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Jewish Federations launch Rosh Hashanah letter-writing campaign to Evan Gershkovich
(JTA) — Since he was arrested by Russian authorities in March, one of Evan Gershkovich’s few connections to the outside world has been a stream of letters from his friends and family.
But soon, his circle of correspondents is due to expand. In the days surrounding Rosh Hashanah, people from around the world will be sending Gershkovich letters, all wishing him a happy new year.
Gershkovich, 31, a Wall Street Journal reporter and son of Jewish refugees from the Soviet Union, has been detained since March on charges of espionage that he, the Journal and the United States government vehemently deny. He has yet to stand trial.
In the months since his arrest, Jews have repeatedly employed religious rituals to call for his freedom. Now, ahead of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year that begins on the evening of Friday, Sept. 15, the Jewish Federations of North America has launched a letter-writing campaign to send Gershkovich cards wishing him a “Shana tova,” or happy new year.
“We are deeply concerned for Evan’s well-being,” Eric Fingerhut, the group’s CEO, said in a statement. “As Jews around the world will be gathering with loved ones during Rosh Hashanah, one of the most important acts we can do as a collective community is to let him know that we are thinking of him and standing with him in solidarity.”
A Jewish Federations spokesperson said that the group expects a “substantial” number of letters to come in. But to reach Gershkovich, the spokesperson said, Russian policy dictates that all letters must first be translated into Russian and vetted. To abbreviate that process, Federations staff will collate excerpts from the letters into one “collective” letter that reflects the themes of the greeting cards, and notes the number of people who sent them, while condensing their total length.
The “collective” letter will be sent to Gershkovich via his lawyers. The full texts of the letters themselves will be sent to Gershkovich’s parents, who live in New Jersey and are aware of the campaign. Letters can be submitted until Sept. 15.
Jewish ritual has figured prominently in previous calls for Gershkovich’s freedom. Shortly after his arrest in March, Shayndi Raice, a fellow reporter at the Journal who is based in Israel, called for Jews around the world to leave an empty space for Gershkovich at their seder tables. Her call, which was shared widely, echoed a 1960s campaign on behalf of Soviet Jewry.
“As you celebrate freedom, join us in demanding freedom for Evan,” Raice wrote on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter.
Gershkovich’s pretrial detainment has been extended multiple times since his arrest, and U.S. officials’ hopes for his release are focused on the possibility of a prisoner swap, which has encountered obstacles in recent weeks.
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The post Jewish Federations launch Rosh Hashanah letter-writing campaign to Evan Gershkovich appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iranian Missile Strikes Haifa Mosque, Injures Muslim Clerics While ‘Firing Indiscriminately at Civilians’
A man walks near broken windows at a mosque that was damaged following Iran’s missile strike on Israel, amid the Iran-Israel conflict, in Haifa, Israel, June 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Rami Shlush
A mosque in the Israeli city of Haifa was hit by a ballistic missile launched by Iran on Friday morning and Muslim clerics were among those injured in the attack.
Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa’ar said Iran’s barrage of missiles targeting Haifa struck the Al-Jarina Mosque in the Wadi Nisnas neighborhood and clerics inside the mosque sustained injuries. Haifa is a port city in the north that has a mixed Arab and Israeli population.
“The Iranian regime is targeting Muslim, Christian, and Jewish civilians, as well as civilian sites. These are war crimes,” said Sa’ar in a post on X. He also shared a video of the mosque that was hit in the missile attack.
The Iranian regime launched a missile attack on Haifa and struck the Al-Jarina Mosque in the Wadi Nisnas neighborhood. The missile attack injured Muslim clerics who were in the mosque.
The Iranian regime is targeting Muslim, Christian, and Jewish civilians, as well as civilian… pic.twitter.com/aG9JRfyLP7— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) June 20, 2025
Sa’ar later arrived at the scene of the strike and gave a statement to the press.
Photos shared on social media show the mosque’s broken windows and other damage to the religious site, all as a result of the Iranian strike.
Haifa mosque was indeed hit in the last ballistic missile attack. pic.twitter.com/m0AUN8IPrY
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) June 20, 2025
“The Iranian regime is firing indiscriminately at civilians — with zero regard for who they hit,” read a post on Israel’s official X account about the missile attack in Haifa.
Iran launched around 20 to 25 ballistic missiles at Israel on Friday and at least 19 people were wounded from the strikes in Haifa, local authorities said.
A spokesperson for Israel’s national emergency response service, Magen David Adom (MDA), said its teams treated and evacuated injuries civilians that include a roughly 40-year-old man in serious condition, a 16-year-old boy in serious condition with shrapnel in his upper body, and a 54-year-old man in moderate condition with shrapnel in his lower limbs.
Friday marks one week since the start of the Israel-Iran war, which began with the Jewish state launching pre-emptive strikes on Iranian nuclear and military targets in a campaign known as Operation Rising Lion. MDA said that since the war began on June 13, its paramedics and EMTs have treated at least 1,007 people, including 23 who have died.
The post Iranian Missile Strikes Haifa Mosque, Injures Muslim Clerics While ‘Firing Indiscriminately at Civilians’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Europe Foreign Ministers See ‘Perilous’ Moment, Urge Iran to Talk to US
European foreign ministers talk over lunch at the offices of the honorary Consul of the Federal Republic of Germany in Geneva, Switzerland June 20, 2025, before meeting with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to discuss Iran’s nuclear program. Photo: Fabrice Coffrini/Pool via REUTERS
European foreign ministers urged Iran on Friday to engage with the United States over its nuclear program after high-level talks in Geneva aimed at opening negotiations for a new nuclear deal ended with little sign of progress.
The talks between the foreign ministers of Germany, Britain, France, and the EU with their Iranian counterpart sought to test Tehran’s readiness to negotiate despite there being scant prospect of Israel ceasing its attacks soon, diplomats said.
“The Iranian Foreign Minister has expressed his willingness to continue discussions on the nuclear program and more broadly on all issues, and we expect Iran to commit to the discussion, including with the United States, to reach a negotiated settlement,” said French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot.
Britain’s foreign minister David Lammy said the European countries were eager to continue talks with Iran.
“This is a perilous moment, and it is hugely important that we don’t see regional escalation of this conflict,” he said.
Tehran, under mounting pressure to agree tough curbs on its nuclear program to prevent the potential development of an atomic weapon, has repeatedly said it will not talk to the Trump administration until Israeli attacks end.
European ministers spoke ahead of their Geneva meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio who signaled that Washington was open to direct talks even as it considers joining Israeli strikes intended to smash Tehran’s nuclear capacity, diplomatic sources said.
Washington did not confirm that, though broadcaster CNN quoted a US official saying President Donald Trump supported diplomacy by allies that could bring Iran closer to a deal.
The post Europe Foreign Ministers See ‘Perilous’ Moment, Urge Iran to Talk to US first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israeli Scientists Scramble to Save Work After Iranian Missile Hits Labs
A building at the campus of the Weizmann Institute of Science remains damaged following an Iranian missile strike on Sunday, in Rehovot, Israel, June 19, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura
Researchers at Israel’s prestigious Weizmann Institute of Science have been scrambling to save their experiments after an Iranian missile destroyed a building containing dozens of cutting-edge laboratories.
The missile struck the institute’s campus at Rehovot, on the southern periphery of Tel Aviv, in the early hours of Sunday, damaging multiple buildings and prompting researchers to clamber into the ruins to save samples even as fire raged.
No one was hurt as the campus was empty overnight, but one part of a building collapsed, while in the remaining part the walls were blown out, exposing a tangle of twisted metal, blasted debris and blackened cement.
“We did our best to save as much of the samples as we could from the labs, from the buildings, while we were fighting the fire,” physicist Roee Ozeri, Weizmann’s vice president for development and communications, told Reuters.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the devastated site on Friday and praised the researchers as well as the rescuers of the country’s emergency services, describing both groups as the “best of Israel.”
“This building behind me, next to me, says everything,” Netanyahu said, pointing to the massive pile of rubble.
“Iran is the pre-eminent terrorist regime in the world. It must not, cannot have nuclear weapons. That is the purpose of Israel’s actions – to save itself from the Iranian threat of annihilation, but by doing so, we are saving many, many others.”
Israel began attacking Iran on June 13, saying its longtime enemy was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. Iran, which says its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes, retaliated with missile and drone attacks on Israel.
Israel’s strikes have killed several prominent Iranian nuclear scientists, wiped out the top echelon of Iran’s military command, and damaged nuclear capabilities.
Iran has not said if or why it targeted the Weizmann Institute.
Last Thursday, the UN nuclear watchdog’s 35-nation Board of Governors declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in almost 20 years.
Iran’s attacks have killed 24 civilians in Israel and damaged hundreds of structures, including a hospital in the southern city of Beersheba.
While most of the institute’s research is in areas with potential benefits for medicine and scientific knowledge, it also has connections with defense. It announced in October 2024 a collaboration with Israel’s largest defense firm Elbit on “bio-inspired materials for defense applications.”
A multidisciplinary institution which carries out research in fields including genetics, immunology and astrophysics, Weizmann was founded in 1934 and is considered world-class within the international scientific community.
It is Israel’s most important science research institute, with 286 research groups, 191 staff scientists and hundreds of PhD students, master’s students and postdoctoral fellows.
‘EVERYTHING IS LOST’
The Iranian missile hit the work of researchers such as Eldad Tzahor, who focuses on regenerative medicine with particular relevance to adult heart diseases. He said many samples and tissues that had been part of long-running experiments had been destroyed.
“Everything is lost,” he told Reuters TV. “I would estimate that it will take us about a year to get into a full year of research and with everything working again.”
In financial terms, the damage is estimated at $300-$500 million, according to the institute, which operates costly, complex machines, often shared between several labs or research groups.
Jacob Hanna, who runs a molecular genetics team focused on embryonic stem cell biology, told the scientific journal Nature that his lab’s ceiling had collapsed and the staircase had detached.
His students managed to save hundreds of frozen mouse and human cell lines by transferring them to back-up liquid-nitrogen tanks that Hanna had stored in the basement, Nature reported.
“I was always worried that if a war actually happens, I don’t want to lose these,” he said.
The post Israeli Scientists Scramble to Save Work After Iranian Missile Hits Labs first appeared on Algemeiner.com.