“The beautiful little synagogue was filled to capacity,” the Tupper Lake Herald reported on February 12, 1915. “Many were there who had known Mr. Cohn for the past twenty years — old Adirondack pioneers… The air was heavy with tears as Rev. Boyd of the Episcopal Church lifted a Hebrew prayer book given him by Mr. Cohn a few years ago.”

The man they gathered to honor was Harris Cohn, an early Jewish resident of Tupper Lake, New York. His funeral filled the small Beth Joseph Synagogue, the same wooden building that still stands today, now celebrating its 120th anniversary.

Just a decade earlier, in 1904 or 1905, local families — peddlers, merchants, and new immigrants — had pooled roughly $450 to build it, holding Hebrew school classes in the town hall while waiting for carpenters to finish the sanctuary. In 1911 they purchased an acre for a cemetery beside the Methodist burial ground.

Cohn, the paper wrote, was “the personification of honor, truth, and integrity” — a man of “deep religious convictions… the firm believer of righteousness, benevolence, charity and prayers.” His “belief in God,” the editor added, “was so ideal, so far elevated above all earthly things, that no sacrifice was too great to show and prove his devotion to his Maker.”

Rabbi S. Freedman of Beth Joseph led the prayers, chanting the memorial service in Hebrew. Then the local Episcopal minister rose to speak.

He held up the worn Hebrew prayer book Cohn had given him and said, “I prize this book so much, for Mr. Cohn was a man whom I admired and with whom I established a strong and lasting friendship.” Then he turned to the young people present and urged them “to hold fast to whatever denomination they were reared under,” reminding them that conviction and faith come from devotion to one’s own tradition.

The rabbi had spoken of religion not as a convenience but as “a deep solace to the soul.” The minister, moved also by faith, echoed it in his own words. Jews and Christians mourned together. When the eulogies ended, the mourners recited kaddish, an ancient prayer offering comfort and acknowledging God.

I came across this article, digitized through the New York State Historic Newspapers archive, while researching Jewish life in nearby Ogdensburg and Massena. I paused to hold this memory. I had been tracing the histories of small-town synagogues — some now closed, others still standing in places like New York’s North Country and across the Midwest. In Tupper Lake, as in so many places, Jewish life grew quickly and then thinned with time: by 1913 a Sisterhood had formed; by 1914, a lodge of the Independent Order of Brith Abraham met in the synagogue twice a month; and by 1918, Beth Joseph had joined the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. Each step spoke to a community that saw itself as part of something enduring, even in a place far removed from America’s largest Jewish centers.

The story of Harris Cohn’s funeral felt familiar. I had come across many such moments in small-town American history, and it revealed something essential that runs through so many of these places: a moral imagination larger than their size.

These were communities where faith was not theoretical. Jews and their neighbors depended on one another — through long winters, economic hardship, and the isolation of distance. Synagogues, often built by peddlers and storekeepers, became civic landmarks as much as houses of worship. A century later, when we look back at the geography of American Jewish life, we see that its reach was far wider than today’s metropolitan map suggests. For every major center of Jewish population, there were dozens of smaller congregations that carried the same prayers into fields, factory towns, and forest settlements.

It’s easy to forget that these rural sanctuaries once embodied outposts of Jewish belonging. Their stories are rarely told, overshadowed by the better-known narratives of New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles. Yet in towns like Tupper Lake, Judaism became part of the spiritual language of the whole community.

That is what moved me about the 1915 funeral. The newspaper account wasn’t written for a Jewish audience. It was published for the whole town, describing the service with reverence and curiosity but without exoticism. The boundaries between communities blurred, and what emerged was shared moral clarity: the belief that dignity, faith, and friendship can withstand every division.

There is something profoundly Jewish in the humility of that service. The simplicity of the synagogue, the equality of all before death, the act of remembrance itself — all mirror the same values I have seen in Jewish life today. In Tupper Lake, that ethos endured. By the 1930s, Beth Joseph opened its doors to patients from the nearby state hospital for Passover Seders, and in 1925 Rabbi Freedman — the same clergyman who eulogized Cohn — offered words of comfort at a Masonic memorial for a Presbyterian pastor. The boundaries were always more porous than history remembers.

Beth Joseph’s continued presence in Tupper Lake is a kind of quiet miracle. This year marks its 120th anniversary — a milestone few rural synagogues reach. The synagogue testifies that Jewish life has, at various times and places, reached into nearly every corner of America, leaving behind something worth remembering: the habit of neighborliness, the belief that God is present wherever people honor one another.

When Rev. Boyd lifted that Hebrew book at a funeral in 1915, he could not have known how far that gesture would travel. But in reading it more than a century later, I think of it as an act of faith in its own right. A Christian minister, holding the sacred words of another tradition, showing them to his townspeople with tenderness. That is a kind of sermon that still preaches.

The story of Harris Cohn’s funeral is not about a vanished world. It is about a world that, at least for one afternoon in the Adirondacks, revealed its best self.

The prayer book may no longer exist, but its lesson remains open: that the sacred is never confined by walls, and that remembering each other is itself a holy act.

The post How one man’s burial brought Jews and Christians together — and what it still teaches 120 years later appeared first on The Forward.

actor Gal Gadot has won the Genesis Prize, sometimes called the “Jewish Nobel,” for supporting Israel even as backlash against the country’s actions in Gaza rocked Hollywood.

Since Oct. 7, 2023, Gadot has been an outspoken advocate for Israelis taken captive by Hamas. Calling herself “a proud Jew and a proud Israeli,” she said in a statement that she would dedicate the $1 million award to “organizations who will help Israel heal.” 

Recipients of the prize, first awarded in 2014, customarily donate it to causes they choose, which have included advancing women’s equality, racial and economic justice, and combating antisemitism and “efforts to delegitimize the State of Israel,” according to a release from the Genesis Prize Foundation, which is based in Israel. 

Stan Polovets, the co-founder and CEO of The Genesis Prize Foundation, praised Gadot’s “moral clarity” in a statement.

“The award recognizes her bravery and moral courage — her steadfast defense of Israel at great personal and professional risk, her advocacy for the hostages, her compassion for victims of terror, and her empathy for all innocent victims of this terrible war unleashed by Hamas,” he said.

Gadot, who served two years in the IDF as part of Israel’s compulsory service before being cast in the title role in the 2017 superhero film “Wonder Woman,” has repeatedly used her platform to campaign for the release of Israeli hostages. On Oct. 12, 2023, she was among 700 celebrities and entertainment leaders, including Jerry Seinfeld, Jamie Lee Curtis and Chris Pine, who signed a letter condemning Hamas for “evil” and “barbaric acts of terrorism.” 

That same day, Gadot posted an Instagram story that said, “Killing innocent Palestinians is horrific. Killing innocent Israelis is horrific. If you don’t feel the same, I think you should ask yourself why that is.” The post sparked outrage from some Israelis over her comparison of Palestinian and Israeli deaths. 

Gadot deleted the story and apologized. Since then, she has not used the words “Palestinians” or “Gaza” on social media. 

Gadot also helped organize a screening of graphic Oct. 7 footage in Los Angeles in November 2023, prompting a demonstration by pro-Palestinian activists who said the film was “Gal Gadot military propaganda” used to justify Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.

Though Israel garnered sympathy in some parts of Hollywood after Oct. 7, its devastating war in Gaza over the next two years has roiled the entertainment industry. Israel and Hamas agreed to a fragile ceasefire last month. 

More than 3,000 celebrities, including Emma Stone, Bowen Yang and Jewish creatives such as Jonathan Glazer, Andrew Garfield and Hannah Einbinder, signed onto a boycott of Israeli film institutions in September. Another letter from celebrities opposing the boycott amassed 1,200 signatures.

The Genesis Prize was most recently awarded to Argentina’s president Javier Milei for “his steadfast commitment to the State of Israel during one of the most difficult years in the history of the Jewish state,” according to the prize committee. Milei went to Jerusalem in June to accept the prize 

The Israeli-American actor Natalie Portman was awarded the Genesis Prize in 2018, but she declined to attend the Jerusalem ceremony because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to speak there. At the time, Israeli forces had killed dozens of Palestinians in response to protests on the Gaza border.

Gadot, who recently starred as the Evil Queen in a live-action adaptation of “Snow White,” is set to play a Holocaust survivor in an upcoming film, “Ruin.”

—
The post Gal Gadot wins Genesis Prize for her ‘defense of Israel’ as Gaza war divides Hollywood appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Bob Vylan lead singer Bobby Vylan. Photo: BANG Showbiz via Reuters Connect

Police in the United Kingdom said on Tuesday they interviewed a man in his mid-30s as part of an ongoing investigation into the British punk rap duo Bob Vylan and comments they made seemingly calling for the death of Israelis on stage at the Glastonbury Festival over the summer.

Avon and Somerset Police said in the “investigation update” that the man voluntarily attended a police interview on Monday in connection to comments made by the band’s lead singer Bobby Vylan, whose real name is Pascal Robinson-Foster, at Glastonbury on June 28. During Bob Vylan’s set at the music festival in Somerset, England, Robinson-Foster led the audience in chanting “death, death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces].” He also proclaimed “free, free Palestine” during the band’s Glastonbury performance, which was televised live by the BBC.

“The matter has been recorded as a public order incident while we continue to investigate and consider all relevant legislation,” police stated on Tuesday. “Voluntary police interviews are commonly used in investigations where an individual agrees to attend and an arrest is not considered necessary, for example on the grounds of public safety or for the preservation of evidence. Attendees are interviewed under caution and have the same legal rights as anybody who is arrested.”

The police force added that in October they received legal advice about the investigation from the Crown Prosecution Service.

Bob Vylan was scheduled to have two performances in the UK in early November but postponed the concerts to February after government officials, Members of Parliament, and Jewish groups called for the shows to be canceled.

The Manchester Evening News recently paid £16,000 in damages to Robinson-Foster after printing the false claim that he “performed Nazi salutes on stage” at a Bob Vylan gig in October. The hand gesture was in fact a guided meditation and light stretching routine that Bob Vylan regularly perform to open their shows. The accusation about the Nazi salute was made in an article published by the Evening News on Oct. 6, and the British publication subsequently printed a full correction and apology.

Following Bob Vylan’s “death to the IDF” comments at Glastonbury, the band was dropped by the United Talent Agency (UTA), which said the “antisemitic sentiments expressed by the group were utterly unacceptable.” Bob Vylan was also dropped from a number of music festivals, and their US visas were revoked, which prevented them from embarking on their North American tour. Their anti-IDF comments were condemned by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Jewish groups, the Israeli Embassy in London and Glastonbury organizers. The BBC later apologized for live streaming the band’s “offensive and deplorable behavior.”

During a podcast interview last month, Robinson-Foster said he does not regret saying the anti-IDF remark.