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These are the Jewish victims of the Surfside building collapse
This article will be updated as more names are identified by authorities in Florida. (JTA) — The Champlain Towers South building collapse is a national tragedy, one that has claimed nearly 20 lives so far and left over 140 still missing in the rubble as of Thursday. Among other groups, it struck a unique nexus…
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Meet the Jewish trio who just raised $1.35 million for Surfside
The three 30-somethings met just a few weeks ago at a Marriott hotel pool party one of them threw to welcome himself to Surfside, Fla. They lamented that the community lacked a young Jewish professionals’ group, and decided to start one. The first event they organized was a Shabbat dinner at their synagogue, the Shul…
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Sarah Aroeste uses the power of Sephardic music to revitalize a lost Jewish community
(JTA) — This article originally appeared on Alma. At the turn of the 20th century, the city of Monastir, present-day Bitola in North Macedonia, was home to the country’s largest Jewish community, 11,000 people. That’s about half of the current Jewish population of Turkey, most of whom share the Ladino language and its music with…
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In time of tension, a cultural event brings Israelis and Palestinians together
This article is adapted from The Branch, a monthly podcast exploring individual relationships between Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians. The Branch is produced by Hadassah and created by Dina Kraft, a journalist based in Tel Aviv. Check out the latest episode of The Branch on its website, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Throughout…
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Rutgers Hillel director is leaving his post after 20 years. He’s worried about Jewish student life at the school.
(JTA) — As he ends his tenure as the director of the largest Hillel in the country after 20 years in the post, Andrew Getraer says Jews at Rutgers University face a reality out of Dickens: the best of times and the worst of times. Jewish life at the school, New Jersey’s flagship university, is…
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After years of injuries, Jon Moscot set to pitch for Team Israel at Tokyo Olympics
Jon Moscot discovered baseball fairly easily. Growing up in Southern California meant stickball games with brothers Josh and Jed in the park before eventually upgrading to baseball. Their father, Elliot, passed down a love for the game that he developed while idolizing Sandy Koufax and the Brooklyn Dodgers. This summer, the 29-year-old Moscot will fulfill…
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Meet Franciso Salvador, the ‘southern Paul Revere’ and first Jew ever elected in America
Editor’s note: We’ve republished this article, which originally ran in 2017, in honor of the 245th anniversary of Francis Salvador’s death. (JTA) — Long before 30-somethings Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump had the ear of President-elect Donald Trump, a 27-year-old became the first Jew to ever hold elected office in what would become the United…
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For 35 years, this mother-daughter duo has run a radio show on Ladino and Sephardic Jewish culture from Madrid
MADRID (JTA) — Matilde Gini de Barnatán and her daughter Viviana Rajel Barnatán didn’t set out to make Jewish history in Spain. In the 1960s and ’70s, Matilde, now 85, established herself in Argentina as a prominent researcher, teacher and scholar of the history of Sephardic culture and the Spanish Inquisition in Ibero-America. Her extensive…
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At the center of the Surfside tragedy, a rabbi helps people hold onto hope — and mourns his former neighbors
When Fred Klein, the rabbi in charge of providing counseling services to the grieving survivors of the Champlain Towers South disaster, looks out onto the rubble of the collapsed building, he can’t help thinking of the people who used to be his neighbors. Klein grew up in Miami not far from Surfside, and when he…
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Queer Zionists ask: ‘Where are our allies?’
Ahead of Pride Month this year, New Jersey-based trans activist Hannah Simpson reached out to the head of a trans organization to help plan an event. But when she suggested including groups like a Wider Bridge, a non-profit that connects American and Israeli LGBTQ communities, Simpson was booted. “I was told ‘because you’re a Jew,…
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‘A veritable sigh of relief’: How the world’s Jewish community came together to bring aid to Surfside
SURFSIDE, Fla. (JTA) — “I’m a Jew, I’m a Jew, I’m a Jew,” Steve Eisenberg tells me. We’re standing in The Shul of Bal Harbour on Sunday, in its social hall under construction. Two days earlier, on Friday evening just before Shabbat, it was piled high with blankets, clothing, mattresses, food and toiletries for the…
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