Michelle Obama Visits Prague Jewish Quarter

By Benjamin Schuman-Stoler The Jerusalem Post was with MO in Prague's historic Jewish quarter yesterday. "It was a wonderful visit, but much too short," MO said. "I'll be back." The JPost has a video, which you can see here. She had a busy day: Her visit included a stop at the Pinkas synagogue, whose walls bear the names of more than 80,000 Czech Holocaust victims... There were a few somber moments at the tiny cemetery, jammed with some 12,000 family gravestones crowded into a little garden near the Vltava River, and about 100,000 dead buried in several layers beneath them. Mrs. Obama stood briefly by the oldest gravestone - that marking the resting place of poet Avigdor Kara, who died in 1439 - before moving to the grave of the legendary 16th century rabbi Yehuda Loew, the Maharal,...

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MO's Jewish Cousin, A Rabbi Close to the Obamas

The Forward recently reported that Michelle Obama, wife of Sen. Barack Obama, has a cousin once removed who is a rabbi on Chicago's South Side. His name is Rabbi Capers Funnye (fuhn-AYE) and he is head of Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation (House of Peace for the Children of the Ancient Ethiopian Hebrews). WTTW Chicago (PBS) did a fascinating piece on Beth Shalom a while back: My parents live north of Chicago and have been to Beth Shalom a number of times. They say that the energy of the building is unmatched and that curiosity about the traditions, prayers, and customs of African-American Jewry is received with enlightening conversation and gracious enthusiasm. Indeed, according to The Forward, Funnye is known on Chicago's Board of Rabbis and elsewhere for such dialogue: for...

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