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Egalitarian yeshiva Hadar Institute will become long-term tenant of Congregation Shaare Zedek
(New York Jewish Week) – The Hadar Institute is moving on up — to a recently renovated synagogue where the egalitarian yeshiva says it can continue to grow.
Since 2007, the Jewish educational institution has run many of its programs out of West End Synagogue, a Reconstructionist congregation at 69th Street and Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side. But starting this fall, Hadar will move 24 blocks uptown to become the long-term tenant of Congregation Shaare Zedek.
Shaare Zedek, a Conservative congregation established in 1837, sold its building in 2017 under the terms of a deal that saw it demolished and replaced by a 14-story condominium. For the past six years, Shaare Zedek has been holding its Shabbat morning services offsite, but it will be moving back into a space in the completed condo building this fall as well.
“Our in-person community has really been at the core of what we’re trying to do,” said Rabbi Elie Kaunfer, Hadar’s president and CEO. “That’s why new space and expanded space is so important for our goal of bringing people together to learn and pray together.”
Hadar, which was founded in 2006, has expanded significantly in recent years, offering a range of learning programs that engage more than 35,000 people annually and, earlier this summer, ordaining its first cohort of rabbis. It has five satellite locations outside New York City and an annual budget of $10 million.
The Hadar Institute’s move to Shaare Zedek will also place it in the same building as Kehilat Hadar, an independent egalitarian prayer community that shares a name and some founders with the Hadar Institute, though they are separate organizations.
In 2019, Shaare Zedek began a partnership with Kehilat Hadar in which the two congregations pray together on Shabbat and collaborate on other programs. Shaare Zedek’s president, Michael Firestone, told the New York Jewish Week that Shaare Zedek and Kehilat Hadar hope to formally merge into a single entity after the move.
Shaare Zedek and Kehilat Hadar will occupy three stories of the new condo building — a space that will include a social hall, sanctuary and offices — when they move in, Firestone said. The Hadar Institute will use that space as well.
“It will be Hadar Institute during the week with learning and Shaare Zedek and Kehilat Hadar on Shabbat and holidays with davening,” or prayer, Firestone said. “We’re very proud and excited that they’ll be the long term tenant. Together with our partners, we’re aiming to build a hub for traditional egalitarian davening and Torah study on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for the benefit of the whole community.”
Kaunfer said the Hadar Institute “loved” being at West End Synagogue but that it “outgrew the space.” The Shaare Zedek location, he said, will enhance what he called the organization’s “global reach” because it will have the technological capability necessary to handle the institute’s online programming.
In an email sent on Tuesday to the Hadar Institute community, Kaunfer wrote that the organization is seeking to raise $1 million to fund the move. The sum will enable the Hadar Institute to design and renovate offices and classrooms as well as set up the online learning technology.
“Hadar is here for the long term and our doors are open to anyone who is seeking Jewish learning and prayer in the manner that we offer it,” Kaunfer said. “So we’re super excited to welcome people to this new space.”
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The post Egalitarian yeshiva Hadar Institute will become long-term tenant of Congregation Shaare Zedek appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel to Issue 54,000 Call-Up Notices to Ultra-Orthodox Students
Haredi Jewish men look at the scene of an explosion at a bus stop in Jerusalem, Israel, on Nov. 23, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad
Israel’s military said it would issue 54,000 call-up notices to ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students following a Supreme Court ruling mandating their conscription and amid growing pressure from reservists stretched by extended deployments.
The Supreme Court ruling last year overturned a decades-old exemption for ultra-Orthodox students, a policy established when the community comprised a far smaller segment of the population than the 13 percent it represents today.
Military service is compulsory for most Israeli Jews from the age of 18, lasting 24-32 months, with additional reserve duty in subsequent years. Members of Israel’s 21 percent Arab population are mostly exempt, though some do serve.
A statement by the military spokesperson confirmed the orders on Sunday just as local media reported legislative efforts by two ultra-Orthodox parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to craft a compromise.
The exemption issue has grown more contentious as Israel’s armed forces in recent years have faced strains from simultaneous engagements with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, and Iran.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders in Netanyahu’s brittle coalition have voiced concerns that integrating seminary students into military units alongside secular Israelis, including women, could jeopardize their religious identity.
The military statement promised to ensure conditions that respect the ultra-Orthodox way of life and to develop additional programs to support their integration into the military. It said the notices would go out this month.
The post Israel to Issue 54,000 Call-Up Notices to Ultra-Orthodox Students first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich sharply criticized on Sunday a cabinet decision to allow some aid into Gaza as a “grave mistake” that he said would benefit the terrorist group Hamas.
Smotrich also accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of failing to ensure that Israel’s military is following government directives in prosecuting the war against Hamas in Gaza. He said he was considering his “next steps” but stopped short of explicitly threatening to quit the coalition.
Smotrich’s comments come a day before Netanyahu is due to hold talks in Washington with President Donald Trump on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day Gaza ceasefire.
“… the cabinet and the Prime Minister made a grave mistake yesterday in approving the entry of aid through a route that also benefits Hamas,” Smotrich said on X, arguing that the aid would ultimately reach the Islamist group and serve as “logistical support for the enemy during wartime”.
The Israeli government has not announced any changes to its aid policy in Gaza. Israeli media reported that the government had voted to allow additional aid to enter northern Gaza.
The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The military declined to comment.
Israel accuses Hamas of stealing aid for its own fighters or to sell to finance its operations, an accusation Hamas denies. Gaza is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe, with conditions threatening to push nearly a half a million people into famine within months, according to U.N. estimates.
Israel in May partially lifted a nearly three-month blockade on aid. Two Israeli officials said on June 27 the government had temporarily stopped aid from entering north Gaza.
PRESSURE
Public pressure in Israel is mounting on Netanyahu to secure a permanent ceasefire, a move opposed by some hardline members of his right-wing coalition. An Israeli team left for Qatar on Sunday for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
Smotrich, who in January threatened to withdraw his Religious Zionism party from the government if Israel agreed to a complete end to the war before having achieved its objectives, did not mention the ceasefire in his criticism of Netanyahu.
The right-wing coalition holds a slim parliamentary majority, although some opposition lawmakers have offered to support the government from collapsing if a ceasefire is agreed.
The post Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Australia Police Charge Man Over Alleged Arson on Melbourne Synagogue
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media during a press conference with New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Aug. 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy
Australian police have charged a man in connection with an alleged arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue with worshippers in the building, the latest in a series of incidents targeting the nation’s Jewish community.
There were no injuries to the 20 people inside the East Melbourne Synagogue, who fled from the fire on Friday night. Firefighters extinguished the blaze in the capital of Victoria state.
Australia has experienced several antisemitic incidents since the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023.
Counter-terrorism detectives late on Saturday arrested the 34-year-old resident of Sydney, capital of neighboring New South Wales, charging him with offenses including criminal damage by fire, police said.
“The man allegedly poured a flammable liquid on the front door of the building and set it on fire before fleeing the scene,” police said in a statement.
The suspect, whom the authorities declined to identify, was remanded in custody after his case was heard at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Sunday and no application was made for bail, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.
Authorities are investigating whether the synagogue fire was linked to a disturbance on Friday night at an Israeli restaurant in Melbourne, in which one person was arrested for hindering police.
The restaurant was extensively damaged, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, an umbrella group for Australia’s Jews.
It said the fire at the synagogue, one of Melbourne’s oldest, was set as those inside sat down to Sabbath dinner.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog went on X to “condemn outright the vile arson attack targeting Jews in Melbourne’s historic and oldest synagogue on the Sabbath, and on an Israeli restaurant where people had come to enjoy a meal together”.
“This is not the first such attack in Australia in recent months. But it must be the last,” Herzog said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the incidents as “severe hate crimes” that he viewed “with utmost gravity.” “The State of Israel will continue to stand alongside the Australian Jewish community,” Netanyahu said on X.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese late on Saturday described the alleged arson, which comes seven months after another synagogue in Melbourne was targeted by arsonists, as shocking and said those responsible should face the law’s full force.
“My Government will provide all necessary support toward this effort,” Albanese posted on X.
Homes, schools, synagogues and vehicles in Australia have been targeted by antisemitic vandalism and arson. The incidents included a fake plan by organized crime to attack a Sydney synagogue using a caravan of explosives in order to divert police resources, police said in March.
The post Australia Police Charge Man Over Alleged Arson on Melbourne Synagogue first appeared on Algemeiner.com.