(JTA) — A video showing a group of Alabama teenagers drawing swastikas on a boy’s back was posted to Snapchat. A group of boys are seen laughing at a shirtless boy, a student at Mountain Brook Schools, after drawing two large black swastikas and the word “heil.” Some of the students attend Mountain Brook, the…
I am the rabbi of Huntsville’s Temple B’nai Sholom, Alabama’s oldest synagogue in continuous use. Over the first two nights of Passover, vandals defaced two congregations in Huntsville, The Etz Chayim Congregation and Chabad of Huntsville, with anti-Semitic graffiti. Although my temple was not attacked, our souls have been assaulted. As one of my congregants…
A synagogue in Alabama was vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti as Passover began, the local news website AL.com reported Thursday. The graffiti on the property of Etz Chayim Congregation, a Conservative synagogue in Huntsville, included swastikas and the words “Jew scum” and “Holohoax.” Community leaders told AL.com that they believed the vandalism was timed to coincide…
I was blessed to spend the bulk of my rabbinic service in a place I didn’t belong. I am a Yankee, born in New York, who served a synagogue in the Deep South. When I first arrived decades ago, I found myself anxiously striving to keep Judaism — and Jews — from being submerged in…
(JTA) — Early on Friday mornings, Diane Weil leaves her house in Montgomery, Alabama, with an umbrella. The 64-year-old registered nurse doesn’t need it to shield her from the rain. Instead she uses it to block patients from protesters who come to the health clinic where she has been volunteering every week since September. Reproductive…
Update, May 16: The combined bill was passed by the state legislature and signed into law on Wednesday, May 15 by Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey. (JTA) — Alabama state lawmakers drew comparisons between the Holocaust and abortion in bills introduced earlier this month. Sen. Greg Albritton and Rep. Terri Collins, both Republicans, introduced matching bills…
(JTA) — Seven years ago, Lisa and Kenny Priddle left New York to help build up the Jewish community of the small Alabama town of Dothan. They were attracted by the idea of shoring up the Jewish community in the South and also by the offer of a $50,000 grant from local millionaire hotelier Larry…
The Christian group that runs the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. sponsored a trip to Romania for a member of Congress to meet with a local political leader accused of anti-Semitism, the left-wing news outlet TYT Network reported Wednesday. Republican Rep. Robert Aderholt of Alabama met with Marian Munteanu on two separate occasions…
