USA

Pandemic Postcard Messages, 1918-1920

The Jewish Welfare Board was created on April 9, 1917, three days after the U.S. declared war on Germany. It wanted to provide services to Jewish troops similar to what Catholic servicemen received from the Knights of Columbus and Protestants from the YMCA. In 1919, after the war was over, the JWB printed tens of thousands of these reassuring cards depicting a grinning doughboy and distributed them to servicemen to send to family and friends. [Oliver B. Pollak, Ph.D]

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Jewish History, Lifestyles, Oliver Pollak, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

The Anti-BDS Fights on North American Campuses

Just because most colleges and universities have been on at least a partial pandemic shut down this past year doesn’t mean that BDS forces have lost any of their vitriol. Or that they’ve given up on pillorying the Jewish state and, all too often, the Jewish people as well. Among those fanning the anti-Israel flames this past year: [JNS.org]

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International, Middle East, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

N.J. town sues Orthodox congregation it says opened school without approvals

Published by NJ.com Brick Township is suing a Lakewood-based Orthodox Jewish congregation, alleging that it’s been operating a private high school for up to 100 boys in a synagogue it acquired in March despite not having been granted the required site plan approval or construction permits. In the suit, filed Friday in state Superior Court

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USA

Growth of Jewish Communities Promoted in the Early 20th Century

The headline in the adjoining news clipping is hype. “May” is not “will” or “shall.” Booster describes real estate developers, hucksters and visionaries who wanted to profit from growing communities and increases in real estate prices. Saul Voorsanger, who emigrated from Holland with his wife Sarah in 1893, promoted the growth of the Jewish population. He was a salesman and publicist and the brother of Temple Emanu-El’s Rabbi Jacob Voorsanger. The rabbi started Emanu-El, San Francisco’s weekly Jewish newspaper in 1895 and died in 1908. Sol, Saul or S. became editor. During 1912 several newspapers reported Voorsanger’s visiting chambers of commerce in San Diego, Visalia, Fresno, Modesto, Kings, San Joaquin, and Dinuba. He solicited advertising for a special 75,000 copy edition of Emanu-El to recruit better-off Russian Jews to buy and farm California land, a chimera. [Oliver B. Pollak]

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Jewish History, Oliver Pollak, USA

Conservative Movement Groups Respond to Child Sex Abuse Allegations

NEW YORK (Press Release) — The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ) and United Synagogue Youth (USY) today released the following statement in response to recently reported allegations of child sex abuse: For all of us at USY and USCJ, the past several weeks have been deeply painful.  We are very saddened by the heartbreaking

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USA

Putting the ‘Community’ in Jewish Community Day at Petco Park

By Jacob Kamaras LA JOLLA, California — I’ll never forget my first baseball game. My father brought me to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx on the last day of the regular season in 1993, as we watched the New York Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers, 2-1. Even as my interest in America’s Pastime has waned

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Jacob Kamaras, Sports & Competitions, USA

Historical Marker for Holocaust Hero Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds Finally Dedicated

By Jerry Klinger KNOXVILLE, Tennessee — At-risk to his own life, Roddie Edmonds saved approximately 200 Jewish POW G.I.s during the Holocaust. He is the only American G.I. honored by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among the Nations. East Tennessee is part of the Republican flyover country to the coastal elitists. Images of the Beverly

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Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, USA

‘Rosie the Riveter’ Theme of National Park

Shortly after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, the United States went into full war mobilization mode. While many men were drafted into the U.S. Armed Forces, others were needed to staff the shipyards, aircraft factories, and munition plants on the home front. It soon became apparent that there were more positions to be filled than available male workers and so the U.S. began to recruit women to work in these war industries at jobs for which they never before had been eligible. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

Israel Goes it Alone

By Steve Kramer KFAR SABA, Israel — Can Israel rely on any other country to support it when it’s critically endangered? First of all, Israel has never asked any other country to fight on its soil; but, Israelis hope and expect that other Western democracies would back it — on the world stage, in the

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Middle East, Steve Kramer, USA

New Report Identifies 5 Key Causes of Gender Gap in Jewish Nonprofit Leadership

NEW YORK (Press Release) — Addressing five causes can make significant progress in closing the persistent and large gender gap among CEOs at Jewish nonprofit organizations, finds a new report released by Leading Edge, which works to influence and inspire dramatic change in how Jewish organizations attract, develop, and retain top talent. Conducted in partnership

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USA

The ‘Highly Unlikely’ Happened in Afghanistan. Now What?

By Bruce S. Ticker PHILADELPHIA — In the Famous-Last-Words department: “The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.” The “highly unlikely” happened on Sunday as a dozen Taliban fighters garbed in native dress gathered around a desk in the presidential palace in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul.

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Bruce Ticker, Middle East, USA

Talented Celebrity and Statesman Made Paso Robles His Second Home

The Paso Robles Historical Society currently is housed in a building that had been donated for a library many years before by the philanthropist and industrialist Andrew Carnegie – one of 3,000 libraries he donated throughout the world.  Outside the building there is a statue, but it is not of Carnegie nor of Drury James, the man who recognized that the city’s hot springs and mud baths could be made into a tourist attraction and who built the grand Hotel de El Paso de Robles. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, USA