Within hours of the October 27 mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Muslim-American activists sprang into action. Tarek El-Messidi, founding director of the faith-based nonprofit Celebrate Mercy launched a “Muslims Unite for Pittsburgh Synagogue” campaign on LaunchGood, a Muslim fundraising website, with the goal of providing for the short-term needs of…
Around the time my relationship with my now-wife Rachael took a turn for the serious, we went for a hike in the desert and talked about religion. Rachael is Jewish. I am Catholic. Rachael’s Jewishness was mostly cultural. (Holiday recipes, yes! Holiday services or prayers, absolutely no!) By contrast, religion in all forms has always…
President Trump last spring pardoned Dinesh D’Souza, the conservative commentator and filmmaker who pleaded guilty in 2014 to making illegal campaign contributions. D’Souza has been criticized even by fellow conservatives for his frequently racially-charged public output, such as his decision to criticize former president Barack Obama’s use of a selfie stick by tweeting, “You can…
A powerful split-screen image greeted those following President Trump’s visit to Pittsburgh yesterday in the wake of a horrific massacre that left 11 Jews dead. As the President’s SUV pulled up to the Tree of Life synagogue where the massacre took place, thousands marched through the neighborhood, chanting Jewish prayers about love and kindness and…
Pittsburgh’s Jews are a proud people. Squirrel Hill is the center of our physical and spiritual world. We are the living, breathing example of what it means to be an American Jew today: integrated Americans exhibiting outward Jewish pride. So when a domestic terrorist shot up my parent’s synagogue, he did so knowing full well…
(JTA) — Two Jewish leaders in Iowa condemned Rep. Steve King for being “an enthusiastic crusader for the same types of abhorrent beliefs held by the Pittsburgh shooter.” In a letter to the Des Moines Register published Tuesday, Alan Steckman, president of Adas Israel in Mason City, and John Pleasants, president of the Ames Jewish…
Vice President Mike Pence was joined by a Jews for Jesus ‘rabbi’ who prayed for the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting at a Republican campaign rally in Michigan on Monday. Messianic Jewish Rabbi Loren Jacobs of Synagogue Shema Yisrael intoned prayers to “Jesus the Messiah” and denounced the “hate inspired shooting in synagogue in…
Reactions to the terrible shooting in Pittsburgh have revealed the deepening rift between American and Israeli Jews. As an American who is also a recent immigrant to Israel, I find myself in an awkward position. The murderer in Pittsburgh did not just make anti-Semitic pronouncements, but specifically acted because of the activities of the Hebrew…
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