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Anti-vaccine protest planned for Orthodox health event in Brooklyn
(New York Jewish Week) — A conference for Orthodox medical professionals that aims to improve healthcare literacy in the community is drawing backlash from anti-vaccine activists, who are also planning a protest.
The conference, set to take place at a hotel in the heavily Hasidic Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg, will cover a broad range of topics — including vaccination, community healthcare, long COVID and the return of infectious diseases such as polio. The conference, with an expected attendance of some 100 to 150 people, is approved as a continuing education course for medical professionals and is sponsored by multiple medical providers and community organizations.
The gathering comes after years of low vaccination rates in the city’s haredi Orthodox community, driven in part by misinformation, a lack of resources and mistrust in a city government that some felt had targeted Orthodox Jews. Recent years have also seen a current of anti-vaccine activism by some haredi Jews, in partnership with other anti-vaccine activists, despite repeated calls by a range of leading haredi rabbis to get vaccinated.
“There is so much mistrust right now across the globe, but very heavily in the Orthodox community right now,” Blimi Marcus, an Orthodox nurse and president of the Emes Initiative, a co-sponsor of the event, told the New York Jewish Week. “COVID caused a lot of additional mistrust that existed beforehand. People had a hard time with changing guidelines, mixed messaging, and feeling targeted by policies that were directed at specific communities.”
Last year, polio resurfaced in the United States for the first time in nearly a decade when an Orthodox Jewish man from Rockland County was diagnosed with the disease. One month later, New York City and state health officials announced that polio was detected in New York City wastewater, and cautioned communities to get vaccinated.
At that time, Williamsburg, which is home to one of the largest Orthodox Jewish populations in the state, had the city’s lowest rate of polio vaccination, with 56.3% of children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years having had three doses of the vaccine, according to the New York Citywide Immunization Registry.
Some members of Orthodox communities campaigned against COVID vaccinations as well, despite the admonitions of community leaders, while others hesitated to get the shot due to fears that it would adversely affect fertility. At present, some Hasidic neighborhoods in Brooklyn, including Borough Park and Williamsburg, have among the lowest levels of COVID vaccination in the city.
And in 2019, haredi Orthodox communities in the state experienced a measles outbreak that was tied to low vaccination rates. That outbreak also saw the growth of a vocal anti-vaccination campaign among Orthodox Jews.
Anti-vax activists are raising their voices against Sunday’s event as well. A flier has surfaced over the past week that is calling the event a “terrible Chilul Hashem,” or desecration of God’s name.
Well that escalated.
There is nothing anti-Jewish about a health event to prevent polio and to support community pediatricians in their holy work caring for our children in challenging times.
This is nonsense.
On the flip side, registration went up exponentially today pic.twitter.com/40Q8Zu9Dlb
— Blimi Marcus DNP RN (@MarcusBlimi) May 17, 2023
“People who deny that [God] created the world are scheduled to speak to the frum community at The Williamsburg Hotel,” the flier said, using a Jewish term connoting Orthodoxy. “Please help avert this terrible Chilul Hashem. Rabbonim [rabbis] have requested that whoever can possibly come, should join to stand up for Kavod Shamiyim,” or the honor of heaven.
A leading voice against the protests has been a blogger who goes by the name of Boruch Weiss. Weiss has written multiple articles calling the event “an atheist convention,” and did not respond to a request for comment.
“It must be noted that the beliefs espoused at this convention are a lot closer to Nazi ideology than they are to Judaism,” Weiss wrote. “It would be remiss not to mention that it was precisely this sort of ideology that led to the atrocities.”
Despite the protests, Marcus told the New York Jewish Week over the phone that “most people are looking forward” to the event. She recalled that previous protests of similar events did not draw “much of a turnout,” though she said there will be security present.
“This is one of the first times we’re bringing together most of the ultra-Orthodox providers from different communities around the tristate area,” Marcus said.
At the height of the pandemic in 2020, many in the city’s Orthodox community felt unfairly targeted by COVID restrictions that closed schools, parks and houses of worship. Orthodox protesters in Brooklyn burned masks and, at one point, cornered, mobbed and threatened a Hasidic reporter.
“A lot of people have taken all of this and come away with the message that no one is to be trusted except ourselves,” Marcus said. “They don’t want to hear from anyone that has beliefs that are different from theirs.”
Marcus said that Sunday’s event is “open to people from the Jewish community and beyond.”
“We can always learn from each other,” Marcus said. “Vaccine hesitancy is not limited to the Orthodox community. By far, it’s a global public health problem.”
—
The post Anti-vaccine protest planned for Orthodox health event in Brooklyn appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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At Trump’s Christian revival on the National Mall, one rabbi made a Jewish case for America
On the National Mall Sunday, Christian worship music boomed from giant speakers as “Adonai” and other names of God flashed across jumbo screens behind a praise band. Pastors invoked America’s biblical destiny. Sadie Robertson, the Christian social media personality and granddaughter of Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson, preached from both the Old and New Testaments.
And then Rabbi Meir Soloveichik — the lone Jewish speaker at the planned nine-hour “Rededicate 250” rally called by President Donald Trump, billed as a national “jubilee of prayer, praise and thanksgiving” — stepped to the podium and began talking about Irving Berlin.
Soloveichik, 48, a scion of one of modern Orthodoxy’s most revered rabbinic families and a member of Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, used his remarks to offer a Jewish case for American exceptionalism, a contrast to the explicitly Christian vision of the nation’s founding that defined the day.
Recalling how Berlin wrote “God Bless America” as fascism spread across Europe and antisemitism consumed the continent, Soloveichik described the song as both a patriotic anthem and a prayer of gratitude from a Jewish immigrant who found refuge in the United States. The hymn, he said, represented “a plaintive prayer to God that America continue to be blessed.”
The four-minute speech fit squarely within Soloveichik’s broader worldview. A senior scholar at the conservative Tikvah Fund and rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel in Manhattan, the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States, he has long argued that America’s civic ideals are aligned with traditional Judaism and biblical morality. His 2024 book, Providence and Power: Ten Portraits in Jewish Statesmanship, examines Jewish political leadership through the lens of faith and moral responsibility.
For Soloveichik, the connection between Judaism and American identity culminated in the Second World War. He noted that “God Bless America” was first broadcast publicly the day after Kristallnacht, when Nazis destroyed Jewish homes and synagogues across Germany. “At the very moment when darkness deepened,” Soloveichik said, “America raised its voice united in the song that Irving Berlin wrote.”
He added that “in the years that followed 1938, the prayer that is ‘God Bless America’ was carried by American soldiers who defeated evil, liberating Europe and the world.”
Then came the line that drew some of the loudest applause of his remarks: “It is a reminder, as hatred of Jews makes itself manifest again, that antisemitism is utterly un-American.”
Separation of church and state
The moment captured the complicated role Jews increasingly occupy within the Trump-era religious right: embraced as part of America’s Judeo-Christian heritage, even as critics warn that the broader movement surrounding events like Rededicate 250 blurs the line between religious pluralism and Christian nationalism.
Rachel Laser, the Jewish CEO of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, denounced the rally before the event. “If President Trump and his allies truly cared about America’s legacy of religious freedom, they would be celebrating church-state separation as the unique American invention that has allowed religious diversity to flourish in our country,” she said in a statement. “Instead, they continue to threaten this foundational principle by advancing a Christian Nationalist crusade to impose one narrow version of Christianity on all Americans.”
Sunday’s event — part revival meeting, part patriotic pageant — was the centerpiece of the Trump administration’s religious programming tied to this year’s 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and House Speaker Mike Johnson were slated to appear alongside evangelical pastors, worship leaders and conservative Christian influencers. President Trump and Vice President JD Vance were scheduled to address the crowd by video, while Trump himself spent the weekend golfing after returning from an overseas trip to China.
“This is a recognition of the deeply embedded history and religious and moral tradition of the country,” Johnson said Sunday on Fox News, dismissing criticism that the rally blurred the separation of church and state. Those objecting to the event, he added, “want to erase the history of America.”
No Muslim speakers appeared on the lineup. Organizers promoted Trump’s declaration of a national “Shabbat 250” observance the day prior as evidence of interfaith inclusion.
One of the Sunday event’s chief promoters, Trump spiritual adviser Pastor Paula White-Cain, had reassured supporters beforehand that the gathering would celebrate America’s Christian foundations without “praying to all these different Gods.”
Soloveichik did not address those tensions. Instead, he closed by returning to the image of America as a nation uniquely capable, in his telling, of transforming a Jewish refugee into the composer of one of the country’s most enduring patriotic hymns.
“To sing this song,” he said, “is to be reminded that America’s story is unique.”
“GOD BLESS AMERICA IS NOT JUST A SONG. IT’S A PRAYER.” 🇺🇸🙏
Rabbi Meir Soloveichik delivers a powerful reminder that America’s love of liberty has always been tied to faith — tracing its story and why anti-Semitism is fundamentally un-American. pic.twitter.com/aKMg42nS2I
— Real America’s Voice (RAV) (@RealAmVoice) May 17, 2026
The post At Trump’s Christian revival on the National Mall, one rabbi made a Jewish case for America appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel to Establish Defense Offices in Former UNRWA Compound
A man handles fallen cables at the Jerusalem headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) as the headquarters is dismantled by Israeli forces, in East Jerusalem, January 20, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Israel’s cabinet on Sunday approved a plan to build a defense compound on the site of the recently demolished premises of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in East Jerusalem.
Israel in January demolished structures inside the UN Palestinian refugee agency’s East Jerusalem compound after seizing the site last year, in an act condemned by the agency as a violation of international law.
In a joint statement, the Defense Ministry and Jerusalem Municipality said the new compound would include the establishment of a military museum, a recruitment office and a defense minister’s office.
Defense Minister Israel Katz called the decision one of “sovereignty, Zionism, and security.”
UNRWA, which Israeli authorities accuse of bias, had not used the building since the start of last year after Israel ordered it to vacate all its premises and cease its operations.
A UNRWA spokesperson declined to comment on the Israeli plan.
The agency operates in East Jerusalem, which the U.N. and most countries consider territory occupied by Israel as it was captured from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war. Israel considers all Jerusalem to be its indivisible capital.
UNRWA also operates in Gaza, the West Bank and elsewhere in the Middle East, providing schooling, healthcare, social services and shelter to millions of Palestinians.
“There is nothing more symbolic or justified than establishing the new IDF recruitment office and defense establishment institutions precisely on the ruins of the former UNRWA compound — an organization whose employees took part in the massacres, murders, and atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists on October 7,” Katz said.
Israel has alleged that some UNRWA staff were members of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas and took part in the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, that killed about 1,200 Israelis and led to Israel’s war against Hamas.
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Palestinian Leader’s Son Wins Role in Abbas’ Party, Official Says
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, accompanied by his son Yasser, leaves a hospital in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, May 28, 2018. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman
The millionaire businessman son of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has won a steering role in his father’s political party Fatah, a party official said on Sunday, as a succession fight looms for control of the embattled Palestinian Authority (PA).
Yasser Abbas won a seat in elections for the Fatah Central Committee, the party’s highest decision-making body, at its first general conference in almost a decade. Mahmoud Abbas, 90, will remain chairman, it decided.
The PA was set up as an interim administration under the 1990s Oslo accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, an umbrella group still internationally recognized as the representative of the Palestinian people. The powerful Fatah party dominates both the PA and the PLO.
Abbas’ son’s foray into politics has fueled speculation that the president may be seeking to position Yasser, 64, to succeed him as head of Fatah.
That has drawn criticism from some Fatah officials, who say Yasser would be unable to unify Palestinians or help them chart a new political future after years without national elections or tangible steps toward statehood.
In the more than two decades since Mahmoud Abbas was elected to succeed Fatah founder Yasser Arafat, Palestinians have come to view the PA as ineffective and corrupt, something denied by Abbas, who has ruled by decree since his mandate expired in 2009.
In 2007, Abbas’ Fatah forces in the Gaza Strip were overpowered by Hamas militants who seized control of the enclave, a year after Hamas swept the Palestinian parliamentary elections.
Peace talks with Israel meant to lead to the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem collapsed in 2014, with expanding Israeli settlements since carving up areas slated for Palestinian statehood. The PA is also grappling with a financial crisis.
Yasser Abbas, who has never held an official role within Fatah or the PA, runs tobacco and contracting firms in the parts of the West Bank where the PA exercises limited self rule. Critics have long alleged that he and his brother Tarek have used public funds to help their businesses, allegations both men reject.
Among others to have won seats on the Central Committee are Majed Faraj, head of the General Intelligence Agency, and former militant group leader Zakaria Zubeidi, released in a Hamas-Israel prisoner-hostage exchange as part of a 2025 Gaza ceasefire.