USA

Biden clears agenda to focus on Afghan airport attack

Published by AFP Washington (AFP) – President Joe Biden is being briefed on the bloody attack against Kabul’s airport, the White House said Thursday, delaying a planned meeting with Israel’s visiting prime minister and canceling another event. “The president has been briefed and he is in the Situation Room,” an official told AFP on condition […]

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International, Middle East, USA

OpEd: Restoring American Leadership in the World

In the face of the ongoing debacle in Kabul and in Afghan provinces, Americans’ first priority should be to pray for our soldiers and our allies, and check out the veterans operating #DigitalDunkirk. Our soldiers are proving, once again, that they are the best among us. Then, it’s time to adopt a little bit of realism about the world. [Shoshana Bryen]

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International, Middle East, Shoshana Bryen, USA

OpEd: West Must Stand Up to Totalitarian Governments

I believe that Western governments’ strategy of restraint and “fairness” when dealing with Iran, Russia, etcetera, are like taking a knife to a gun fight. That strategy doesn’t work with non-democratic countries, which are unconcerned with the welfare of their citizens. For them, it’s all about the mission of the ruling class. Iran, Russia, China, North Korea – none of them respect restraint or fairness. That type of soft policy only engenders a loss of respect for those countries that espouse it. [Steve Kramer]

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International, Middle East, Steve Kramer, USA

Murder of Yeshiva Student Highlights Need for Gun Control

When Shmuel Silverberg, 18, was shot outside Yeshiva Toras Chaim in Denver’s West Colfax neighborhood on Tuesday, Aug. 17, his assailants were not satisfied. Silverberg ran away from them, and they chased him just inside the school where fellow students tried to perform CPR on him. Silverberg, who was studying at the religious school as a post-high school student from Cleveland, was rushed to the hospital, where he died, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. [Bruce S. Ticker]

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Bruce Ticker, USA

Michael Kesler, Holocaust Survivor and Author

Michael Kesler, Ph.D, died August 23, 2021 from advanced Parkinsons disease at the age of 97, surrounded by family at his home in East Brunswick, NJ. Born in Dubno, Poland (now Ukraine), Michael and his sister Luba fled their family home to escape the Nazis. They wandered through 3,000 miles to Uzbekistan. During four years, they suffered yet persevered in their quest to survive. [Kesler Family]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Science, Medicine, & Education, 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