(JTA) — My father died a few weeks ago. The hardest part of the shiva was when it ended. Friends and family were, by and large, no longer visiting. I was alone in pain and agony. I thought of this reality during my visit to the Emanuel AME Church in this city merely two weeks…
On a recent Sunday morning, a white Jewish guy wearing a backpack entered the First African Methodist Episcopal Church: Bethel in Harlem, without a problem. A black usher wearing white gloves greeted him warmly at the door and gave him a service pamphlet. The young man found a seat on a plush green bench and,…
I finished reading Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler two days ago. As a Jew, I had wanted to understand why someone would want to destroy all that European Jews had worked so hard to build. But as I read, I could not help thinking instead about Dylann Roof, the white 21-year-old who killed nine black…
As Wednesday’s massacre in Charleston demonstrated, houses of worship face a particularly difficult security challenge. Unlike schools, churches such as the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal, where nine people were gunned down by a lone shooter on Wednesday, need to stay open and accessible to carry out their mission of community and religious outreach. That’s why…
The South Carolina church shooter said in a racial manifesto that the Jewish “problem” would be solved “if we could somehow destroy the Jewish identity.” Dylann Roof, who entered a Charleston, South Carolina church and killed nine black worshippers last week, published what is believed to be his racial manifesto on a website that is…
You might have already gotten used to us sharing Jon Stewart’s amazing jokes about news-worthy item du jour, and let’s face it, since he’s leaving the Daily Show soon, we want to share as much as possible. But last night, Jon Stewart’s regular sobering dose of truth came unmasked with humor. “Sorry, no jokes tonight,”…
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