When coronavirus shut down Minnesota, Aaron Berc kept hearing story after story about people that could no longer pay their rent if they wanted to feed their families. As a community organizer for the St. Paul-based social justice organization Jewish Community Action, he had also been exploring how Jewish text study could bolster his organizing…
(JTA) — Two Minnesota high school students were criticized for sharing a video titled “Me and the boys on the way to camp,” which photoshops them dancing in a Nazi boxcar and happily skipping into Auschwitz, on the video social media platform TikTok. The video contains humorous music whose lyrics include “Tell everybody I’m on…
Torah scrolls damaged in a fire that destroyed a Minnesota synagogue were burned again when the garage in which they were being stored caught ablaze. The remnants of the Torahs, which were irreparably burned in September after the 120-year-old Adas Israel Congregation in Duluth caught fire, were being stored in a local garage before they…
A man experiencing homelessness pleaded guilty on Tuesday to starting a fire that burned down a synagogue in Minnesota earlier this month, the Duluth News Tribune reported. Matthew Amiot said he was seeking shelter from the cold in a sukkah, a temporary dwelling built behind the Adas Israel Congregation in Duluth. He had tried to…
A U.S. Senate candidate once employed an anti-Semitic trope by accusing Republicans of having “dual loyalties” to Israel, CNN reported. Jason Lewis, a Republican from Minnesota and a former radio talk show host, said on his show in 2013 that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and a “very strong American Jewish lobby” cared about…
(JTA) — The homeless man charged with setting fire to a historic synagogue in northern Minnesota was sheltering in an alcove between the building and its sukkah. Matthew James Amiot, 36, used a lighter to set fire to what the criminal complaint said was “a variety of combustible materials” early on the morning of September…
(JTA) — A suspect was arrested in connection with the fire that burned to the ground a historic synagogue in northern Minnesota. The Adas Israel Synagogue in Duluth, Minnesota caught fire early on the morning of September 9. The building was more than 100 years old. Matthew James Amiot, 36, was arrested on Friday on…
Updated 4:30 p.m. A synagogue in northern Minnesota went up in flames on Monday. Adas Israel Congregation, an Orthodox synagogue in Duluth, Minnesota, was ablaze as of 2:22 Monday morning, the Duluth Fire Department said in a statement. Much of the building has been destroyed and the fire department is working to stabilize the structure…
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