together and commiserate together,” said Rabbi Reuven Bulka, Federation’s Annual Campaign co-chair, who acted as MC for the event. [Read more…]
Lena Epstein, a Republican House candidate in Michigan, greets guests during her campaign office’s grand opening event in Commerce Charter Township, May 5, 2018. (Rachel Woolf for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
(JTA) – Lena Epstein, a Jewish Republican nominee for U.S. Congress in Michigan, defended inviting a ‘Messianic rabbi’ to honour the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre at a campaign event that featured U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence.
“I invited the prayer because we must unite as a nation – while embracing our religious differences – in the aftermath of Pennsylvania,” Epstein said in a statement she posted Monday on Twitter after news of the event prompted Jewish outrage on the social networking service. [Read more…]
(JTA) – University students in France listed and ranked Jewish classmates according to their level of affiliation as part of a string of jokes online and on campus featuring anti-Semitic hate speech, an alleged victim of this behaviour said.
The medical student at Paris 13 university, a 19-year-old woman identified only as Rose, filed a complaint with police on Oct. 20, the Europe 1 radio station reported Monday. [Read more…]