Sixteen years after the darkest chapter in Maccabiah history, some of the survivors of the 1997 bridge disaster are seething that officials found criminally responsible for the deaths of four Australians still continue to operate inside the Maccabi movement. Greg Small, Yetty Bennett, Elizabeth Sawicki, and Warren Zines died after a makeshift bridge over the…
Hoping to revive a bill that would permit aid to synagogues damaged by Hurricane Sandy, two U.S. senators have introduced a new measure that seeks to alleviate concerns from FEMA and civil liberties groups over separation of church and state issues. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) put forward a new bill that limits…
When Congress lingered in approving additional federal funding for communities affected by superstorm Sandy, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, forcefully criticized the delay. But when the House of Representatives voted recently to allow houses of worship to apply for federal aid after natural disasters, Nadler vehemently opposed the move. Nadler said he sympathized…
The House of Representatives approved legislation that would allow synagogues and houses of worship to be eligible for federal disaster relief. H.R. 592, the Federal Disaster Assistance Nonprofit Fairness Act of 2013, passed 354-72, and will now move on to the Senate. Since Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast on October 29, organizations like the…
Jewish organizations are split on whether federal emergency funds should be used to fund repairs to synagogues, scores of which suffered severe damage in superstorm Sandy. The Orthodox Union and the American Jewish Committee backed an amendment introduced by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) just before the 112th Congress retired that would have designated Superstorm Sandy…
Only the heartless wouldn’t sympathize with the plight of these synagogues. The flood waters of Hurricane Sandy soared 10 feet high in the building that houses Temple Israel in Long Beach, N.Y., destroying its library, a kitchen and classrooms. A month later, the Modern Orthodox synagogue still had no power or heat, forcing its rabbi…
UJA-Federation of New York and other Jewish agencies are helping synagogues damaged during Hurricane Sandy to apply for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, even though the government agency currently bars grants to houses of worship because of concern that such aid may violate the First Amendment. Nathan Diament, executive director of public policy…
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