Louisville Rabbis Deny Report of Resettling Jewish Syrian Refugees
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
— A report of a Conservative synagogue in Louisville resettling Jewish refugees from Syria is false, say the rabbis of the Kentucky city’s two Conservative synagogues.
On Friday, JTA received an anonymous report that an unnamed Conservative synagogue in the city had welcomed three Syrian Jewish families. The report provided the names and some personal details of the families, but did not name the synagogue. Other publications have since published the report.
But the rabbis of the two Conservative synagogues in Louisville both told JTA that while the city’s Jewish community of about 8,000 helped a Syrian Muslim family settle in the city, their synagogues have not brought in any Jewish families.
“It’s a rumor. It’s not true,” said Rabbi Robert Slosberg of Congregation Adath Jeshurun. “There’s no Syrian refugee family that came to the Jewish community that anyone in the Jewish community that I’ve spoken to of authority knows about.”
Rabbi Michael Wolk of Keneseth Israel Congregation told JTA the report “is not true at all.”
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