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Mr. Netanyahu’s Neighborhoods: Demonstrations only grow under lockdown
Some 600 people filled an intersection in the northern Tel Aviv neighborhood of Yehuda HaMacabee on Saturday night — new fathers with babies strapped to their chest, women hoisting black flags, retired couples and children banging pots and pans. “Balfour is here,” read signs hanging from the balconies of apartment buildings, as the demonstrators pumped…
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Orthodox Jews quietly defy coronavirus restrictions to celebrate last of the High Holidays
Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn proceeded with some indoor and outdoor holiday celebrations in their synagogues over the weekend, in defiance of restrictions limiting all religious gatherings to 10 or fewer people in neighborhoods where the rates of coronavirus infection have gone sharply up in recent weeks. On Saturday evening in Borough Park — a neighborhood…
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Florence Barat, 90, Was Preparing For Her Second Adult Bat Mitzvah
BOSTON (JTA) – Just a few months after she turned 90 last year, Florence Barat joined a bat mitzvah class with a group of other women at the Jack Satter House, a Jewish senior residence near Boston where she had lived for some two decades. Barat had already had an adult bat mitzvah 30 years…
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Pence’s ‘Jewish grandchildren’ defense of Trump versus the facts
Sen. Kamala Harris missed an easy layup when Vice President Mike Pence offered what he thought was his best defense of his boss’s record on white supremacy during Wednesday night’s debate. Pence said President Donald Trump couldn’t support antisemites because “he has Jewish grandchildren.” Harris let it go, but what she could have said was…
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Trump flags suddenly sprouted in Borough Park. Why now?
A local rabble rouser had a request for President Donald Trump, which he tapped out and sent into the universe through Twitter on Wednesday. “We are asking for President Trump to interfere with Gov Cuomo’s hateful decision of tough lockdown on our schools and places of worship,” tweeted city council candidate Heshy Tischler. “#Cuomohatesjews.” In…
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Will lawsuit against New Israel Fund chill progressive fundraising?
A case currently pending in the New York District court has the potential to undermine fundraising for progressive causes and intensify polarization within the American Jewish community. At issue is a complaint filed with the Internal Revenue Service by New York attorney David Abrams, a self-described “passionate pro-Israel Zionist” and founder and president of The…
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As seniors turn against Trump, are old Florida Jews among them?
So many seniors make their home in Florida that, for years, comedians have referred to the state as “God’s waiting room.” What every pollster’s mind these days is this: Who are they waiting to vote for? An estimated 29% of the state’s nine million voters are over 65, and recent polls suggest that support for…
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Ahead of Simchat Torah street parties, mayor says NYPD not sure how to enforce new health rules
The New York City Police Department does not know how it will enforce new state restrictions on religious gatherings just days before Simchat Torah, a holiday typically celebrated in Orthodox communities with massive dance parties that spill onto the street. “The lawyers all have to get on the same page, and the NYPD has to…
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At vice presidential debate, Pence invokes ‘Jewish grandchildren’ in defense of Trump
During Wednesday night’s Vice Presidential debate between Senator Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence, one moment in particular caught the attention of Jewish viewers. Asked about President Trump’s history of obfuscation when asked to decry white nationalists and white supremacists, Pence invoked the president’s Jewish grandchildren in his defense. “Your concern that he doesn’t…
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LGBTQ leaders respond to SCOTUS attack on marriage equality
A statement penned by two Supreme Court justices has set off alarms among LGBTQ+ rights activists. The statement, signed by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, attacked and criticized Obergefell v Hodges, the 2015 landmark Supreme Court decision allowing same-sex marriage. “Due to Obergefell,” Justice Thomas wrote, “those with sincerely held religious beliefs concerning marriage…
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In Borough Park, an anti-shutdown protest turns into a pro-Trump rally — and a journalist is assaulted
The religious Jews of Brooklyn’s Borough Park neighborhood often pour into the streets during the harvest holiday of Sukkot to dance with Torahs in a celebration called “Simchat Beit HaShoeva,” a ritual having to do with rainfall. On Wednesday night, they danced along Borough Parks’s 13th Avenue holding Trump flags. Heshy Tischler, a community agitator…
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