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A West Virginia rabbi’s ‘obsession with Lego’ connects him with his changing community
(JTA) — A West Virginia rabbi landed on the front page of his city’s newspaper earlier this month — not because of anything that happened at his synagogue, but because of his local fame as the builder of ever-more-ambitious Lego projects.
A 4-foot-tall Superman figure — all made of the tiny plastic blocks — stands alongside the books and Judaica in Rabbi Victor Urecki’s office at Charleston’s B’nai Jacob Synagogue. Where other rabbis might keep candy for children who visit his office, Urecki stores small Lego sets from the Disney Princess series and Moana’s dolphin cove in his desk drawers.
Urecki told the newspaper, the Charleston Gazette-Mail, that he was drawn to Lego building because he and his wife Marilyn can work together and feel a shared sense of accomplishment.
But to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the Yeshiva University-ordained rabbi said that wasn’t the whole story. While he initially wrote in an email that he feels there isn’t “really a ‘Judaism’ angle to this story,” he added that part of what he loves about his small community is that they are “giving and understanding,” especially when it comes to his hobbies.
“They have put up with this comic book collecting, Peloton/fitness crazy, and now Lego building rabbi,” Urecki added. “If you want to know why my wife and I have never once thought of leaving this state that continues to decline in population and why we plan to stay around when we retire in a couple of years, look no further than this amazingly supportive shul we have been blessed with. They are the real story.”
Urecki’s extracurricular pursuits are a major part of his identity. He was born in Argentina, and his early interest with comic-book collecting began as a way to learn English. Now, he has a whole room dedicated to comics — and, increasingly, Lego — in his house in Charleston, where he has also hosted an adult continuing education class on Lego construction through a local university.
“One of the gifts that this congregation has given me is they have allowed me to be me,” Urecki told JTA. “They didn’t shudder when they heard I collect comics. Instead, for my birthday and for different things, they get a kiddush lunch and they put comic books on the things for the luncheon.”
The support goes a long way back. Urecki once told a local news TV host that when he appeared — as himself — on the cover of a short-lived comic book called “Big Bad Blood of Dracula,” in 1991, a congregant bought 100 copies to share with others in the community.
B’nai Jacob, which is affiliated with the Conservative movement: Many of its 160 families are dual members of the nearby Reform synagogue, Temple Israel. Fewer than 1,200 Jews are estimated to live in West Virginia overall.
It also was not always a Conservative synagogue. When Urecki and his then-fiancée arrived in 1986, he was fresh out of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary at Yeshiva University, the flagship modern Orthodox educational institution.
At the time, B’nai Jacob identified as a Traditional synagogue, one of a small group of such congregations, mostly located in the Midwest, in which women did not count in the minyan, or prayer quorum, as per the Orthodox tradition, and did not lead services — though men and women did sit together.
But as the times changed, so did the needs of the Jewish community in Charleston. West Virginia, a state in deep economic decline since the mid-1960s due to the a decreasing reliance on coal, has also seen a significant drop in population. There is no Jewish day school in Charleston, and while there used to be a few kosher butchers in town in the 1950s and 1960s, those, too, have shuttered. Urecki and his wife recently drove two and a half hours up to Columbus, Ohio, to buy kosher meat. The couple sent their three daughters to Catholic high school — an uncommon choice for an Orthodox rabbi’s children.
Those shifts also led to changes at his synagogue. In 2017, B’nai Jacob held its first High Holiday services where women counted in the prayer quorum. In 2018, the synagogue officially joined the Conservative movement. Urecki welcomes the flexibility.
“The congregation has allowed me to grow not just as me, but also as a rabbi,” Urecki said. “I’ve got to explore avenues that I don’t think I would have done in other places. I’m not the same rabbi that came in back in ’86. I want to perform intermarriages. I want to be there for same-sex marriages — things that I didn’t think I would ever be comfortable or want to do, now I embrace. And I think part of it is because I’ve been in such a diverse community that I have to be there for everyone.”
Those transitions have not always been easy. Urecki remembers the exact date he got the phone call from the Rabbinical Council of America, an association for Orthodox rabbis, asking him to resign: May 29, 2018.
“I thought that was one of the hardest and blackest days of my life,” Urecki said. “And my wife said, ‘It’s going to be one of the best because you will be able to do more things that you’ve always wanted to do and your congregation has always encouraged you to find yourself, but you couldn’t because you were kind of shackled to an organization.’ And sure enough, that’s happened to me.”
Urecki has since taken the time to find himself, from Peloton to Legos.
“That obsession with Lego and comics and exercise kind of reminds me that I’m a human being,” he said.
And sharing those interests with his congregants has helped him connect to them. Letting the wider community and his congregation in, letting them see his comic book collection and his giant Superman build, Urecki says, “does create a certain amount of humanity. People put rabbis, ministers, priests on this pedestal and they’re afraid to talk to them.”
For the synagogue’s kids especially, he says, “instead of looking at the office as this really scary thing when you’re being called the rabbi’s office, they see comic book stuff, they see Lego. And there’s an instant connection that’s made.
“Every Sunday when kids run into the synagogue, the first thing they do is they run into the office to see if I have a new build,” he added. “We might like kids to be running in and their first thing is like, ‘I want to put on tefillin,’ but, you know, they’re running into the synagogue. And that’s a nice thing.”
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The post A West Virginia rabbi’s ‘obsession with Lego’ connects him with his changing community appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Why the Shtisel Prequel ‘Kugel’ Is Sweet and Savory
A screenshot from “Kugel.” Photo: Courtesy of Abot Hameiri/Menuetto Film.
Many fans of the show Shtisel wanted that show to continue, but I jumped for joy when I heard that a prequel called Kugel was being made. Available on the streamer Izzy, the show is clearly part of the Shtisel universe but is a little different.
There is still romance, and there is still a lot of heart, a respect for religion, and a wild sense of humor. But before we get to the actors, let’s look at the characters.
The two main characters brought over from Shtisel are Nuchem and his daughter Libbi.
For Nuchem (Sasson Gabai) we learn what made him so cheap, what makes him bitter, where he gets his humor from, and how he came up with his catchphrase “cursed-evil doers.” For Libbi (Hadas Yaron), we see there is more to her than her desire to get married.
One of the most crucial storylines is that Libbi is a writer — and she is persistent. Her short stories garner a following, which may explain why she later appreciates that Kive is an artist in Shtisel.
The main new character is Yiddes (Mili Avital), who becomes involved with Nuchem.
It is no surprise that Gabai, Yaron, and Avital have all won Ophir Awards, which is Israel’s equivalent to the Oscars. The acting is stellar and one benefit of having fewer characters is that we can zero in on the lives of a few people. It was a good choice to put Nuchem and Libbi in another country: Belgium.
Gabai is tremendous and we don’t see him smoke in the first three episodes or hear his famous catchphrase. Nuchem is a flawed character; he does some bad things, but he also does good things. There are a few curveballs you won’t see coming. Overall, the show teaches us that we can find love in the places we least expect — even on a tram. Many fans will miss Michael Aloni not being on the show, but Kugel is well baked and stands up on its own.
Creator and writer Yehonatan Indursky is still on point, and he is able to pull at your heartstrings. Yes, perhaps the notes sound familiar, but slightly different. Yaron is outstanding and we believe it when a prospective husband is blown away by her kind soul. From seeing the first three episodes, it is clear that it was a mistake of Netflix to take Shtisel off the air and not do another season or this prequel — but it is Izzy’s gain.
Just like a burnt piece of kugel, all three characters feel burned in some way, but who will come out of it in the best position? Gabai and Yaron each have a great moment of acting simply by facial expression. For Gabai, it’s when he realizes a trick won’t work, and for Yaron, it’s when she feels insulted by an author who suggests that she take one of her workshops. And Avital has a fine scene where we think she might have an emotional explosion, but is restrained and it makes for a more interesting watch.
While unmarried men and women are forbidden to touch, there is a scene where a date rubs his fingers over her name on a siddur so it is as if he is connecting to her. Seeing Nuchem riding his bike is absolutely hilarious. This is a show that electrifies your kishkes, with the type of acting that is clever, nuanced, and unforgettable. If you are in love, you’ll find much to relate to on the show. If you’re not in love, it will likely make you want to go out on dates — and as long as you’re not cheap, you can take someone out for more than a piece of kugel.
The author is a writer based in New York.
The post Why the Shtisel Prequel ‘Kugel’ Is Sweet and Savory first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Retribution in Syria: What It Means for Israel and the Region
Syria’s newly appointed president for a transitional phase Ahmed al-Sharaa meets Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salam, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Feb. 2, 2025. Photo: Bandar Algaloud Saudi Royal Royal Court/Handout via REUTERS
The carnage in Syria is terrifying, horrifying, and gruesome — particularly if you are a member of a Syrian minority group — Christians, Druze, Kurds. Or Alawite.
Did no one think there would be retribution after the ouster of the brutal Alawite Assad regime?
When Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) commandeered Damascus in December, no one seemed very upset. After all, Bashar al-Assad had been responsible for more than 500,000 deaths during the Syrian civil war — including from starvation and chemical attack — plus creating 6 million refugees inside the country and another 5 million outside and wrecking the country from top to bottom.
But HTS has been sitting in Damascus — and Assad had tens of thousands of soldiers in historic Alawite territory around Latakia, where fighting recently broke out.
Some of those ousted soldiers appear to have attacked government forces, and they are paying for it. So are the other minority groups that Assad allowed to live in relative peace for a while with Iranian protection because they, like he, feared the majority, Sunnis.
And, as always, civilians are the victims, because once the forces of retribution are unleashed, they are hard to control — particularly as HTS is not the only armed terror group in the country.
HTS is Sunni, ISIS-adjacent, Al Qaeda-adjacent, and armed by and aligned with Recip Tayyip Erdogan’s increasingly Islamist Turkey.
HTS evolved from Jabhat al-Nusrah, or “Nusrah Front,” Al-Qaeda’s former branch in Syria, which was designated a terror organization by the US in 2012, None of that appeared terribly important in the West.
HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (aka Abu Mohammed al-Jolani) is an international jihadist. He broke with Ayman al-Zawahiri — the leader of Al-Qaeda — in 2016, and HTS received its own terror designation from the US in 2018. He has no loyalty, moving from an alliance with Al-Qaeda in Iraq to the Islamic State in Iraq, to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria, to Al-Qaeda in Syria, to his own brand.
Al-Sharaa talked a fairly moderate game, but his alliance with Turkey should have been a tip-off. Turkey has been waging an ugly war against Kurds in the north of Syria — bombing towns and cities, and at one point cutting off water to a million people.
The history should have made you think that al-Sharaa was not going to be a peaceful neighbor to anyone. Anywhere.
Israel wasn’t taking chances.
Immediately, the IDF struck Syrian chemical weapons depots and “research facilities.” It struck the ports of Al-Bayda and Latakia, taking out dozens of sea-to-sea missiles with ranges of 80–190 km, each with significant explosive payloads. The Israeli Air Force targeted anti-aircraft batteries, airfields, and dozens of weapons production sites, neutralizing Scud missiles, cruise missiles, surface-to-sea, surface-to-air and surface-to-surface missiles, plus UAVs, fighter jets, attack helicopters, radars, tanks, hangars, and more. And the IDF conducted strikes on 130 ground assets in Syria, including weapons depots, military structures, launchers, and firing positions.
The IDF estimated it had eliminated 80 percent of the Assad arsenal. Voices were raised in the UN, the EU, and in the Middle East over Israel’s declaration that it would continue to hold slivers of the Syrian Golan. Syria’s Druze and Kurdish communities, however, asked for Israel’s protection, and at least one southern village asked to be annexed to Israel.
Still in December, the Biden administration started a conversation with HTS leadership in Damascus. Turkey promoted its ties with HTS and with al-Sharaa. As recently as last week, parts of the Washington “policy wonk” community were promoting an “alliance” between Turkey and Israel, led by the US, to cement a “moderate” Syria and pave the way for reconstruction funds to flow.
Try again.
Now, with the death toll mounting — and gory and heartrending videos from Syria flooding the Internet — al-Sharaa declared it necessary to “preserve national unity and domestic peace; we can live together.”
And where is the US? President Donald Trump, in his first term, directly punished the Assad regime for a chemical attack, and CENTCOM has been active in striking ISIS positions in Syria in his second. There appears to be no decision on whether to withdraw the roughly 2,200 American troops remaining in northern Syria.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, however, appears to be giving al-Sharaa a bit of wiggle room. “The United States condemns the radical Islamist terrorists, including foreign jihadis, that murdered people in western Syria in recent days … Syria’s interim authorities must hold the perpetrators of these massacres against Syria’s minority communities accountable.”
Good idea, but al-Sharaa and HTS are themselves radical Islamists. It is unclear that he can or wants to kill his Sunni allies on behalf of the Alawites, who decimated Syria’s Sunni population.
Retribution is a nasty game.
Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of The Jewish Policy Center and Editor of inFOCUS Quarterly magazine.
The post Retribution in Syria: What It Means for Israel and the Region first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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How Reuters and Getty Images Platform a Gaza Photojournalist Kissed by Hamas’ Sinwar
Yahya Sinwar, head of the Palestinian terror group Hamas in Gaza, in Gaza City on April 14, 2023. Photo: Yousef Masoud / SOPA Images/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
On October 7, 2023, Gazan photojournalist Hassan Eslaiah held a grenade in one hand and a camera in the other, documenting Hamas’ massacre inside Israel. His exposure by HonestReporting, which brought to light a cozy photo of Eslaiah and former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, led to the end of his employment at CNN and the Associated Press.
Yet more than a year later, his work was still being offered for sale by Reuters and stock photo agency Getty Images, along with other compromised photojournalists in Gaza. (Getty only removed his work last week after an initial version of this story was published on HonestReporting’s website — and it remains available on Reuters).
Hassan Eslaiah (r) with former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar (l)
An HonestReporting investigation revealed that the two media companies have been distributing the tainted content in collaboration with state-run Turkish agency Anadolu — an arrangement that seems to enable their profit without liability. Both companies have a global reach, with Reuters as one of the world’s largest news agencies and US-based Getty Images as one of the world’s largest image licensing companies.
Their databases also present images by Anadolu freelancers Ashraf Amra and Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa, who Reuters officially distanced itself from after HonestReporting’s investigative team exposed Amra’s close relations with former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, and his shared call with Abu Mostafa to invade Israel.
One of Abu Mostafa’s images, which is still for sale on the Reuters platform, has, according to Anadolu, been used as evidence in the genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
Unethical Content Distribution
Reuters partnered with Anadolu, which also collaborates with AFP and DPA to distribute its content, back in 2019. Reuters said that “these partnerships will help us create the most comprehensive collection of real-time, multimedia news content anywhere in the world.”
Anadolu’s partnership with Getty Images started in 2013, with Getty’s Senior Director of photography for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa saying at the time: “I am very excited at the prospect of seeing the Anadolu Agency represented by Getty Images around the world … I believe that the Anadolu Agency and Getty Images will benefit greatly from this partnership.”
Indeed, the partnership proved useful not only for the companies, but also for the compromised Gazan photojournalists who can no longer work directly for Western media.
Currently, Reuters offers for sale over 200 Anadolu photos by Hassan Eslaiah (spelled Hasan Eslayeh on their platforms). Most of the photos show Hamas’ hostage release ceremonies, including the barbaric handover of terrified Israeli hostage Arbel Yehud amid a mob of terrorists (which other Western media also picked up):
Eslaiah’s easy access and proximity to the action isn’t surprising. He enjoyed the same conditions on October 7, 2023 when he infiltrated with Hamas into Israel:
And here is footage of Eslaiah after he crossed into Israel and took photos of a burning Israeli tank. He then captured infiltrators entering Kibbutz Kfar Azza.
Note that he is not identifiable as a member of the press. But AP & CNN deemed it acceptable to use his services. pic.twitter.com/fA0VI2df2i
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 8, 2023
The fact that Eslaiah was fired from CNN and AP after we exposed him in November 2023 seems not to have affected his livelihood, with Reuters and Getty Images distributing his propagandist material under the cover of the partnership with Anadolu.
And until last week, Getty Images had no qualms about charging $175-499 dollars for each photo, presumably also including a cut for Anadolu and Eslaiah himself.
Reuters keeps the pricing confidential, but adds a disclaimer distancing itself from the content. The disclaimer seems like a cop-out because on its collaborations page, where Anadolu is listed, Reuters praises its partners’ “compelling content.”
In other words — Reuters and Getty Images make a profit, while abdicating responsibility for spreading the manipulative photos of a Hamas sympathizer, whose pockets are presumably also lined.
Platform for Manipulation
The same business model also seems to work for Gazan photojournalists Ashraf Amra and Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa. Reuters officially cut ties with them after we exposed in January 2024 that Amra was honored by former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and hosted an Instagram Live with Abu Mostafa in which they called on Gazans to infiltrate into Israel on October 7.
Here’s Amra getting a kiss from Haniyeh in 2023 and receiving an honor from the unlamented Hamas leader in 2012. pic.twitter.com/VdWXN6wB32
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 23, 2025
But as Anadolu contributors, Amra and Abu Mostafa are both featured on the Reuters platform — Amra with over 5,000 photos and Abu Mostafa with over 300. On Getty, Amra is less prominent but over 150 photos of Abu Mostafa are offered for sale, including video clips.
These photos don’t just sit in the databases. Reuters and Getty are among the world’s largest digital distribution platforms used by thousands of media clients worldwide.
Recently, Getty clients like The Times of London and the Daily Express were happy to buy Amra’s Anadolu photo showing the moment when Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov “kissed” the head of his Hamas captor:
CNN did the same with Amra’s Anadolu photos of Israeli hostages Eli Sharabi and Or Levy via Getty Images.
And last year, Anadolu weaponized one of Abu Mostafa’s photos — still on sale in the Getty Images and Reuters platforms — as evidence at the ICJ case accusing Israel of committing a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
According to Anadolu, the photo “shows the mass burial of the Fatayer family members in a designated area in Gaza due to the lack of available space in some cemeteries.”
Fayq’s photo in Getty Images database
Fayq’s Photo in Anadolu website
Fayq’s Photo in Reuters Database
Sadly, the court didn’t know the photo was taken by a “journalist” who was thrilled by the massacre of Jews and called on Gazans to infiltrate the border, to enjoy the abduction of “settler” women.
But more Reuters and Getty’s own responses, it may be time for US Attorney General Pam Bondi to take an interest. In December 2023, following HonestReporting’s exposure of photojournalists who infiltrated Israel on October 7, 14 state attorneys general wrote a letter to The New York Times, AP, CNN, and Reuters calling them out for using hires with ties to Hamas and reminding them that providing material support to terrorists and terror organizations is a crime.
The letter even specifically mentions the case of Hasan Eslaiah and ends by calling on the media outlets to “ensure that you are taking all necessary steps to prevent your organizations from contracting with members of terror organizations. We urge you in the strongest terms to take care that your hiring practices conform to the laws forbidding material support for terror organizations.”
Despite whatever action may be taken, these propagandists have found a deceitful way to continue spreading their lies to the international media.
And the international media can, for at least the time being, enjoy the “goods” without getting their hands dirty.
UPDATE
Within a few hours of publication of this article on HonestReporting’s website, Getty Images, to their credit, removed all content that was flagged by HonestReporting, including a Ramzi Adel video that called Jews “dogs,” and content from Hassan Eslaiah, Ashraf Amra, and Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa.
The same cannot be said for Reuters, however, which gave us the following statement referring to the Connect platform it operates: “Reuters Connect is a commercial marketplace with content from more than 100 news organizations, allowing media customers the option to select the content that is most relevant to their news cycle. This content is clearly labeled and is not endorsed by Reuters.”
HonestReporting is a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post How Reuters and Getty Images Platform a Gaza Photojournalist Kissed by Hamas’ Sinwar first appeared on Algemeiner.com.