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A Father of a Palestinian Terror Victim Looks Back
Illustrative photo of mother and child. Photo: Pixabay.
JNS.org – Doesn’t it seem like yesterday when your first child was born? To me, it does, and decades later, you recall the excitement—more appropriately called nervousness—that had been building as the “due date” approached. Lamaze birth classes are attended, a “go bag” in anticipation of the onset of serious labor is prepared, you might even practice driving to the hospital, the mother-to-be buys a neutral color layette of onesies, blankets, booties and caps because there were no “gender reveal” parties in those days.
During dinner, your wife tells you what the doctor said during that day’s visit: “You’re not there yet. It will be another week before you go into labor.” Two hours later, she announces: “We have to go to the hospital.” You get the go bag and say to yourself, “I hope the Oreo cookies are still in there,” and follow the route to the hospital that you practiced the day before.
When you arrive, a nurse matter-of-factly takes the soon-to-be-mother’s necessary information, and you’re escorted to a drab labor room. The doctor arrives before you even have a chance to check on the Oreos, does an exam and proclaims “any minute now.” Your wife, with your help, is doing her breathing routine through labor pains. A nurse asks if I want to go to the delivery room (in the 1970s that was considered cutting edge), hands me a pair of scrubs to wear and escorts me to the delivery room, where I stand by the side out of the way. The doctor and mother go to work. You hear the first cries of a newborn and the doctor announces: “It’s a girl!” Then she’s whisked off to the nursery. You head to the nursery, where a nurse holds up your daughter, who we would name Alisa, behind the thick glass of the nursey so you can see her and take a photo.
I see Alisa’s birth in my mind’s eye as clearly as another event that took place less than 21 years later. That was when I held her hand after she succumbed to a wound she suffered in a terror attack in 1995.
On what would have been Alisa’s 50th birthday this week, I, her mother, sisters and brother will pause and spend a few minutes looking back.
We’ll remember how Alisa’s life, though brief, left a profound legacy of resilience, compassion and commitment to faith. We’ll recall that at the age of 4, she told her parents that she was not going to the public school around the corner from their home in West Orange, N.J., but to “a Jewish school where Becky,” a fellow student at her nursery school, “is going.” We enrolled her, and Alisa, like the proverbial duck takes to water, took her education to heart.
Alisa developed a love not only of Judaism but the State of Israel. Taking her first trip with an aunt when she was 11, her last trip at the age of 20 was her sixth.
That final trip, which began in December 1994, would allow her to immerse herself in Jewish studies at Nishmat in Jerusalem. It also allowed her to live in an apartment with four young women like herself and gave her the time to run daily, join a gym, and to, in the words of Nishmat’s dean Rabbanit Chana Henkin, “sneak off to daven at the Kotel.”
Looking back, I believe Alisa’s dedication to her faith was a central part of her character and guided many of her life decisions. This dedication illustrates an important lesson: that one’s faith and culture are not mere background details but are essential parts of an individual’s journey towards personal growth. Whenever Alisa and her siblings would return from a trip to Israel, I noticed that they came back not just as better Jews but as better people. With this thought in mind, the Alisa Flatow Memorial Scholarship Fund was created to afford others the opportunity to seek their own roots and to understand their personal values deeply through study in Israel.
Today, almost 30 years after her murder, friends remember Alisa as warm and caring, with an openness and compassion that resonated with everyone she encountered. Known for always having a smile on her face, she had a unique way of making others feel seen and valued.
Her final gift came when her organs were donated following her death. Three lives were saved and, importantly, that act reinvigorated organ donation in Israel, which had become moribund.
With four girls in our family now named after her, Alisa lives on. Each of her nieces and nephews attend or attended “a Jewish school,” and they have been developing their own religious awareness. Watching them grow into upright and proud Jews is a blessing. Today, when a grandchild’s religious observance causes me to shake my head in wonderment as to where that came from, the parents tell me “to blame Alisa,” but it’s all good in the end, and I smile from ear to ear.
Alisa’s short life teaches us that a legacy of empathy, kindness and commitment can spread outward long after a life is cut short. Her story underscores that while we cannot always control our circumstances, we can shape our impact through how we respond to hardship. Alisa’s life and legacy encourage us to think of our own values—and that is quite a meaningful and enduring legacy.
So, happy birthday, Alisa! L’chaim.
The post A Father of a Palestinian Terror Victim Looks Back first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Fresh conversations on the state of Canadian arts in a twice-monthly podcast from The CJN
Culturally Jewish debuted in April 2023 as an audio magazine highlighting stories of creators across Canada along with critical tips about new and upcoming events. Click here to listen and […]
The post Fresh conversations on the state of Canadian arts in a twice-monthly podcast from The CJN appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Trump Nominates Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as US Ambassador to Israel
Mike Huckabee looks on as Donald Trump reacts during a campaign event at the Drexelbrook Catering and Event Center, in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, US, Oct. 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
US President-elect Donald Trump has nominated former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to serve as the next US ambassador to Israel, adding another staunch ally of the Jewish state to a senior role in his incoming administration.
“I am pleased to announce that the highly respected former Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, has been nominated to be the United States Ambassador to Israel,” Trump wrote in a statement on Tuesday.
“Mike has been a great public servant, governor, and leader in faith for many years. He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him. Mike will work tirelessly to bring about peace in the Middle East!” Trump continued.
Huckabee, an evangelical Christian, has long been a stalwart ally of the Jewish state. He has repudiated the anti-Israel protests that erupted in the wake of Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7 and criticized incumbent US President Joe Biden for sympathizing with anti-Israel protesters during his speech at the 2024 Democratic National Convention (DNC). The incoming ambassador also lambasted the anti-Israel encampments at elite universities, stating that there should be “outrage” over the targeting and mistreatment of Jewish college students.
Huckabee has defended Israel’s right to build settlements in the West Bank, acknowledging the Jewish people’s ties to the land dating back to the ancient world.
“There is no such thing as the West Bank — it’s Judea and Samaria,” Huckabee has said, referring to the biblical names for the area. “There is no such thing as settlements — they’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There is no such thing as an occupation.”
During Huckabee’s 2008 US presidential campaign, he stated that “there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian,” and that land for a potential Palestinian state should be taken from other Arab states and not Israel.
Huckabee will replace the current ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew.
Trump’s pick for ambassador to Israel during his first term, David Friedman, praised the president-elect’s selection of Huckabee.
“I am thrilled by President Trump’s nomination of Governor Mike Huckabee as the next Ambassador to Israel. He is a dear friend and he will have my full support. Congrats Mike on getting the best job in the world!” Friedman wrote on X/Twitter.
During Trump’s first term in office, his administration helped foster the Abraham Accords, a series of landmark normalization agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Trump also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria, and moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.
Over the course of his campaign, Trump promised to resume efforts to strengthen the Abraham Accords upon his return to the White House. He has also urged Israel to move faster with its military campaign to eradicate the Hamas terrorist group from the Gaza Strip.
The post Trump Nominates Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as US Ambassador to Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Suspect Remanded Without Bail for Attempted Kidnapping of Jewish Boy in New York City
Masked male attempts to abduct Orthodox Jewish child in broad daylight in New York City on Nov. 9, 2024. Photo: Shomrim Crown Heights Rescue Patrol/Screenshot from social media
The man who was charged for attempting to abduct an Orthodox Jewish child in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York City this past weekend will remain in jail until he faces a judge again next month.
Stephan Stowe, 28, reportedly a gang member with 33 prior arrests, was arrested early Sunday and subsequently charged with attempted kidnapping and endangering the welfare of a child. Citing court documents released on Monday, CrownHeights.info reported that a judge refused bail for Stowe and ordered him to be remanded to Rikers Island prison until his next court date on Dec. 9.
The legal action came after a masked man was caught on video approaching a visibly Jewish father walking with his two sons and grabbing one of the children on Saturday afternoon, in broad daylight. He was unable to secure possession of the child, whose father fought back immediately and did not let go of his son. The assailant put the child down.
This video is shocking. A perpetrator grabbed a Chasidic child who was walking with his father today at approximately 3:30pm on Kingston near Lefferts Ave.
Something is clearly going on in Crown Heights—there have been incident after incident over the past two weeks.… pic.twitter.com/7nIkZWhssk
— Yaacov Behrman (@ChabadLubavitch) November 10, 2024
The video was widely circulated online and fueled concern about a wave of violent crimes targeting Jews in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Following news of the arrest, a local Jewish leader praised what, for now, appears to be a victory for law and order advocates and a Jewish Brooklyn community reeling from a spate of hate crimes in recent weeks.
“The perpetrator has been arrested,” Yaacov Behrman, a liaison for Chabad Headquarters — the main New York base of the Hasidic movement — posted on X/Twitter. “Known to police, the perpetrator has allegedly been arrested over 30 times. He is under 30 years old and has also been arrested in [the] past for criminal possession of a weapon. What is wrong with our legal system? What is wrong with our society? How is this possible?”
Behrman also noted on Sunday that he spoke to the father, who expressed his appreciation for local police and Crown Heights Shomrim, a Jewish organization that monitors antisemitism and also serves as a neighborhood watch group. According to Behrman, the father also said that his kids were doing well.
Saturday’s attack was the fourth time in less than two weeks that an Orthodox resident of Crown Heights was targeted for violence and humiliation. In each case, the assailant was allegedly a Black male, a pattern of conduct which continues to strain Black-Jewish relations across the Five Boroughs.
Last Wednesday, a middle-aged Hasidic man was chased and beaten by two assailants after he refused to surrender his cell phone.
Earlier that week, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the neighborhood, which is heavily Jewish.
Less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face as he was walking in Brooklyn.
Black-on-Jewish crime is a social issue which has been studied before. In 2022, a report published by Americans Against Antisemitism (AAA) showed that Orthodox Jews were the minority group most victimized by hate crimes in New York City and that 69 percent of their assailants were African American. Seventy-seven percent of the incidents took place taking in predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Of all assaults that prompted criminal proceedings, just two resulted in convictions.
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” AAA founder and former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D) told The Algemeiner at the time. “Shouldn’t there be a plan for how we’re going to deal with it? What’s the answer? Education? We’ve been educating everybody forever for God’s sake, and things are just getting worse.”
The problem has become acute in recent years. In July 2023, for example, a 22-year-old Israeli Yeshiva student, who was identifiably Orthodox and visiting New York City for the summer holiday, was stabbed with a screwdriver by one of two men who attacked him after asking whether he was Jewish and had any money. The other punched him in the face. Earlier that year, 10- and 12-year-olds were attacked on Albany Avenue by four African American teens.
According to a report issued in August by New York state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, antisemitic incidents accounted for a striking 65 percent of all felony hate crimes in New York City last year. The report added that throughout the state, nearly 44 percent of all recorded hate crime incidents and 88 percent of religious-based hate crimes targeted Jewish victims.
Meanwhile, according to a recent Algemeiner review of New York City Police Department (NYPD) hate crimes data, 385 antisemitic hate crimes have struck the New York City Jewish community since last October, when the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas perpetrated its Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, unleashing a wave of anti-Jewish hatred unlike any seen in the post-World War II era.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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