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A kosher baker rejected a synagogue’s order for rainbow Pride treats. The firestorm has been fierce.
(JTA) — The request for rainbow-frosted cupcakes came from a repeat customer — a local synagogue that had relied on the West Orange Bake Shop to make kosher desserts for its special events. But this year, bakery co-owner Yitzy Mittel decided to decline the order. He couldn’t bring himself to produce the Pride-themed goods.
Mittel, an Orthodox Jew, had made a similar cake for an order the year before. But the experience unnerved him, he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, because his understanding of Jewish law holds that LGBTQ symbols are “antithetical to what we stand for.”
The symbols are “a celebration of something which is against Torah,” he said. “I didn’t want to be making that cake.”
After consulting with both a rabbi and an attorney, Mittel and the northern New Jersey bakery canceled the orders, sending the synagogue elsewhere to find kosher Pride treats.
In the weeks since that decision, Mittel has gotten validation from the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled last week that a Colorado web designer had the right to refuse to build a wedding site for a same-sex couple. The ruling expands on a 2018 decision, in which the court ruled a Colorado baker had the constitutional right, on religious grounds, to refuse to create a wedding cake for a gay couple.
But the local Jewish community is still reeling. Multiple rabbis have accused the baker of bigotry, and some local Jews are boycotting his shop. The area’s Jewish federation privately said it would stop buying from Mittel before publicly walking back its position. And Eshel, an advocacy group for LGBTQ Orthodox Jews and their families, announced an “ally training” in West Orange this coming Sunday in response to the incident.
“The reason why Eshel exists is because these sorts of incidents, when they happen to someone over and over again, make people feel unwanted and unwelcome in their communities,” said Miryam Kabakov, the advocacy group’s executive director. “This is just one small example, but the effect overall is to drive people away from Orthodoxy who are trying to live frum [observant] lives, leaving them feeling like there is no place for them.”
The firestorm comes at a time of widespread advocacy by political conservatives against LGBTQ inclusion and rights. Pride events across the country have faced pushback this year.
Some of that has taken place in Jewish communities. In another New Jersey town 30 miles away, Orthodox rabbis successfully petitioned their mayor to remove four Pride flags that were flying in front of a synagogue on a central street. The mayor later apologized and put the flags back up.
But what happened in West Orange offers a particularly potent example of how culture wars can play out in — and divide — Jewish communities, in part because of the symbolism of a kosher bakery citing what it says are Jewish values to justify declining the order of a local synagogue.
“While I know this has happened in other parts of the country I hadn’t expected it here,” wrote Dan Cohen, senior rabbi of the Reform Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel in nearby South Orange, on Facebook. “Then I learned that the bakery in question is a kosher bakery, and as a result, the bias was coming from within our Jewish community.”
The initial order was placed June 6 by Congregation B’nai Israel, a Conservative synagogue in nearby Millburn. Rabbi Julie Schwarzwald, the synagogue’s director of congregational learning, planned to pick up the order, which reportedly specified that the treats be decorated with rainbows. A staff member also reportedly made a separate order the same day for rainbow cupcakes for the synagogue’s youth group.
Schwartzwald did not return multiple JTA requests for comment. Attempts to reach the synagogue’s current youth group advisor were unsuccessful.
But according to all accounts, the bakery initially accepted both these orders, only to cancel them later without providing an explanation. It did, however, agree to process the synagogue’s order for cookies without rainbow decorations. (Mittel told JTA that he gave the synagogue a discount for those cookies.)
West Orange Bake Shop produces kosher cookies and cakes from a storefront in West Orange, New Jersey. (Google Maps)
Mittel told JTA that he had canceled both orders and notified the parties within 24 hours. He believes others in the community are impugning his reputation by falsely asserting that he had failed to provide enough notice to the customers.
But when Schwarzwald went to the bakery herself to request an explanation for why the Pride order was canceled, Mittel refused to talk to her. He told JTA he had chosen not to engage because the rabbi had come during peak hours and “wanted to create a scene.”
To Schwarzwald, the message was clear. “I was comfortable drawing conclusions that meant that I was going to take my purchasing elsewhere,” she told the New Jersey Jewish News. “It seems clear that the bakery has made the decision that Pride is not something they want to support. It’s their choice, it’s their legal right, and I can choose to spend my dollars wherever I want.” She was ultimately able to fulfill the orders at a different kosher bakery in West Orange.
The issue blew up as other rabbis in the area learned about what happened and commented publicly.
“When we refuse basic Jewish services to members of our community who are articulating who they are, we are excluding and dividing,” wrote Robert Tobin, rabbi of the Conservative B’nai Shalom in West Orange, in a blog post on June 22. He highlighted the Conservative movement’s recent strides toward LGBTQ inclusion, and an interpretation of the Torah that holds “humans are created in the image of God with a variety of potential gender identities and with the possibility of gender fluidity.” Tobin also reportedly addressed the incident in a sermon, according to the New Jersey Jewish News.
David Vaisberg, senior rabbi at the independent Temple B’nei Abraham in Livingston, New Jersey, tweeted that he was “so disappointed” in the bakery, which is located in a strip mall next to a kosher Chinese restaurant.
“They make great baked goods but have shown themselves to be against the LGBTQ+ in canceling orders of rainbow baked goods in Pride month,” he wrote, adding that he was letting the bakery know why they had lost his business and advised followers to “please do the same.”
In his Facebook post, Cohen addressed the argument that an observant Jew can cite Torah as the basis for their objection to serving a Pride-themed cake. “If I’m being honest, we all pick and choose which sacred texts we embrace and which we ignore,” he wrote. “If by contrast, you CHOOSE to focus on the Biblical texts that exclude people, that denigrate others or are hurtful and judgmental, you aren’t religious. You’re simply a bigot.”
Parts of the Orthodox community have become open to LGBTQ inclusion in recent years. Organizations including Eshel and Jewish Queer Youth advocate for LGBTQ people and families in Orthodox spaces, and some prominent Orthodox figures have come out as gay in recent years.
But others in the community remain opposed to LGBTQ inclusion, citing passages in the Torah specifically forbidding gay sex. The flagship Modern Orthodox campus, Yeshiva University, has cited its status as a religious institution in an ongoing legal battle over its refusal to recognize an LGBTQ student group. The recent death by suicide of a gay Y.U. graduate, his friends said, highlights the pain of being Orthodox and gay.
Mittel says his business is being unfairly targeted by those who disagree with his personal religious choice, which he says is on par with declining to fulfill a church’s order for cakes decorated with crosses — something he says he has done in the past.
“There’s other bakeries out there that will do it,” he said about making Pride-themed kosher baked goods. “Why should I?”
He also insists that he is not homophobic. “If somebody came in and told me they want to pay me three times the price to write on a cake, ‘I hate gay people,’ I wouldn’t do it,” he told JTA. He added, “Symbols carry a lot of weight.”
Tensions reached a new high after a local news site published a leaked internal memo from Dov Ben-Shimon, the CEO of the local Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest. In the memo, Ben-Shimon advised staff to no longer purchase baked goods from Mittel’s shop, citing “the Jewish value of B’tzelem Elohim, that each one of us is created in the Divine Image and deserves to be treated as such.”
“While it is their right to refuse service, it is also our prerogative not to support their establishment,” Ben-Shimon wrote.
The memo upset some local Jews who felt it was inappropriate for the federation, which serves Jews of all denominations, to make a judgment against a Jewish-owned kosher business whose owner believed he was following Jewish law.
Speaking to JTA, Ben-Shimon characterized the memo as an internal purchasing directive and said it did not reflect the federation’s current position.
“That internal memo did not reflect an appropriate, thoughtful and responsible communal dialogue,” Ben-Shimon said. “While there is significant pain in the community as a result of actions that we have seen, we believe that Federation’s decision-making process should be filled with love and sensitivity, and we will take steps to ensure that this will be reflected in our actions in the future.”
Describing Mittel as “a decent, good, kind, thoughtful and honorable person who has been placed in a difficult situation,” Ben-Shimon added that the local Jewish community “is blessed to have a wide array of opinions, ideologies and beliefs” and said he sees the federation’s role as working “to continue to strive for tolerant, respectful dialogue and discourse.”
In a follow-up correspondence from the federation, published by the New Jersey Jewish News, Ben-Shimon wrote, “We sincerely regret that our actions have caused divisiveness in our community as our aim is to bring the variety and richness of our many constituents together.”
Mittel told JTA that he has spoken to Ben-Shimon since the story was published, and that the two had a positive conversation. Saying that his bakery has been visited by “obnoxious” people since news of the cancellation came out, he said it was he and not LGBTQ people who had become victim to intolerance.
“I don’t think it’s good for the Jewish community to be adversarial to each other,” Mittel said. “There’s no need for that. We have enough people disliking us without us causing strife to each other.”
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The post A kosher baker rejected a synagogue’s order for rainbow Pride treats. The firestorm has been fierce. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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‘We Are Being Held Hostage’: Lebanese TV Host Says Hezbollah Taking Lebanon Toward War, ‘Certain Death’
Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah addresses his supporters through a screen during a rally commemorating the annual Hezbollah Martyrs’ Day, in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Photo: Reuters/Aziz Taher
A Lebanese TV host said last week that Hezbollah has essentially taken Lebanon hostage, comparing what the Iran-backed terrorist organization has done to the country to the hijackers who carried out the 9/11 attacks in the US.
Dima Sadek, who hosts a show in Lebanon on MTV, expressed her fear and outrage over what Hezbollah is doing to Lebanon and the path of near-certain war it is taking, according to a report and translation from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
Hezbollah, which wields significant political influence across Lebanon, boasts significant military capabilities much greater than those of other terrorist organizations in the region such as Hamas. The Lebanese Islamist group has long declared it seeks to destroy Israel.
“We are in danger of a hellish, existential war,” Sadek said on June 24 regarding the threats Hezbollah has made to countries such as Cyprus, which is in the European Union. “We are being held hostage. We have been hijacked by a group that has no clue of what is going on in this planet.”
She pointed out that “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin, who was the only one who managed to save your axis in the Syrian war, cannot overcome Europe, so how come you are threatening Europe with such confidence?”
Regarding the fear and helplessness she and some other Lebanese feel over the direction Hezbollah is taking, she asked, “Do you know who we resemble? The passengers on the 9/11 airplanes. We are like airplane passengers who do not see what is happening around them. We are being led by one person, and we have no idea where we are heading.”
She added, “The only thing that we know for sure is that this person is taking us to a catastrophe and certain death.”
#ICYMI: Lebanese TV Host Dima Sadek: There Is Nothing Left of This Country Besides Hizbullah and Its Weapons; They Are Holding Us Hostage; We Are Like the Passengers on a Hijacked Plane on 9/11 Heading Towards Certain Death #Lebanon #Hizbullah @DimaSadek pic.twitter.com/v7WDtIQqEV
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) June 30, 2024
Hezbollah terrorists have been firing drones, rockets, and missiles at northern Israel daily from southern Lebanon since Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, leading Israeli forces to strike back. Tensions have been escalating between both sides, fueling concerns that the conflict in Gaza — the Palestinian enclave ruled by Hamas to Israel’s south — could escalate into a regional conflict.
More than 80,000 Israelis have evacuated Israel’s north and been unable to return to their homes. The majority of those spent the past nine months residing in hotels in safer areas of the country.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah has also stepped up its threats against the rest of the world, including Cyprus.
Last month, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah made a speech in which he said an “all-out war” with Israel was “getting very close.” He added that if Cyprus, a European Union member, were to help Israel in some way during that war, then “Cyprus will be part of this war too.”
Israeli officials have said that, while they seek a diplomatic resolution to the current situation along the border with Lebanon, they are prepared to escalate military action against Hezbollah to push the terrorist group back in order to allow displaced Israelis to return to their homes.
Hezbollah, like Hamas, has been accused of using civilians as “human shields” when fighting Israel.
The post ‘We Are Being Held Hostage’: Lebanese TV Host Says Hezbollah Taking Lebanon Toward War, ‘Certain Death’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hezbollah Launches Big Attack on Israel, Sonic Booms Rattle Beirut
Rockets launched from Lebanon to Israel over the border are intercepted, amid the ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Israel, near the border with Lebanon, July 3, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ayal Margolin
Lebanon’s Hezbollah launched a big rocket and drone attack at Israel on Thursday and threatened to hit new targets in retaliation for the killing of a top commander, in the latest surge of violence in the steadily worsening conflict across the border.
Sparked by the Gaza war, the conflict between the Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah and Israel has been gradually intensifying for months, raising fears of a full-scale war, which both sides have indicated they want to avoid and diplomats are working to prevent.
As the latest violence played out in areas at or near the frontier — in keeping with the pattern of the last nine months — the sound of sonic booms rattled nerves for the second successive day in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon.
Israeli jets broke the sound barrier over several areas of the country, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.
Hezbollah said it launched more than 200 rockets and a swarm of drones at 10 Israeli military sites in retaliation for Israel‘s killing of Hezbollah commander Mohammed Nasser in the south on Wednesday. Nasser is one of the most senior Hezbollah commanders to be killed by Israel during the conflict.
The Israeli military said around “200 projectiles and over 20 suspicious aerial targets were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory,” a number of which were intercepted by Israeli air defenses and fighter jets.
Israel‘s ambulance service said no casualties were reported. The Israeli military said some of the drones and interceptor shrapnel set off fires.
The Israeli air force “struck Hezbollah military structures” in the areas of Ramyeh and Houla,” it said, referring to two villages in south Lebanon.
Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, speaking at an event in Beirut commemorating Nasser, indicated his group would widen its targeting.
“The series of responses continues in succession, and this series will continue to target new sites that the enemy did not imagine would be hit,” Safieddine said.
DIPLOMATIC PUSH
The United States has been leading diplomatic efforts to deescalate the fighting. Hezbollah has said it will not cease fire as long as Israel continues its offensive in the Gaza Strip.
The hostilities have inflicted a heavy toll on both sides of the frontier, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.
Amos Hochstein, a senior US official at the heart of the diplomacy, discussed French and American efforts to restore calm in meetings with French officials on Wednesday, a White House official said.
“France and the United States share the goal of resolving the current conflict across the Blue Line by diplomatic means, allowing Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return home with long-term assurances of safety and security,” the official said, referring to the demarcation line between the two neighbors.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday that Israeli forces were hitting Hezbollah “very hard every day” and will be ready to take any action necessary against the group, though the preference is to reach a negotiated arrangement.
Hezbollah also launched rockets at Israel on Wednesday in retaliation for Nasser’s killing.
Hezbollah began firing at Israeli targets along the border with Lebanon after its Palestinian terrorist ally Hams launched an attack on Israel on Oct. 7, declaring its support for the Palestinians.
Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed more than 300 Hezbollah fighters and some 90 civilians, according to Reuters tallies. Israel says fire from Lebanon has killed 18 soldiers and 10 civilians.
The post Hezbollah Launches Big Attack on Israel, Sonic Booms Rattle Beirut first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Drexel University Professor Stole Signs From Synagogue, Police Say
Illustrative: People pass a cluster of signs outside a pro-Hamas encampment at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. on April 28, 2024. Photo: Max Herman via Reuters Connect
A Drexel University professor allegedly participated in a mass theft of items from a synagogue in a suburb outside Philadelphia, a local NBC affiliate reported on Tuesday.
Mariana Chilton, 56, a professor of health management and policy at Drexel, has been accused of stealing pro-Israel signs from the Main Line Reform Temple in Lower Merion Township, traveling there from her neighborhood of residency, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. Chilton allegedly drove the getaway car while two other accomplices, Sarah Prickett and Sam Penn — who is from New York — trespassed the synagogue and absconded with the loot.
“We are just taking them because we feel like it is a representative of genocide,” Chilton told law enforcement after being caught in the act, the report stated. She then, after offering to “just put them back,” refused to identify herself and comply with other lawful orders.
Video evidence provided by a local resident placed Chilton and her accomplices at the scene of the crime, and a Main Line Reform Temple official identified the signs recovered from her car as the temple’s property. That was enough for law enforcement to charge her with several offenses, including conspiracy and theft. She is also charged with driving without a license and not registering her vehicle.
Drexel University has not responded to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment for this story.
Experts have told The Algemeiner in the past academic year that while the conduct of anti-Zionist students should be reported on, the role of faculty in fostering and engaging in antisemitic acts should be closely scrutinized. Last semester, anti-Zionist faculty attached themselves to anti-Israel, pro-Hamas demonstrations, sometimes breaking the law by preventing officers from dispersing unauthorized demonstrations and detaining lawbreakers.
At Northeastern University in Boston, professors formed a human barrier around a student encampment to stop its dismantling by officers, and at Columbia University, anti-Zionist faculty at the school, as well its affiliate Barnard College, staged a walkout in support of the demonstrations and demanded the abeyance of disciplinary sanctions against anti-Zionist students — dozens of whom cheered Hamas and threatened more massacres of Jews similar to Oct. 7 — who violated school rules.
Chilton’s case is unlike any other reported in the past year, however. While dozens of professors have been accused of abusing their Jewish students and encouraging their classmates to bully and shame them, none are alleged to have resorted to stealing from a Jewish house of worship to make their point.
Mass participation of faculty in pro-Hamas demonstrations marks an inflection point in American history, Asaf Romirowsky, an expert on the Middle East and executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, told The Algemeiner in April.
Since the 1960s, he explained, far-left “scholar activists” have gradually seized control of the higher education system, tailoring admissions processes and the curricula to foster ideological radicalism and conformity, which students then carry with them into careers in government, law, corporate America, and education. This system, he concluded, must be challenged.
“The cost of trading scholarship for political propagandizing has been a zeal and pride among faculty who esteem and cheer terrorism, a historical development which is quite telling and indicative of the evolution of the Marxist ideology which has been seeping into the academy since the 1960s,” Romirowsky said. “The message is very clear to all of us who are looking on from the outside at this, and institutions have to begin drawing a red line. The protests are not about free speech. They are about supporting terrorism, about calling for a genocide of Jews.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Drexel University Professor Stole Signs From Synagogue, Police Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.