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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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US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.
In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: “A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!”
The post US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration escalated its showdown against Harvard University on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel.
The US Department of Education (DOE) announced the action on Wednesday. Citing Harvard’s admitted failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated others forms of hatred in the past, the DOE called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”
The DOE, McMahon added, “expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism has acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.
In a 300-plus-page report, the task force compiled a comprehensive record of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color. The report identified Harvard’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups as a key source of its problem.
Coming several weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the freeze of $2.26 billion in federal research grants and contracts for Harvard, the task force report found it was “clear” that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been fomented, practiced, and tolerated not only at Harvard but also within academia more widely.”
The university is now suing the federal government over the funding halt.
President Trump has spoken scathingly of Harvard, calling it, for example, an “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute … with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our Country apart” in an April post to his Truth Social platform.
In recent weeks, however, both Trump and McMahon had commended Harvard’s constructive response in negotiations over reforms the administration has asked it to implement as a precondition for restoring federal funds. The requested reforms include hiring more conservative faculty, shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] programs, and slashing the size of administrative offices tangential to the university’s central educational mission.
The administration has since changed its tone in the wake of a report by The Harvard Crimson that interim Harvard President Alan Garber has said “behind closed doors” that he has no intention of doing anything that would make Harvard more palatable to conservatives.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism issued Harvard a formal “notice of violation” of civil rights law. Charging that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a flood of racist and antisemitic abuse both in and outside of the classroom, it threatened to strip whatever remains of Harvard’s federal funding.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
In Wednesday’s announcement, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Harvard’s conduct “forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold.”
“HHS and Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination,” he said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks
IDF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed Hezbollah weapons caches in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a new report indicated that despite ongoing U.S.-led efforts to secure a disarmament deal, the Iran-backed group is making repeated, largely concealed attempts to rebuild its military presence in the area.
Troops carried out several operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying weapons depots, explosives and multibarrel launchers concealed in forested terrain, the IDF said, in violation of the November ceasefire, which requires Hezbollah to withdraw its forces 20 miles from the Israeli border.
A new report released this week by the Alma Research and Education Center found that Hezbollah is focused on rebuilding in three areas: operational deployment, weapons acquisition, and financial recovery.
“Hezbollah didn’t give up its resistance narrative and motivation,” Alma’s director, Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, told The Algemeiner.
“It wants to rebuild its capabilities and infrastructures, whether it’s the villages that will be used as human shields or the military infrastructure in South Lebanon and in Lebanon in general.”
According to Zehavi, Hezbollah is attempting to return Radwan fighters to positions south of the Litani River as part of a wider plan to restore its elite forces to operational readiness. The IDF on Monday killed Radwan commander Ali Abd al-Hassan Haidar in a targeted strike. The action came hours after US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut to discuss a long-term deal that would include an Israeli withdrawal and complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
Barrack described the Lebanese response to the proposal as positive. Later, he issued a blunt warning to Hezbollah in response to a vow by the terror group’s leader, Naim Qassem, not to lay down its arms. “If they mess with us anywhere in the world, they will have a serious problem with us,” Barrack said in an interview with Lebanese news network LBCI. “They don’t want that.”
Zehavi said it was premature to predict the outcome of the diplomatic efforts. She warned that the challenge of disarming Hezbollah remains enormous and emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces have not demonstrated the capability or willingness to confront the group.
“It’s too soon to be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said, noting that no firm commitments have emerged from the Beirut talks.
Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle and manufacture weapons have been complicated by both Israeli strikes and the regional realignment over recent months. While Israeli strikes have disrupted many supply routes, according to Zehavi, Syrian authorities have intercepted far more Hezbollah-bound weapons than the Lebanese Army, which claims to have uncovered 500 arms caches but has provided no evidence.
The financial front marks the third aspect of Hezbollah’s rebuilding effort. Last week, the group halted cash payments to Shiite civilians whose homes were damaged in the war, citing liquidity problems. Zehavi attributed the shortfall to disruptions in Iran’s funding networks — an outcome of the 12-day war against the regime in Tehran — and said the constraints would likely hamper Hezbollah’s ability to compensate its base and sustain operations.
“I hope they will continue to have problems with the cash flow, that way it will be very difficult for them to recover,” she said.
The post IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.