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Boston’s groundbreaking community mikveh is closed after burst pipe causes damage
(JTA) — Mayyim Hayyim, a pluralistic community mikveh, or ritual bath, in Boston, is putting a pause on ritual immersions and classes after multiple pipes burst in the building’s laundry room, causing severe water damage.
The damage occurred after temperatures in the area dipped to -11 degrees, with a wind chill between -30 and -40 on Feb. 3 and 4. Water from the pipes damaged the wood floors and furniture of the Victorian home that houses the mikveh, and part of a ceiling collapsed. Carrie Bornstein, CEO of Mayyim Hayyim, said in a video that the mikveh had taken precautions before the cold snap but was unable to prevent the damage.
The mikveh was on a waiting list for flood and mold remediation services, Bornstein said in the video, which was taken several days after the damage. She announced in a statement that the building remains closed while Mayyim Hayyim assesses the damage and makes repairs.
No reopening date has been set, and the earliest date people can schedule immersions on the mikveh’s website is Feb. 26.
“For an institution that exists to celebrate the transformative power of water, the impact is devastating,” Bornstein said. “In consultation with our insurance company, we are working hard to determine when we might reopen and will share news of our progress with you.”
Mayyim Hayyim opened in 2004 with the goal of reinventing ritual immersion, which Jewish law traditionally requires of married women, for contemporary spiritual life. The mikveh also aims to make ritual immersion accessible for a greater range of Jews and those seeking to convert.
Mayyim Hayyim houses two immersion pools, an education center and an art gallery that offers programming and events for adults and children. In 2019, Mayyim Hayyim celebrated its 20,000th immersion.
For Boston-area Jews who immerse ritually on a monthly basis, in keeping with Jewish tradition, the closure could be a significant interruption. Bornstein added in the statement that the organization’s “Mikvah Guides” have been in touch with people who had planned to use the mikveh, and were composing alternative rituals.
For now, the mikveh’s staff is working out of the Temple Reyim, the Conservative synagogue whose campus houses the mikveh as well as several other Boston Jewish institutions.
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The post Boston’s groundbreaking community mikveh is closed after burst pipe causes damage appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel’s Netanyahu Hopes to ‘Taper’ Israel Off US Military Aid in Next Decade
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published on Friday that he hopes to “taper off” Israeli dependence on US military aid in the next decade.
Netanyahu has said Israel should not be reliant on foreign military aid but has stopped short of declaring a firm timeline for when Israel would be fully independent from Washington.
“I want to taper off the military within the next 10 years,” Netanyahu told The Economist. Asked if that meant a tapering “down to zero,” he said: “Yes.”
Netanyahu said he told President Donald Trump during a recent visit that Israel “very deeply” appreciates “the military aid that America has given us over the years, but here too we’ve come of age and we’ve developed incredible capacities.”
In December, Netanyahu said Israel would spend 350 billion shekels ($110 billion) on developing an independent arms industry to reduce dependency on other countries.
In 2016, the US and Israeli governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the 10 years through September 2028 that provides $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defense systems.
Israeli defense exports rose 13 percent last year, with major contracts signed for Israeli defense technology including its advanced multi-layered aerial defense systems.
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Israel supporter and close ally of Trump, said on X that “we need not wait ten years” to begin scaling back military aid to Israel.
“The billions in taxpayer dollars that would be saved by expediting the termination of military aid to Israel will and should be plowed back into the US military,” Graham said. “I will be presenting a proposal to Israel and the Trump administration to dramatically expedite the timetable.”
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In Rare Messages from Iran, Protesters ask West for Help, Speak of ‘Very High’ Death Toll
Protests in Tehran. Photo: Iran Photo from social media used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law, via i24 News
i24 News – Speaking to Western media from beyond the nationwide internet blackout imposed by the Islamic regime, Iranian protesters said they needed support amid a brutal crackdown.
“We’re standing up for a revolution, but we need help. Snipers have been stationed behind the Tajrish Arg area [a neighborhood in Tehran],” said a protester in Tehran speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. He added that “We saw hundreds of bodies.”
Another activist in Tehran spoke of witnessing security forces firing live ammunition at protesters resulting in a “very high” number killed.
On Friday, TIME magazine cited a Tehran doctor speaking on condition of anonymity that just six hospitals in the capital recorded at least 217 killed protesters, “most by live ammunition.”
Speaking to Reuters on Saturday, Setare Ghorbani, a French-Iranian national living in the suburbs of Paris, said that she became ill from worry for her friends inside Iran. She read out one of her friends’ last messages before losing contact: “I saw two government agents and they grabbed people, they fought so much, and I don’t know if they died or not.”
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Report: US Increasingly Regards Iran Protests as Having Potential to Overthrow Regime
United States President Donald J Trump in White House in Washington, DC, USA, on Thursday, December 18, 2025. Photo: Aaron Schwartz via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – The assessment in Washington of the strength and scope of the Iran protests has shifted after Thursday’s turnout, with US officials now inclined to grant the possibility that this could be a game changer, Axios reported on Friday.
“The protests are serious, and we will continue to monitor them,” an unnamed senior US official was quoted as saying in the report.
Iran was largely cut off from the outside world on Friday after the Islamic regime blacked out the internet to curb growing unrest, as videos circulating on social media showed buildings ablaze in anti-government protests raging across the country.
US President Donald Trump warned the Ayatollahs of a strong response if security forces escalate violence against protesters.
“We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” Trump told reporters when asked about the unrest in Iran.
The latest reported death toll is at 51 protesters, including nine children.