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Beatrice Weber, 48, Yaffed executive director
Beatrice Weber, 48, is the executive director of Yaffed, whose mission is to improve the quality of secular education in New York’s Hasidic and haredi yeshivas. A speaker, activist and writer raised in the haredi Orthodox community in Toronto, and a board member of Right to Parent, she is the first person to successfully sue a New York City school for its failure to provide a secular education in accordance with state education law. Weber lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
For the full list of this year’s 36 to Watch — which honors leaders, entrepreneurs and changemakers who are making a difference in New York’s Jewish community — click here.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Ordained as an Interspiritual Minister, I inspire others to tell their stories and become change makers in their own lives and beyond.
Growing up, everything was decided for me. At the age of 18, I was married off to a rabbi in my ultra-Orthodox community. I had never even finished high school. For years, I tried to be the perfect submissive wife. I dressed modestly, even shaving all the hair from my head. I cared for our children and household. For over two decades, I was stuck, living imprisoned in my own life. When I finally left my marriage with my four youngest children, I faced severe opposition from my family and the community. While leaving to a new city and life was a huge victory for me, it also felt like the start of a battle. I had to fight for custody of my youngest children. I had to fight for the very permission to live my own life.
Deprived of a well-rounded education and knowledge of the world as a Hasidic child, I have devoted my life to telling the truth about the institutionalized education deprivation taking place in many Hasidic and haredi communities and advocating for change. Recently, I have been encouraged by invitations to address Jewish communities and put together storytelling events and know that the only way we will effect lasting change is to unite on the issue of education which is core to Jews throughout the world and over the course of our history. I also know that change comes from within and I will continue being a “secret sister” to the ultra-Orthodox men and women who contact me under the cover of anonymity, seeking support in their own life journey to self-actualization.
Who is your New York Jewish hero?
Ruth Messinger, global ambassador of American Jewish World Service and former Manhattan Borough President
What’s a fun/surprising fact about you?
I have 10 kids.
How does your Jewish identity or experience influence your work?
My personal biography is the catalyst for the work I do. I believe in the Jewish ethic of “Justice, justice shall you pursue.” It is unjust to deprive a child of their legal right to an education and to a future bright with possibilities.
Was there a formative Jewish experience that influenced your life path?
Being the grandchild of Holocaust survivors.
Do you have a favorite inspiring quote?
From Ethics of the Fathers (Pirkei Avot): “It is not up to you to finish the task; neither are you exempt from taking part.” (2:21)
What is your favorite place to eat Jewish food in New York?
My kitchen!
What is your favorite book about New York?
“All of a Kind Family,” by Sydney Taylor
What are three spots in NYC that all Jewish New Yorkers should visit?
The Tenement Museum. Hasidic Williamsburg. A guided tour of Union Square, where Jewish progressives have protested and agitated for change for more than a century.
Anything else you’d like us and our readers to know about you?
I am writing a memoir.
How can people follow you online?
Beatriceweber.com, Facebook, Twitter
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The post Beatrice Weber, 48, Yaffed executive director appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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The one Jewish value everyone should hold dear in the age of AI
As friends, relatives and even colleagues dive headlong into our AI future, I’ve been stuck nervously on the platform’s edge. I’m not a skeptic of technology by nature, but by experience. I’ve watched too many shiny new toys come along, promising to make society smarter or better connected, only to become superspreaders of confusion, alienation and disenfranchisement.
So when you tell me a machine can summarize any book, draw any picture or write any email, my first thought is going to be, What could possibly go wrong?
This, too, was the reaction of the Haredi rabbis who declared a communal fast over AI last month.
“If at the push of a button, I can get a hold of a d’var torah for my Shabbos meal from AI, to us, that’s a problem,” a Haredi leader told me at the time. “No, no — I want you to open the book and read it and come up with a question and come up with an answer. That’s part of what’s holy about learning Torah. It’s not just end result. It’s the process.”
Curious about their logic, I spent some time tracking down Lakewood’s gedolim to learn more. This was no straightforward task — I found it easier to get a hold of their wives than the great rabbis themselves. Even at dinner hour, these titans of Torah study were still in the beit midrash. But eventually I got through to three — thanks to my cousin Jeffrey, who knew a rav who knew a rav — and that was fortunate, because I came away with the Jewish skeleton key to our brave new world.
That key is the Jewish value of עֲמֵילוּת (ameilut), or toil. As far as Jewish values go, ameilut is an obscure one. It lacks the celebrity swagger of its better-known peers like chesed and tzedakah or the political power of tikkun olam. It was never associated with a biblical matriarch or carved into a golem’s forehead. Yet I believe it is just as crucial. Yes, toiling is a mitzvah. And in the age of AI, ameilut can be a human road map.
The word’s root appears a couple dozen times in the Hebrew Bible — unsurprisingly, it’s a recurring theme in Job — but its salience comes not from the Torah but from commentary on Leviticus 26:3, which establishes ameilut as a sacred endeavor. When God implores Israel to “walk with” the commandments, Rashi, an 11th century rabbi whose commentaries are considered authoritative, reinterpreted this to mean that God wants Jews to be ameilim b’torah — toiling in Torah study. He is reinterpreting God’s command that we walk and move forward to also mean that we should take time to stand still, turn over (and over) the same words to find new meaning and view getting stuck as a sign of progress.
For Haredim — who pronounce it ameilus — the notion that struggle can be its own reward underpins a life spent poring over sefarim in the beit midrash (and missing phone calls from the Jewish press). It follows that ChatGPT, which transforms knowledge from something developed to something consumed, is anathema to their approach. They’ve realized that making learning easy has actually made learning hard.
To be sure, the goals of the Haredi world are not exactly the same as mine. Those communities are famously insular, wary of the internet and especially cognizant of secular society’s pernicious influence. I’m basically the opposite: I love to mix it up (including with Haredi Jews) and am extremely online. A little narishkeit is good for the soul, as far as I can tell.
But I’ve found that ameilut-maxxing translates pretty well to non-religious life, too. It’s an imperative to embrace the challenge. As a notoriously limited chef, I’m now toiling in cookbooks; as a writer, I can cherish the blank page. Reframing the hard part as the good part, then, is a reminder that the toil is actually our divine right. Because ameilut is something AI can’t experience, replicate or understand. It is the very essence of what it means to be alive.
The post The one Jewish value everyone should hold dear in the age of AI appeared first on The Forward.
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Mistrial Declared in Case of Students Charged After Stanford Anti-Israel Protests
FILE PHOTO: A student attends an event at a protest encampment in support of Palestinians at Stanford University during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Stanford, California U.S., April 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
A judge declared a mistrial on Friday in a case of five current and former Stanford University students related to the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests when demonstrators barricaded themselves inside the school president’s office.
Twelve protesters were initially charged last year with felony vandalism, according to prosecutors who said at least one suspect entered the building by breaking a window. Police arrested 13 people on June 5, 2024, in relation to the incident and the university said the building underwent “extensive” damage.
The case was tried in Santa Clara County Superior Court against five defendants charged with felony vandalism and felony conspiracy to trespass. The rest previously accepted plea deals or diversion programs.
The jury was deadlocked. It voted nine to three to convict on the felony charge of vandalism and eight to four to convict on the felony charge to trespass. Jurors failed to reach a verdict after deliberations.
The charges were among the most serious against participants in the 2024 pro-Palestinian protest movement on US colleges in which demonstrators demanded an end to Israel’s war in Gaza and Washington’s support for its ally along with a divestment of funds by their universities from companies supporting Israel.
Prosecutors in the case said the defendants engaged in unlawful property destruction.
“This case is about a group of people who destroyed someone else’s property and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. That is against the law,” Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement, adding he sought a new trial.
Anthony Brass, a lawyer for one of the protesters, told the New York Times his side was not defending lawlessness but “the concept of transparency and ethical investment.”
“This is a win for these young people of conscience and a win for free speech,” Brass said, adding “humanitarian activism has no place in a criminal courtroom.”
Protesters had renamed the building “Dr. Adnan’s Office” after Adnan Al-Bursh, a Palestinian doctor who died in an Israeli prison after months of detention.
Over 3,000 were arrested during the 2024 US pro-Palestinian protest movement, according to media tallies. Some students faced suspension, expulsion and degree revocation.
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Exclusive: FM Gideon Sa’ar to Represent Israel at 1st Board of Peace Meeting in Washington on Thursday
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar speaks next to High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas, and EU commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Suica as they hold a press conference on the day of an EU-Israel Association Council with European Union foreign ministers in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
i24 News – Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar will represent the country at the inaugural meeting of the Gaza Board of Peace in Washington on Thursday, i24NEWS learned on Saturday.
The arrangement was agreed upon following a request from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will not be able to attend.
Netanyahu pushed his Washington visit forward by a week, meeting with US President Donald Trump this week to discuss the Iran situation.
A U.N. Security Council resolution, adopted in mid-November, authorized the Board of Peace and countries working with it to establish an international stabilization force in Gaza and build on the ceasefire agreed in October under a Trump plan.
Under Trump’s Gaza plan, the board was meant to supervise Gaza’s temporary governance. Trump thereafter said the board, with him as chair, would be expanded to tackle global conflicts.