I’m a cantor, and I lead a small congregation in Arlington, Texas; I’m also a hospice chaplain. So given my credentials, I’m supposed to be good in crisis situations. But I have to be completely honest: I was completely unprepared for the devastating winter storm that hit us last week. Who could ever have imagined…
Amid the record cold snap that has blanketed swaths of Texas in snow and cut power across the state, an Orthodox synagogue came to the rescue when a local hospital couldn’t keep their COVID-19 vaccines at the required extremely low temperatures. Houston’s Methodist Hospital had received a thousand doses of the drug, but an electrical…
It’s incredibly difficult to fully explain what it feels like to be in Texas right now. For one, I’m not sure which hat I’m wearing. I’m a homeowner, wife, and mother, so obviously I’m concerned about my family and the place I live. But I’m also a local resident who cares about community. So I’m…
(JTA) — The Department of Veterans Affairs removed two gravestones bearing swastikas from a military cemetery in Texas. With little fanfare, the VA removed the headstones on Monday morning from Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a group that advocates for troops and veterans who report discrimination in…
With just days left before the presidential election, Rabbi Ben Zeidman’s inbox has been filling with emails from congregants offering conflicting answers to the same set of questions. “Who’s better for Israel? Who likes or hates the Jews? Who’s courting antisemitic leaders?” Zeidman said. “You replace one political party leader with another — one presidential…
(JTA) — A woman has been arrested in connection with the vandalism of a Texas synagogue and two other houses of worship. Temple Emanuel, a Reform synagogue in McAllen, a church and a Hindu temple were spray-painted Tuesday morning with a swastika and the words “WITCH,” “HADES,” “RAPEST,” “NEW YORK KILLER” and other random phrases…
After years of attending friends’ bar and bat mitzvahs, brothers Matthew, Jeremy, and Danny Jason had dozens of kippot stashed all over their Houston home, souvenirs they never thought they’d need again. But in the era of coronavirus, there’s a good use for any object that covers the nose and mouth. In the past several…
(JTA) — A Jewish student in Texas was kicked off his high school’s robotics team after he made an anti-Semitic joke at his own expense. The student filed a federal lawsuit against Anderson High School in Austin, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. According to the lawsuit, the student found some coins on the floor of…
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