Connect with us

RSS

10 Jewish ways to mark Martin Luther King Day in New York this year

(New York Jewish Week) – This weekend, communities around the United States will celebrate the life and legacy of civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Here in New York City, Jewish communities will honor King by hosting interfaith Shabbat dinners and discussions about social justice, as well as providing community service opportunities and screening films about King’s work and Black and Jewish relations.

Below are several Jewish offerings and events tied to MLK Day, which is observed as a national holiday on Monday, Jan. 15, which would have been King’s 95th birthday had he not been assassinated in 1968 at the height of his civil rights activism.

MLK Shabbat Services 

Temple Emanu-El 

The Upper East Side’s Temple Emanu-El will host their annual MLK Shabbat service virtually this year, in partnership with Reverend Gary V. Simpson and the Concord Baptist Church of Christ. The 6:00 p.m. service will celebrate the life and legacy of King and will  be broadcast on Temple Emanu-El’s website as well as their Facebook and YouTube pages.

Central Synagogue

Join Central Synagogue on Friday night at 6:00 p.m. for a Shabbat service and a conversation with New York Congressman Ritchie Torres, who will talk about his advocacy on behalf of marginalized communities and the legacy of  king. (Torres recently made an appearance at Riverdale’s SAR Academy, where the pro-Israel Democrat received a hero’s welcome.) The service will take place in person and will also be livestreamed.

Temple Shaaray Tefila

The Upper East Side’s Temple Shaaray Tefila will host an MLK Shabbat service featuring the Harlem Gospel Choir accompanied by Shaaray Tefila’s choirs Kol Rinnah, Shir Leadership and Shaaray School of Rock. The 6:15 p.m. Kabbalat Shabbat service will also be livestreamed on YouTube. 

Congregation Beth Elohim 

Brooklyn’s Congregation Beth Elohim will honor the memory of King during their 6:30 p.m. Shabbat service by discussing ways to come together to “help make this world a more just and compassionate place.” The service will be followed by a Shabbat dinner, where leaders from CBE’s various social justice initiatives will speak about their work and how to get involved. Register for the dinner here, tickets start at $36.  

Volunteer Opportunities

Repair the World 

The Jewish volunteering and community service organization Repair the World is hosting a number of opportunities throughout the weekend, including packaging care kits for migrants, prepping garden beds and painting artistic signs at urban gardens and clothing distribution for newly arrived migrants. The organization will also host “Songs of Sustenance,” a Shabbat event on Saturday at 1:00 p.m., when Rabbi Shir Meira Feit will guide a “spiritually nourishing song circle and niggunim” (wordless spiritual melodies). 

On Sunday night at 7:00 p.m., Repair the World will host an immigrant art justice soiree at the Flatbush Jewish Center. The event includes a roundtable discussion over dinner with “leading local Brooklyn-based artists whose art reflects immigration and Jewish themes.” 

Check out all the opportunities here. Locations are provided upon registration.

Stephen Wise Free Synagogue

The Upper West Side’s Stephen Wise Free Synagogue will hold a Shabbat of Service on Saturday at 1:00 p.m., where volunteers will help make sandwiches and pack up meals to feed hungry New Yorkers and resupply NYC community fridges. Sign up to volunteer here.

UJA Federation-New York 

UJA Federation-New York will again host their annual MLK Day of Service on Monday. There are dozens of volunteer opportunities across the city, from park clean-ups and working at food pantries to making care packages for migrants, Holocaust survivors and people living in shelters. Take a look at all the opportunities here.

Met Council

Join the Met Council for their United through Service initiative on Jan. 15 at 12:00 p.m. to pack supplies for vulnerable New Yorkers, including Muslim New Yorkers and college students. Per a press release, the group will meet at the Met Council’s fulfillment center (171 Lexington Ave) to put together “1,000 emergency food relief boxes of Halal products, 500 Halal spice kits, 2,000 literacy kits for families with young children, 1,000 stress-relief kits for CUNY students, 140 food packages for those receiving ongoing and emergency food support from Met Council.” The group will be joined by New York Attorney General Letitia James, New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler. 

Film Screenings

“Rustin”

Join the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan on Monday at 5:00 p.m. for a screening of “Rustin,” a biopic of Bayard Rustin, an architect of the 1963 March on Washington as well as a trailblazing advocate for gay rights and the plight of Soviet Jewish refuseniks. Produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company Higher Ground, the 2023 film stars Colman Domingo and Chris Rock. Tickets for the screening start at $5

“Rabbi On the Block” and “Books He Didn’t Burn”

The New York Jewish Film Festival is screening two documentaries in honor of King. “Rabbi on The Block” is about the efforts of Rabbi Tamar Manasseh, a Black rabbi devoted to building solidarity between Black and Jewish communities on Chicago’s South Side. The movie will screen on Monday at 6:30 p.m. and again on Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. “The Books He Didn’t Burn” screening on Monday at 1:00 p.m. explores the histories of racism and antisemitism as it delves into the remains of Adolf Hitler’s private library. Both movies are screening at the Walter Reade Theater. Tickets start at $17. 


The post 10 Jewish ways to mark Martin Luther King Day in New York this year appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Continue Reading
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

RSS

Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials

FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

i24 NewsIranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.

“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.

The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.

The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.

According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”

The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.

Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.

Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.

The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.

Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.

Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.

Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.

There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.

The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.

Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.

US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS

The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.

Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.

The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.

The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.

The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.

The post Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say

Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo

The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.

The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.

The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.

The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.

The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.

The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.

On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.

While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.

The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.

USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.

One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.

The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.

The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.

Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.

The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2017 - 2023 Jewish Post & News