Billionaire George Soros has been accused of being anti-Israel and a Nazi collaborator. In the United States, Hungary, Israel, and some parts of American-Jewish community. This story tells how he became vilified.
Today, there are only five sand synagogues remaining in the world, three of them in the Caribbean.
More than a century and a half has passed since the gold rush created the booming Australian city of Ballarat, 70 miles inland from Melbourne. The gold is long gone, but the worshippers who sit shoulder to shoulder in the pews of Shearith Yisroel seem determined to live up to their synagogue’s name: “Remnant of Israel.”
When Akiva Weisinger started the Facebook group “God Save Us From Your Opinion: A Place For Serious Discussion of Judaism” in 2014, he viewed it as a place for “me and a couple of friends to discuss Judaism,” the 27-year-old teacher recalls.
Gal Lusky, founder of Israeli Flying Aid (IFA), has brought humanitarian help into some of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones. Lusky was born on Kibbutz Hokok in northern Israel, and she says her upbringing provided her with independence, while her Jewish values taught her to help others in need. She never thought of a career in international aid until 1992, when her brother was seriously wounded during his army service. She sat by his bedside for nearly a year and came to understand “how blessed I was to be born in Israel with its amazing medical infrastructure,” she says. “I wanted to bring this to others in the world.”
Our reaction to the events in Pittsburgh began with mourning for the victims. From mourning we moved to the legitimate fear that comes from living in a nation where easily procured weapons of mass death terrorize people of color, Muslims, LGBTQ people and—as always—Jews.
The Anti-Semitism Monitor reports anti-Semitic incidents around the world by country and date on a weekly basis.
The legacy of this half-forgotten conflict is an important one for those who care about religious freedom and religious pluralism today.
n the 1946 film The Big Sleep, based on the Raymond Chandler mystery of the same name, Carmen—the promiscuous, drug-addicted younger sister of Lauren Bacall’s character—sizes up Philip Marlowe, played by Humphrey Bogart, and asks him, “What are you, a prizefighter?” Bogart responds, “No, I’m a shamus.” “What’s a shamus?” she inquires. “It’s a private detective,” he answers. Yes, Bogart is using the Yiddish version—more popularly spelled “shammes”—of the Hebrew word, “shamash.”
Mary Adelman’s typewriter repair shop kept Manhattan writers, both famous and obscure, working for more than 50 years. It’s been almost a year since her death.
While Jews honor heroes like Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg, the name of Carl Lutz is virtually unknown.
