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As trial begins in Tree of Life massacre, Pittsburgh’s Jews struggle with what to reveal and what to conceal
PITTSBURGH (JTA) — On Friday afternoon, Squirrel Hill was suffused with spring breezes and pink dogwoods, and alive with the movement that typifies the coming of Shabbat.
Toddlers scrambled up the jungle gym in the JCC playground, while the chatter in cafes was about a looming storm that could soak the walk to synagogue on Saturday. Murray Avenue Kosher was emptying out of challahs.
Barely present, at least on the surface, was any indication that Monday morning would hold a turning point in the community’s greatest trauma. That’s when jury selection was to begin in the trial of the man accused of shattering Shabbat on Oct. 27, 2018, with gunfire. His massacre of 11 worshipers, in a synagogue building a 10-minute stroll from the downtown of this leafy, heavily Jewish neighborhood, was the deadliest-ever attack on U.S. Jews.
But behind the scenes, there are clear signs that the trial’s proximity is being felt. Maggie Feinstein, the director of the 10/27 Healing Partnership, which provides post-traumatic therapy for the community, said that as the trial nears, requests for treatment have spiked.
“The trauma cues that for a while bothered us right after the shooting — for some people it might be ambulances, for other people it might be media, for some people it might be the sound of multiple police cars — you get to a place where they don’t bother you as much,” she said. “But the increased media attention and the increased awareness of this upcoming trial for a number of people is bringing back for them that maybe they didn’t do their own healing the first time around.”
A Starbucks in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh is decorated with a memorial for the victims of the 2018 massacre at the city’s Tree of Life synagogue, April 21, 2023. (Ron Kampeas)
There were three congregations in the building: Tree of Life and New Light, both affiliated with the Conservative movement, and Dor Hadash, which is Reconstructionist.
The 11 victims were brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, couple Bernice and Sylvan Simon, Rose Malinger, Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Jerry Rabinowitz, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax and Irving Younger. Seven were from Tree of Life, three were from New Light and one was from Dor Hadash.
For their families, their friends, their congregations and their broader Jewish community, the legacy of the massacre is a deep-seated longing for control, a longing to never have to think again of the gunman and of the anguish he left in his wake, while grappling with tender memories of the dead, of the decades spent in celebration and in prayer in the building.
Who narrates this story, the gunman or his victims? That struggle now looms as the alleged gunman goes to trial. The community is wrestling with questions such as where and whether to put the bullet-riddled artifacts, whether to worship at the site, whether to even speak of the massacre and how and whether the gunman lives or dies.
”We believe strongly that this antisemitic attack should not stop people from practicing and being Jewish,” Feinsten said. “For a lot of people, that’s an active choice that they have to work at. It doesn’t come easily after feeling unsafe in that environment to then work to find safety in it. But a lot of people have chosen to do that.”
On Friday, Feinstein was organizing support services for families who would, if they so choose, be sequestered in a separate room in the court where they could view the trial. (Family members may also ask to be seated in the courtroom.) She assigned six therapists to be present with the families.
Compounding the revisited trauma of the event, the families are divided over whether the gunman, should he be convicted, deserves the death penalty. The accused has a lawyer, Judy Clarke, known as “the attorney for the damned” for her determination to keep her clients from execution.
What’s clear is that the Jews of Squirrel Hill are taking the trial on with their characteristic spirit of collaboration. The community has hired public relations specialists to handle media inquiries ahead of the trial, in part to safeguard locals from being pressed to answer questions that could harm them or shatter the sense of unity. Congregants reached by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency dutifully deferred to the list of approved contacts on a list distributed by a PR agency.
On Friday afternoon, signs of unity that flooded the city in the immediate aftermath of the shooting were still visible. In a tobacconist’s window a sign with the slogan “No place for hate/Stronger than hate,” which had proliferated throughout the neighborhood after the attack, remained propped up next to a flag and an ad for the lottery. A Starbucks had on its window white paint drawings depicting “love,” “kindness” and “hope” in English and in Hebrew, alongside symbols: the Star of David, a heart and a dove.
A tobacconist window includes a poster of the “No Place for Hate” slogan that proliferated after the Tree of Life Massacre in 2018, in Pittsburgh, April 21, 2023. (Ron Kampeas)
Representatives of the community talk about “doing Jewish” as a means of coping, including redoubling the very activities — allying with the city’s Black minority and advocating for immigration, refugees and gun control — that fueled the rage of the alleged attacker.
The attacker allegedly was driven in part by the partnership between Dor Hadash and HIAS, the Jewish refugee aid group, and the congregation’s sponsorship of refugee families.
“We have, if anything, doubled down on our commitment to immigrants and refugees,” said Dana Kellerman, the chair of the communications committee at Dor Hadash. “We are currently coming up on the end of our first year working with a new resettlement program to resettle a Congolese immigrant family in Pittsburgh, and we have every intention of when the year commitment is up of working with a second family.”
Kellerman said the shooting had “honestly become part of the background of our existence at this point.” In keeping with her congregation’s rules aimed at protecting their community, Kellerman declined to talk about the day of the massacre, the death penalty or about details of the trial. But she was open about the ways in which her congregation has leaned into the values it has long held, and that the gunman so reviled.
“We have become louder and more public about practicing our Judaism,” she said. Now, she said, the congregation incorporates advocacy for refugees into its service, with liturgical readings on immigration.
There are other changes. “We even have hats now! We have baseball caps!” Kellerman said with a smile, unearthing a photo of herself in a white cap with “Dor Hadash” and a stylized Magen David in blue, standing alongside gun control advocates.
“Previously we all would have shown up as our individual selves, and now we show up in our Dor Hadash baseball caps,” she said. “Mine kept blowing off.”
Steve Cohen, the co-president of New Light, said the congregation’s relationship with Black churches in the city has reached new intensity since the massacre. The congregation’s rabbi and congregants who know Hebrew partner with the churches to analyze sacred texts in the original.
“We would bring our Tanachs [Hebrew Bibles], and the Christian congregation would bring their Bible and then we would talk about the Proverbs and go through it, not just what the intention of the author was, but how different ways the same words can be translated in order to imply different things,” he said. “And so we went through the whole Book of Proverbs with the Rodman Street Baptist Church, and this past winter, we did the selected Psalms with the faith and Destiny Church on the north side.”
The interior of the new sanctuary of the New Light congregation, four and half years after a gunman massacred three of its congregants, in Pittsburgh, April 21, 2023. (Ron Kampeas)
New Light took its cue from survivors of the 2015 attack on the Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in which a white supremacist murdered nine Black worshipers, Cohen said. Leaders of New Light traveled to the church and heard from its elders that it was not enough to tend to the traumatized individuals, but to the community; they emphasized outreach, bringing congregants back in.
“That’s a lot of the reason why we have an outpouring of members who never attended shul now attending shul,” he said.
Feinstein, too, said she had an intensification of religious and ritual observance among her clients: more frequent attendance at Shabbat services, forming a daily minyan, finding a study partner for daily Talmud study.
Kellerman said the community has become closer; she sees it in congregants who linger. “It shows up in things like people showing up for Friday night services, and hanging out to chat or getting on a little early to chat,” she said.
A rendition of architect Daniel Libeskind’s plans for the interior of the new Tree of Life synagogue. (Tree of Life)
In the days leading up to the trial, the community bid farewell to the most salient relic of that painful day: the hulking synagogue building on the corner of Wilkins and Shady that has stood empty since then. All three congregations have decamped to nearby synagogues, leaving behind the chain-link fence draped with paintings from children across the country wishing for strength.
“Nobody has been meeting in the synagogue since the day of the shooting,” said Carole Zawatsky, the Tree of Life CEO who is overseeing the plans to replace the building. The only people to have been inside at all, she said, were survivors and “special friends” — donors to the rebuilding and politicians.
Zawatsky said it is wrenching to even contemplate returning for some. “You can walk through the building and see where the gunman was destructive,” she said. “You can see where the gunman was apprehended, where the gunman opened fire. It’s devastating to witness.”
But some intend to: Tree of Life lost seven congregants but plans on returning once the building is rebuilt as a museum and education center focused on the dangers of extremism.
On Sunday, the Tree of Life congregation had an outdoor ceremony to say “L’hitraot,” Hebrew for “until we meet again,” to the building as it has existed up to now.
“We are grateful to God for the thousands of blessings that have passed through these doors,” Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, the rabbi who sheltered congregants and alerted police, said at the ceremony. “We cannot, we must not, permit one day … to define us, nor outweigh all the good.”
The new center is being designed by Daniel Libeskind, the architect who designed the master plan for the World Trade Center site reconstruction in New York and the Jewish Museum in Berlin.
But Dor Hadash and New Light decided their moves were permanent in part because families of their victims swore never to return to the building.
New Light is now ensconced in what once was a secondary chapel at the Beth Shalom synagogue, as if it has been there for decades: Plaques honoring past donors and presidents adorn the walls of the sanctuary. The only signs of the massacre are the 1,000 paper cranes Pittsburgh’s Japanese community gave the congregation, reflecting a Japanese tradition that folding cranes will make a wish come true. They hang at the entrance to the sanctuary, unexplained by any plaque. There is a stained glass monument to the three victims at the cemetery where they are buried.
Even with Tree of Life’s commitment to return, many questions remain about what that will look like. The congregation has yet to decide what objects will stay in the sanctuary, what will stay in storage and what will be part of a separate exhibit, Zawatsky said.
“The first work that’s had to be done for the synagogue is ‘What are the things that need to be saved and go into storage during construction?’” she said.
In some ways, she indicated, the work of rebuilding could bear some resemblance to the balancing act that the community will have to navigate during the alleged shooter’s trial.
“We are thinking deeply about how you exhibit some of these materials,” Zaslavsky said, “in ways that are both teachable moments and don’t retraumatize.”
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I. B. Singer predicted the war between Fascism and Communism
יצחק באַשעװיס איז אַרײַן אין דער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור אין 1925, װען ער איז געװען בלויז 21 יאָר אַלט. אַז ער איז באַרימט געװאָרן אין אַמעריקע, האָט ער ניט געלאָזט איבערדרוקן אָדער איבערזעצן זײַנע פֿריִערדיקע װערק, װאָס זײַנען דערשינען אין ייִדישע צײַטשריפֿטן אין פּױלן.
לעצטנס האָט מען זײ אָבער אָפּגעזוכט און איבערגעזעצט אױף ענגליש אונטערן קעפּל „אױפֿן עולם־התּועה“. די דאָזיקע אױסגאַבע איז אַ קאָלעקטיװער אױפֿטו פֿון אַ גאַנצער גרופּע רעדאַקטאָרן און איבערזעצער, אַרײַנגערעכנט דניאל קענעדי, יאַן שװאַרץ, ראָזע װאַלדמאַן, אַגניעשקאַ לעגוטקאָ און אַנדערע.
אין זײַנע דערצײלונגען פֿון יענער תּקופֿה מאָלט באַשעװיס אַ ברײטן לײַװנט פֿון ייִדישע צרות אין דער נײַ־אױפֿגעקומענער פּױלישער רעפּובליק. כּמעט אַלע העלדן זײַנע זײַנען יורדים, װאָס שלאָגן זיך מיט די ביטערע עקאָנאָמישע באַדינגונגען און פֿאַלן נאָך טיפֿער אין יסורים און נױט.
גימפּל בעדנער, דער העלד פֿון „אױף דער עלטער“, איז אַ מאָל געװען אַ װאַסערטרעגער, אָבער איצט האָט ער מער ניט קײן כּוח פֿאַר אַזאַ אַרבעט. די אײנציקע שטיצע זײַנע קומט פֿון זײַנע טעכטער, װאָס האַלטן אַ שאַנדהױז. קײן סך אָרט איז דאָרט ניטאָ, מוז ער נעבעך ליגן אין דעם אײגענעם בעט, װוּ זײַן טאָכטער „באַדינט אירע געסט“.
דוד סװירסקי, דער העלד אין „צוריקװעגס“, קערט זיך אום קײן פּױלן פֿון ארץ־ישׂראל. אַן אַמאָליקער ציוניסט, איז ער אַנטױשט געװאָרן אינעם ציוניסטישן חלום און מיד פֿון זוכן „עבֿודה“ בײַ די חלוצישע ייִשובֿים. אָבער קײן מזל אין דער אַלטער הײם האָט ער ניט. זײַן פֿאָטער שיקט אים אַװעק, און מיר געזעגענען זיך מיט אים װען ער לאָזט זיך זוכן גליקן בײַ זײַן מאַמעס משפּחה אין אַ פֿאַרװאָרפֿענעם שטעטל.
באַשעװיס מאָלט אַ רײַכע פּאַנאָראַמע פֿון ייִדישן פּױלן נאָך דער ערשטער װעלט־מלחמה. אים זײַנען גוט באַקאַנט סײַ די אָרעמע ייִדישע גאַסן פֿון װאַרשע סײַ די װײַטע פֿאַרװאָרלאָזטע שטעטלעך. ער לאָזט דעם לײענער ממש שמעקן דעם ריח פֿונעם ביטערן דלות און ייִאוש. עס איז ניטאָ קײן נס װאָס קען ראַטעװען זײַנע העלדן פֿונעם ביטערן גורל.
די אַלטע סטאַבילע װעלט אונטער דער שליטה פֿון די מעכטיקע אימפּעריעס, דער רוסישער און דער עסטרײַך־אונגאַרישער, ליגט אין חורבֿות. די נײַע פּױלישע מלוכה איז שװאַך און אָרעם און זאָגט ניט צו קײן צוקונפֿט פֿאַר ייִדן.
אין די װערק פֿונעם װאַרשעװער פּעריאָד פֿון 1925 ביז 1935 דערקענט מען בפֿירוש די השפּעה פֿון י. ל. פּרץ, סײַ אין די פּרטימדיקע, נאַטוראַליסטישע שילדערונגען פֿון די שטעטלעך און סײַ אין די פֿיגורן פֿון כּלערלײ מערקװירדיקע פּערסאָנאַזשן: מקובלים, משׂכּילים, חסידים, ציוניסטן, אַפּיקורסים און סתּם ייִדן פֿון אַ גאַנץ יאָר.
דאָס זאַמלבוך נעמט אויך אַרײַן אינטערװיוען מיט ייִדישע מחברים, װאָס באַשעװיס האָט געמאַכט פֿאַר דער װאַרשעװער צײַטונג „ליטעראַרישע בלעטער“.
הלל צײטלין באַגריסט באַשעװיסן אין זײַן דירה, װוּ ער לערנט חסידות מיט זײַנע תּלמידים. ער האַלט, אַז מחוץ פּרץ, אַנ־סקי און דער נסתּר האָט די ייִדישע ליטעראַטור ניט קײן אמתע דערגרײכונגען. צײטלין באַדױערט, אַז ער מוז ציִען פּרנסה פֿון דער ליטעראַרישער אַרבעט און באַקלאָגט זיך, אַז ער קען קױם קריגן אַ פּאָר גראָשן פֿאַר זײַנע װערק. אָבער פֿאַר לערנען נעמט ער ניט קײן געלט.
מלך ראַװיטש זעט אױס מער װי אַ דײַטש אײדער אַ ייִד, שרײַבט באַשעװיס. אַנשטאָט צו באַגריסן באַשעוויסן מיט אַ „שלום־עליכם“ װײַזט ראַװיטש אױפֿן זײגער, װײַל באַשעװיס איז אַ פּאָר מינוט שפּעט. נאָך אײדער באַשעװיס שטעלט אַ פֿראַגע, הײבט ראַװיטש אָן צו דערצײלן װעגן זײַן ליטעראַרישן װעג. ער גיט באַשעװיסן אַ גאַנצע דרשה װעגן זײַן „אידעאַליסטישן“ צוגאַנג צו ליטעראַטור: די אידײ איז דער עיקר, זי איז די „נשמה“ פֿון אַ קונסטװערק. פֿאַר ראַװיטשן זײַנען די װיכטיקסטע ייִדישע דיכטער פּרץ מאַרקיש און ה. לײװיק.
דער סאַמע לעבעדיקסטער שמועס האָט באַשעװיס מיט פּרץ מאַרקיש. ער כאַפּט מאַרקישן ממש אַ פּאָר שעה פֿאַר זײַן צוריקפֿאָרן קײן סאָװעטן־פֿאַרבאַנד אין יולי 1926. מאַרקיש איז אױפֿגערעגט, מסתּמא ווײַל ער מוז צוריקפֿאָרן, און „שרײַט“ זײַנע ענטפֿערס צו באַשעװיסעס פֿראַגעס.
ליטעראַטור איז פֿאַר מאַרקישן די „לעבעדיקע אָרגאַנישע ענערגיע“ װאָס פֿליסט פֿונעם יחיד צו דעם כּלל און צוריק. ליטעראַטור האָט ניט קײן צװעק, זי איז אַן אײביקער פּראָצעס פֿון װערן.
מאַרקיש טענהט, אַז די רעװאָלוציעס, מלחמות און פּאָגראָמען צװינגען מענטשן צו קערן זײערע פּנימער צו דעם רעאַלן לעבן. און איצט, האַלט ער, קומט די ייִדישע ליטעראַטור נענטער צו אָט דער נאַקעטער װירקלעכקײט.
עטלעכע חדשים נאָך מאַרקישעס אָפּפֿאָרן קײן סאָװעטן־פֿאַרבאַנד האָט זיך ישׂראל יהושע זינגער, באַשעװיסעס עלטערער ברודער, אומגעקערט קיין אַמעריקע פֿון אַ צװײ־חדשימדיקער רײַזע איבער „נײַ־רוסלאַנד“.
לױט זײַן אײַנדרוק, האָט די סאָװעטישע קונסט אָנגעװױרן דעם גײַסט פֿונעם ראַדיקאַלן אַװאַנגאַרד און האָט זיך אומגעקערט צום טראַדיציאָנעלן רעאַליזם. די דאָזיקע טענדענץ איז זינגערן געװען צום האַרצן װײַל ער איז אַלײן געװען אַן אָנהענגער פֿונעם רעאַליסטישן סטיל.
צום באַדױערן האָט דער איבערזעצער דאָ געמאַכט אַ פּאָר גרײַזן אין די נעמען פֿון סאָװעטישע שרײַבער: דער מחבר פֿון „גאַלאָפּ“ הײסט עזרא פֿינינבערג און ניט Feinberg, און איציק קיפּניס איז ניט קײן E. Kipnis. דערצו איז דער ענגלישער אױסלײג פֿון ייִדישע נעמען ניט אױסגעהאַלטן: איזי כאַריקס נאָמען שרײַבט מען סײַ Kharik סײַ Charik.
באַשעװיס האָט פֿאָרמולירט זײַן אײגענעם עסטעטישן אַני־מאמין אינעם עסײ „צו דער פֿראַגע װעגן דיכטונג און פּאָליטיק“, װאָס איז אַרױס אינעם קלײנעם ליטעראַרישן זשורנאַל „גלאָבוס“ אין 1932.
דאָס איז אַ װיכטיקער דאָקומענט אין דער געשיכטע פֿון דער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור, און עס קומט אַ ייִשר־כּוח די רעדאַקטאָרן און דער איבערזעצערין װעראַ סאַבאָ פֿאַר מאַכן דעם דאָזיקן מקור צוטריטלעך אױף ענגליש.
„דער גײַסט פֿון פּאָליטיק האָט אפֿשר נאָך קײן מאָל נישט אַזױ אַרומגעכאַפּט דעם מענטש װי הײַנט. […] די מלחמה צװישן װעלט־פּראָלעטאַריאַט און דעם פֿאַשיזם דערנענטערט זיך. אידעיִש איז די אַרמײ פֿון דער צוקונפֿטיקער װעלטשלאַכט שױן מאָביליזירט.“ אַזױ שטעלט באַשעװיס זײַן דיאַגנאָז דער תּקופֿה, װאָס װעט זיך ענדיקן מיטן חורבן.
באַשעװיס שרײַבט מיט לײַדנשאַפֿט און קלאָרקײט. ער איז אַ שאַרפֿער קריטיקער פֿון ראַדיקאַלע פּאָליטיקער, סײַ די רעכטע פֿאַשיסטן סײַ די לינקע קאָמוניסטן. סײַ די, סײַ יענע „צײלן שױן זײערע סטאַדעס און מ׳באַשטימט יעדן זײַן אָנטײל אין דעם צוקונפֿטיקן בלוטבאָד.“ די פּאָליטיקער פֿאָדערן, אַז אַ שרײַבער זאָל ענטפֿערן אױף דער פֿראַגע: „מיט װעמען גײסטו? פֿאַר װעמען ביסטו?“
אָבער דער קינסטלער, האַלט באַשעװיס, איז בטבֿע אַנדערש פֿון דעם פּאָליטיקער. דאָס איז „דער מענטשן, פֿאַר װעלכן די פֿלײש־אַריטמעטיק פֿון פּאָליטיקער איז פֿרעמד און עקלדיק“.
אַלע עכטע קינסטלער האָבן „אײן בשותּפֿותדיקע אײגנשאַפֿט: זײ האָבן אָפֿענע אױגן צו זען, װי אומגליקלעך דער מענטש איז. דערין באַשטײט זײער טאַלאַנט.“
ער איז געװען בטבֿע אַ פּעסימיסט, װאָס האָט ניט געגלױבט אין גליקלעכע חלומות. די סאַמע געלונגענע פּערסאָנאַזשן זײַנע האָבן ניט קײן מזל אין לעבן, סײַ אין פּױלן פֿאַרן חורבן און סײַ שפּעטער אין אַמעריקע. זײַנע ווערטער אין אָט דעם אַרטיקל דינען טאַקע ווי אַ שליסל צו באַשעװיסעס קינסטלערישן װעלטבאַנעם.
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Democratic senators seek to remove US-Israel defense cooperation from spending bill
(JTA) — A group of 12 senators who are Democratic or caucus with the Democrats are lobbying against expanded defense cooperation between the United States and Israel, saying the Netanyahu government’s policies, particularly in Gaza and the West Bank, run counter to U.S. interests.
In a letter to congressional leadership and ranking committee members led by Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the lawmakers argued that the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, as currently written, would “further entrench concerning aspects of the U.S.-Israel defense and intelligence relationship at a time when the Israeli government’s actions are increasingly undermining U.S. interests and values.”
A section of the defense bill would require the secretary of defense to designate an “executive agent responsible for synchronizing cooperative efforts between the United States and Israel, including bilateral defense technology research, development, testing, evaluation, integration, and industrial cooperation.”
Such provisions “would constrain the Administration’s ability” to act independently and “threaten U.S. national security interests by handing Israel leverage over American weapons systems and military technology,” the democratic lawmakers warned, adding that the bill would also “create long-term dependencies by embedding Israeli technology into the U.S. defense industrial base that could make future policy changes costly or difficult to implement.”
The letter — which was signed by Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, among others — is the initiative of Van Hollen, who has emerged as one of Israel’s fiercest critics in Congress and recently called to “end the American taxpayer blank check to the government of Israel.”
His name has also been mentioned as a possible challenger to Schumer as Senate Majority Leader when the new Congress starts in early January.
The letter comes just over a week after President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would halt billions of dollars in annual aid to Israel by the end of 2026, potentially ending decades of military funding for one of America’s closest allies in the Middle East.
The annual $3.8 billion sum is mostly spent in the U.S. to purchase weapon components or weapons systems manufactured in U.S. factories. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee noted the spending has created jobs in the United States. A memorandum of understanding between the two countries calls for that level of aid to continue through 2028.
However, some U.S. critics have dismissed Trump’s statement as a dodge, noting that while there is growing support for cutting defense aid to Israel, there has also been a push among some lawmakers to more tightly integrate the two countries’ defense establishments.
To do this “would be unwise, especially as the Government of Israel continues to pursue policies in Gaza, the West Bank and other parts of the region that are inconsistent with U.S. interests and values,” the Democratic senators warned on Tuesday, arguing that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “openly stated that such an initiative was his idea.”
“The intention behind this is clear: to move U.S. security assistance governed through more traditional pathways, like Foreign Military Financing and arm sales, to more opaque, less discernible avenues through defense acquisitions and programs of record that reduce transparency, as well as increase Israel’s leverage over the United States and our dependency on Israeli technology,” according to the letter..
J Street, the liberal Jewish Middle East advocacy group, thanked Van Hollen for his letter in a post on X, writing that there should be “no deepening of our military relationship with Israel unless they comply with the Gaza peace agreement, end settler violence and reverse their de facto annexation of the West Bank.”
J Street earlier this week declared that the U.S. “needs a fundamental reset of its approach to the Middle East,” which would end offensive arms sales “until it is confirmed that Israel is no longer violating U.S. laws and values.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Non-Jews who follow Jewish law gather in Israel for first international Noahide congress
(JTA) — Gilbert Meñoza spent decades as a Christian pastor in the Philippines before his study of the Hebrew Bible led him to reject the New Testament and embrace the Noahide faith.
Meñoza said most of his followers had embraced his rejection of Christianity, although a small contingent deserted him after he began declaring that the New Testament was false and that “we no longer believe that Yeshua was the Messiah,” he said, using the Hebrew name for Jesus.
Last week, he joined dozens of fellow Noahides from around the world in Israel, part of a movement of non-Jews who follow Jewish religious teachings without converting to Judaism.
The gathering, billed as the First International Congress of Noahides, was organized by Brit Olam, or Noahide World Center, a Jerusalem-based organization that claims thousands of followers in more than 70 countries. Many study online or belong to small local communities, often with limited contact with other Noahides.
The five-day visit by more than 60 delegates from 22 countries included tours of biblical sites in the West Bank, a meeting with President Isaac Herzog and, in a nod to Theodor Herzl’s First Zionist Congress, the signing of a founding scroll of their own.
Unlike converts to Judaism, Noahides retain their non-Jewish identities while accepting the Hebrew Bible as a source of religious and moral guidance. Also known as B’nai Noah, the name Noahide is derived from the biblical account of God’s covenant with Noah following the flood. In Jewish tradition, that covenant established seven universal obligations, including the creation of a justice system and bans on murder, theft, idolatry, blasphemy, sexual immorality and consuming flesh taken from a living animal.
Many, like Meñoza, come from Christian backgrounds, although others have arrived at their beliefs through independent religious study.
Meñoza began studying with rabbis online several years ago, eventually completing a three-year religious leadership course alongside more than 20 members of his community. He now reaches a wider audience through radio and television broadcasts.
The congress sought to bring those communities together under a formal global structure. At a ceremony attended by Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, delegates signed a Scroll of the Noahide Covenant, a Hebrew declaration of their commitment to the people of Israel and the Torah. Organizers also established an international court of rabbis from Brit Olam offering religious guidance to Noahide communities worldwide, and said in a statement that the congress “carries the blessings of Israel’s chief rabbis.”
For centuries, the Seven Laws of Noah remained largely a matter of Jewish religious teaching rather than an organized effort to reach non-Jews. But Rabbi Oury Cherki, president of Brit Olam, believes Israel’s establishment spurred the delivery of those teachings to a wider international audience. Cherki hopes the Jerusalem congress will do for Noahides what Herzl’s 1897 gathering in Basel did for Zionism: transform a shared set of beliefs and aspirations into an organized international movement.
“Zionism achieved the material liberation of the Jewish people,” Cherki said, arguing that the next frontier must include building “a healthy connection with the outside world.”
Steven Lee Rachel, from Montreal, said he didn’t come from a “hardcore” Christian background and that his family and friends have been overwhelmingly supportive of his decision to become a Noahide.
“Becoming a Noahide has changed my everyday life for the better in almost every way, in terms of my spiritual life, my personal life, career as well, in terms of how I’ve been able to use that identity to build relationships in different industries,” he said.
Three years ago, Rachel married fellow Noahide Camila Henriquez in a ceremony in Montreal co-officiated by Rabbi Yisroel Bernath, director of the local Chabad, and Aleeza Ben Shalom, the matchmaker featured in Netflix’s Jewish Matchmaking.
Ben Shalom said she formed a “beautiful connection” with the bride after meeting her. Co-officiating the ceremony fulfilled a longstanding ambition she had been unable to pursue at Orthodox Jewish weddings, which are officiated by male rabbis.
“It was a dream come true,” she said.
The couple exchanged vows beneath a chuppah, or wedding canopy, pledging to build their home according to the Seven Laws of Noah. They also signed a marriage contract and broke a glass. Ben Shalom said the overwhelming majority of guests were not Jewish.
“It was truly a kiddush Hashem,” she said, using the Hebrew term for sanctifying God’s name.
Bernath described the ceremony as highly unusual, saying he was unaware of any precedent for a rabbi officiating at a Noahide wedding.
Eliezer Vicente Yarid, a Cuban who now lives in the United States, spent years helping others reconnect with their Jewish ancestry in a country where religious life had long been restricted, but ultimately chose not to convert to Judaism himself.
Yarid said he was 11 when his grandfather first told him their family descended from Bnei Anusim, Jews who had been forced to convert to Christianity during the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions.
“I didn’t understand what he was saying to me,” he said.
But by his mid-teens, his family had begun observing Jewish religious practices at home. In 2000, he and his parents established a Bnei Anusim community to help others reconnect with their Jewish heritage. Yarid initially sought to convert himself and later helped arrange visits by a rabbinical court to Cuba, where some community members underwent conversion.
But when an opportunity to convert arose after his move to the U.S., Yarid decided against it, saying he felt it was unfair to push his family into it.
He now follows the Seven Laws of Noah with his wife and son, while continuing to maintain ties with communities in Cuba, where he said he had also taught Noahide principles to people who had not converted.
The congress offered delegates practical guidance on building Noahide communities and strengthening their ties with Israeli rabbis.
“Israel is the focus of the world’s attention, for better or worse,” Rabbi Chaim Goldberg, chief executive of Brit Olam, said in a statement. “Noahides see the children of Israel, the people of the Bible, coming back to life in the modern age.”
Meñoza hopes to establish permanent institutions and overcome challenges facing Noahides back home in the Philippines. His community, for example, is raising money to purchase land for a cemetery because local burial procedures, he said, have made it difficult to avoid embalming, which conflicts with Torah practices.
“We want the Noahide community in every city where we work to have its own land, its own building, and its own fellowship center, with a beit midrash where they can learn together,” he said, using the Hebrew term for a religious study hall.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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