Cytron-Walker appeared to be trying to calm down the man holding him hostage.
(JTA) — Jews who pray according to traditional liturgy each morning recite a line that is usually symbolic: “Blessed are you, God, who frees the captive.” On Saturday that line became painfully meaningful as a number of Jewish worshippers were taken hostage during Shabbat services at their Texas synagogue. And as the afternoon stretched into…
As the hostage situation at a synagogue near Fort Worth, Texas, continued into Saturday night, Jewish leaders shared calls for solidarity and prayers for the hostages and their community. I’m monitoring the situation at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. I’m praying for a peaceful resolution, for those being held, for the first responders, for…
If you want to understand why a man bent on freeing a Pakistani woman convicted of shooting American soldiers in 2008 would take four Jews hostage in 2022, you need to understand the conspiratorial mindset of a Brandeis University graduate named Aafia Siddiqui. The man who burst into Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas on…
(JTA) — (Cleveland Jewish News via JTA) – For the nearly 13,000 students at Ohio’s Youngstown State University, Jacob Ari Labendz is the face of Jewish studies. The history professor, who came to the school in 2017, heads the school’s Center for Judaic and Holocaust Studies. This year, he’s teaching three of its six courses….
(JTA) — The Novak Djokovic COVID scandal may be stealing the headlines ahead of the Australian Open, which starts next week, but there are several Jewish players looking to win big at the year’s first Grand Slam. Here they are: Men’s singles tournament **Does Diego have a path to victory? ** Diego Schwartzman, seeded no….
An 11-hour standoff at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, ended late Saturday night with the rabbi and other hostages released safely and the suspect dead, police and political officials said. The suspect, a 44-year-old British national named Malik Faisal Akram, disrupted Shabbat-morning services as they were being livestreamed on Facebook and held its rabbi and…
A museum near Tel Aviv, which first opened nearly 35 years ago, has ceased operations after failing to reach an agreement with 47 artists who accused the museum — and the city — of censorship, and demanded that their work be removed. The artists had asked The Ramat Gan Museum of Israeli Art to reverse…
(JTA) — Over the past several decades, the Terezín concentration camp has come to be synonymous with the music of the Holocaust because of the number of performers who were imprisoned there. Now, in the latest production associated with a foundation devoted to preserving the camp’s legacy, a new book reveals how one prominent musician…
HAIFA, Israel (JTA) — Each year on Tu Bishvat, the Jewish holiday celebrating trees and plants, Lior Weitz and his wife take their two daughters to plant saplings of pine — the tree that more than any other symbolizes Israel’s historic forestation project. They join thousands of families at one of the annual planting ceremonies…
(JTA) — As she sought an image to illustrate how her synagogue has fared recently, during the worst case counts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Rabbi Heidi Hoover landed on a line from a famous movie. “I quoted ‘The Godfather’ in one my newsletters: ‘Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in,’”…
