RSS
Jewish Life Stories: A lone soldier, the voice of the Shangri-Las, two giants of American health care
This article is also available as a weekly newsletter, “Life Stories,” where we remember those who made an outsize impact in the Jewish world — or just left their community a better or more interesting place. Subscribe here to get “Life Stories” in your inbox every Tuesday.
Rebecca Baruch, 18, a Dutch immigrant who found a home in Israel
Rebecca Baruch was 18 when she moved from the Netherlands to Israel in 2017.
In 2021, in an article in the Christian Science Monitor about her experience as a “lone soldier,” she spoke about the loneliness of graduating from offficer training school during COVID-19, when her family couldn’t travel to Israel for the ceremony. She graduated on Nov. 5, 2020, and went on to lead an all-female field intelligence unit.
“I think women make good combat soldiers in general because we push to prove ourselves, our worth,” she explained. “Inside our unit, we don’t have to prove anything because we build each other up through our hard work and camaraderie.”
She also told the Monitor what she told the soldiers under her command, about “my perfectionism, that if I get angry it’s probably because I need to eat, and why I immigrated to Israel, pulled here as a European Jewish girl looking for a place I could feel fully at home.”
After the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, she rejoined her reserve unit. She served a few weeks and was allowed to leave the army to attend a Habonim youth group camp in South Africa as a counselor. There she contracted a bacterial infection and slipped into a coma. She died Sunday at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, Israel. She was 24.
“In line with Rebecca’s last wish her organs were donated to people that needed them,” her father, Robbert Baruch, wrote in a Facebook post. “Whilst today is one of the saddest days of our lives, the fact that our sister and daughter continues to help people after her death fills us with pride and gratitude.”
Mary Weiss, 75, the leader and the voice of the Shangri-Las
Mary Weiss, center, and The Shangri-Las on the cover of Cash Box magazine, Feb. 13, 1965. (Wikipedia)
Mary Weiss was barely a teenager when she formed the Shangri-Las with her sister Betty and two other Jewish teens from the Cambria Heights section of Queens, New York. The “girl group” had a breakout hit in 1964 with “Leader of the Pack,” a bombastic melodrama about a doomed, bad-boy romance. The group broke up in 1969 but left a legacy that inspired other female musicians, including the Jewish singer Amy Winehouse. “I love the drama, I love the atmosphere, I love the sound effects,” Winehouse said of the group. Weiss died Friday in Palm Springs, California. She was 75.
Norman Jewison, 97, the gentile director who brought “Fiddler” to the big screen
Director Norman Jewison, right, and star Topol as Tevye on the set of the film version of “Fiddler on the Roof.” (Zeitgeist Films in association with Kino Lorber)
Norman Jewison relayed a by-now familiar anecdote: When producers of the Broadway musical approached him for the directing job, he had to sheepishly inform them he wasn’t actually Jewish. He got the job anyway, and generations of Jewish families watching 1971’s “Fiddler” would come to associate that big title card displaying the “Jewison” name with the story of their shtetl-born ancestors. Bringing Anatevka to vivid, pulsating life was one of many career highlights for the Toronto native, who died Saturday at age 97. Jewison helmed several other iconic films in his long, distinguished career, including “Moonstruck,” “In The Heat of the Night,” “The Thomas Crown Affair” and “The Hurricane” — many of them involving pressing social matters like racism and other forms of bigotry.
Zevulun Charlop, 94, a transitonal leader of YU’s flagship seminary
Rabbi Zevulun Charlop served as dean of Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary at Yeshiva University from 1971-2008. (Yeshiva University)
Rabbi Zevulun Charlop, former dean of the rabbinical seminary at Yeshiva University, died Jan. 16. He was 94. When Charlop was named dean of Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary at Y.U. in 1971, it had 154 students. When he retired in 2008, it had 340. Charlop also saw a transition in American Orthodoxy, training American-born, college-educated rabbis to succeed the European-trained rabbis who had held pulpits and led yeshivas through much of the 20th century. Charlop was himself a pulpit rabbi, having been given a lifetime contract in 1966 by the Young Israel of Mosholu Parkway in the Bronx, New York, which closed in 2015. He once said that his ideal Y.U. would be “a yeshiva like Volozhin,” a legendary seminary in what is now Belarus, and a university like Columbia, the Ivy League university where he obtained a degree.
Claire Fagin, 97, a force in nursing and academia
From 1977 to 1992, Claire M. Fagin served as dean of the School of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania, which named the nursing education building in her honor in 2006. (Penn Nursing)
When Claire Fagin was growing up in New York in the 1930s, her parents — European Jewish immigrants — wanted her to be a physician, like one of her aunts. Fagin, inspired by her “collegial” nature and the snappy uniforms of the Army Nurse Corps, had other ideas. She earned a degree in nursing and went on to become perhaps the most influential nursing educator over the next 50 years. She successfully challenged policies limiting visiting hours to parents of hospitalized children, remade the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing as its dean starting in 1977, was the founding director of a national program on geriatric nursing and championed advanced training that earned nurses more professional respect. And along the way, she became the first woman to lead an Ivy League university when she was named Penn’s interim president in 1993. Fagin died Jan. 16 at her home in Manhattan. She was 97.
Gabriel Maza, 99, a rabbi who championed tough laws against hate
Rabbi Gabriel Maza, longtime rabbi of Long Island’s Suffolk Jewish Center, in a photo from the early 1960s. (Courtesy Devra Maza)
Gabriel Maza, who as the leader of the Suffolk Jewish Center in Deer Park, Long Island urged legislation to combat hate crimes and antisemitism, died Dec. 26, 2023. He was 99. The president of the Suffolk Board of Rabbis and later the Long Island Board of Rabbis in the 1980s, Maza lobbied the New York State Legislature about the need for tougher hate crime laws, and, among other successes, pushed for the creation of the Suffolk County Task Force on Anti-Semitism. “Open antisemitism is contagious among people in whom this old form of hate is dormant or hidden,” his daughter Devra Maza quoted him as saying. “As hate and prejudice travels across oceans and continents, all people of decency, and certainly those in positions of power, have a duty in sounding a civilized alarm, for criminal prejudice sickens every society which allows it to thrive.” Born in Minsk and raised on New York’s Lower East Side, Maza was one of seven children and four brothers who were ordained as rabbis, including the late comedian Jackie Mason.
Naomi Feil, 91, who brought empathy to the treatment of dementia
Naomi Feil was the the developer of the “validation method” for treating the eldderly with dementia. (Validation Training Institute)
Naomi Feil, a gerontologist and social worker who pioneered a method for “validating” the often angry or disoriented behavior of those with dementia, died Dec. 24 at her home in Jasper, Oregon. She was 91. In two books and thousands of workshops, she spread the gospel of “person-centered dementia care,” urging caregivers to affirm, rather than deny, the emotions of agitated people. “You don’t argue, you don’t lie,” she said in a TEDx talk in 2015. “You listen with empathy and you rephrase.” Born in Munich, Feil escaped with her Jewish family to the United States, where her father became the administrator of a Cleveland nursing home. “I grew up in a home, so I know how mean old people can be,” Feil said in 1993, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “The old lady isn’t really yelling at you; you remind her of someone from long ago. She’s trying to resolve some unfinished business from the past at this final stage in her life.”
—
The post Jewish Life Stories: A lone soldier, the voice of the Shangri-Las, two giants of American health care appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Antisemitism in Switzerland Has Surged to ‘Unprecedented Level,’ New Report Finds
A pro-Hamas demonstration in Zurich, Switzerland, Oct. 28, 2023. Photo: IMAGO/dieBildmanufaktur via Reuters Connect
Antisemitism in Switzerland continued to surge to an “unprecedented level” across the country last year, compared to the months leading up to the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to a new report published on Tuesday.
The Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG), in collaboration with the Foundation Against Racism and Antisemitism (GRA), released its annual report on antisemitism in German-, Italian-, and Romansh-speaking Switzerland last year.
To compile and evaluate all antisemitic incidents, the study used the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism as a reference.
According to the report, the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza prompted a historic surge in attacks on the Swiss Jewish community.
“The war in the Middle East continued to cause a high number of antisemitic incidents in 2024,” the report stated. “The associated wave of antisemitism gained momentum over the course of the reporting
year, reaching an unprecedented level compared to the period prior to Oct. 7, 2023.”
The 31-page report registered 221 “real-world,” or non-online, antisemitic incidents in 2024, marking a 43 percent increase compared to 2023 and a 287 percent rise compared to 2022, the year before the Hamas invasion of southern Israel in October 2023.
Of all the antisemitic incidents registered in 2024, 11 were physical attacks on Jews, including an attempted murder in Zurich and an attempted arson attack on a synagogue. In contrast, prior to the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel in 2023, hardly any such incidents had been reported.
One of the most notorious recent cases was the Zurich attempted murder, in which an Orthodox Jewish man was stabbed and left with life-threatening injuries by a Swiss teenager, an Islamic State supporter of Tunisian origin.
Described by SIG as the most serious antisemitic hate crime in Switzerland in the past two decades, the incident caused widespread shock and led to enhanced security for Jewish sites in Zurich.
According to SIG’s new report, there was a significant increase in antisemitic statements, with 103 reported in 2024 compared to 38 in the previous year and six in 2022.
The study also found that at least 45 percent of all antisemitic incidents were directly related to the Israel-Hamas war, with such a link established in around 28 percent of the total 1,596 registered incidents online.
“Antisemitism has reached the streets in Switzerland,” SIG Secretary General Jonathan Kreutner told Swiss Radio SRF, adding that, despite this development, freedom of opinion, such as support for “Palestine” and criticism of the Israeli government, should be possible in Switzerland.
Based on its analysis, the report explained that “Swiss Jews are often seen as Israeli and are thus held responsible for Israel’s military actions and policies,” leading to members of the Jewish community being targeted in antisemitic attacks because they are seen as responsible for the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon.
For example, children and young people at schools and universities are being asked to distance themselves from the Israeli government, the study found.
Such rhetoric has fueled the anti-Jewish stereotype of dual loyalty “that Jews are only loyal to themselves and Israel and not real Swiss.” As a result, the report found that the Jewish community in Switzerland feels increasingly insecure, prompting many to hide religious symbols such as the Star of David or a kippah.
In their study, the SIG and GRA demanded that the safety of Jews be guaranteed and call on society and policymakers to ensure the long-term security of Jewish institutions through police action and active support for local security measures.
“Antisemitism in Switzerland is no longer at a crossroads; it has visibly prevailed against all resistance and taken a frightening turn,” the groups said in a statement.
“Whereas attacks such as verbal abuse, spitting, physical assault, and even brutal attacks on life and limb were previously only distant occurrences happening abroad, they are now a reality here, too,” the SIG and GRA added. “The sense of security felt by many Jewish people has deteriorated considerably.”
The post Antisemitism in Switzerland Has Surged to ‘Unprecedented Level,’ New Report Finds first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Miami Beach Mayor Withdraws Proposal to Evict, Withdraw Funding for Theater Screening Anti-Israel Film
Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham pose with the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature Film for “No Other Land” at the Governors Ball following the Oscars show at the 97th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, US, March 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mike Blake
Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner on Wednesday morning rescinded his proposal to evict a local movie theater from a city-owned building and revoke funding for the venue because of its screening of an Oscar-winning documentary that is critical of Israeli military actions in the West Bank.
The decision was announced at a Miami Beach City Commission meeting, where many members of the community addressed the commission and spoke in opposition to Meiner’s proposal against O Cinema, a sponsor of the Miami Jewish Film Festival, and its sold-out screenings of “No Other Land.” The Orthodox Jewish mayor of Miami Beach withdrew his proposal and deferred discussion to an alternative proposal he introduced on Tuesday night, which encourages O Cinema to show films that “highlight a fair and balanced viewpoint.”
“I really am appreciative of the passion that we saw today,” Meiner said at the conclusion of Wednesday’s meeting. “I’m trying not to get emotional, but I legitimately view this as a public safety threat — not immediately. I don’t think anyone in Miami Beach is going to get hurt or attacked because this movie is being shown, but I see and I’m witnessing what is going on in our world,” he added, addressing the global rise in antisemitism.
“What I was trying to do was highlight a level of hurt and what propaganda — yes, it all needs to be heard — but a level of propaganda that eventually can lead to devastation, whether it be pogroms in Europe, the Holocaust, and certainly Oct. 7,” the mayor said, referring to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. “It stars with propaganda and dehumanizing people. And that’s why I brought this to the forefront because, in my view, it was a public safety issue.”
“Even though some of you said some things [that] were hurtful, I love you all. I really, really do,” he concluded. “We’re all Americans, we’re all proud to be in this country, it is a great country, and I really just want what’s best for us, our city, and our country, and the world. God Bless.”
Meiner introduced his eviction proposal last week, after he failed to convince O Cinema to cancel its screenings of “No Other Land” in a letter that he sent to its CEO Vivian Marthell on March 5. At the meeting on Wednesday, five of the commission members said they would oppose the eviction proposal, which also called to suspend grant money to the theater and discontinue any further funding.
On Monday, more than 700 international filmmakers — including Oscar winner Michael Moore and “Moonlight” director Barry Jenkins – signed an open letter supporting O Cinema and encouraging the Miami Beach commissioners to reject Meiner’s proposed eviction of the theater.
O Cinema began screening “No Other Land” on March 7. The film centers on the demolition of Palestinian homes in Masafer Yatta, a collection of villages in the West Bank, and the struggles of Palestinians who confront Israeli armed forces over being evicted from the land, which Israel wants to turn into a military training facility. The film portrays Israeli armed forces as violent land grabbers that oppress and displace Palestinian families in Masafer Yatta, without explaining that Palestinians illegally built homes on the land that Israel had claimed for a military training zone in the 1980s. The film was made by a collective of Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers and activists, including Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham and Basel Adra, a Palestinian who lives in Masafer Yatta with his family.
“No Other Land” won best documentary feature film at the 97th Academy Awards on March 2. It has won a slew of other awards as well, including the prestigious Berlinale Documentary Award and Panorama Audience Award for Best Documentary Film.
The post Miami Beach Mayor Withdraws Proposal to Evict, Withdraw Funding for Theater Screening Anti-Israel Film first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
NYC Mayoral Contender Cites Hamas-Produced Casualty Figures While Condemning Israel for Restarting Gaza Campaign
Zohran Mamdani. Photo: Ron Adar / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
Zohran Mamdani, one of the top contenders in the New York City mayoral race, on Tuesday condemned Israel for restarting war operations in the Gaza Strip, accusing the Jewish state of committing a “genocide” and citing Hamas-produced casualty statistics.
“Israel’s renewed bombing of Gaza — funded by our tax dollars — has already killed more than 400 Palestinians in just a few hours, including scores of women and children. It is among the deadliest days of a genocide which has taken the lives of more than 50,000 civilians,” Mamdani said in a statement. “‘The Israeli government has chosen to give up on the hostages,’ an organization of Israeli families said this morning. The Trump administration must bring all of its pressure to bear on [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu to establish the ceasefire now.”
On Monday night, Israel resumed airstrikes targeting Hamas in Gaza under the directive of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose office said in a statement that the military action followed “Hamas’s repeated refusal to release our hostages, as well as its rejection of all of the proposals it has received from US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff and from the mediators.”
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry claimed that around 400 Palestinians were killed from the initial Israeli airstrikes, although the ministry does not distinguish between terrorist combatants and civilians. Moreover, researchers have shown that casualty figures published by Gaza’s Hamas-run health authorities have been inflated to defame Israel.
Mamdani, a representative within the New York State Assembly and progressive firebrand, has made anti-Israel activism a cornerstone of his political career. Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, has both advanced state legislation seeking to punish Israel and labeled the Jewish state’s defensive military operations in Gaza a “genocide.”
Although Mamdani is considered a threat to win the New York City mayorship, his position in the race has slipped. Mamdani commands 8 percent of the vote among New Yorkers, good enough for third place, according to a poll by Quinnipiac conducted between Feb. 27-Mar. 3. Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo holds a commanding lead at 38 percent, per Quinnipiac.
Comparatively, according to a poll conducted by Honan Strategy Group from Feb. 22-23, Mamdani previously sat in second place with 12 percent of the vote.
In 2021, Mamdani issued public support for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement —an initiative which seeks to economically and diplomatically isolate Israel iasthe first step to its eventual destruction. He claimed that support for the anti-Israel movement is growing within New York City, saying on X/Twitter that “the tide is turning. The fight for justice is here. The moment is now.”
That same year, he also called for prohibiting New York lawmakers from visiting Israel, asserting that “every elected [official] must be pressured to stand with Palestinians.”
In May 2023, Mamdani advanced the “Not on Our Dime! Ending New York Funding of Israeli Settler Violence Act,” legislation which would ban charities from using tax-deductible donations to aid organizations that work in the West Bank. Mamdani argued that the legislation would help the state fight against so-called Israeli “war crimes” against Palestinians. The socialist dismissed critics of the legislation, saying that his anti-Israel proposal is “in line with the sentiments of most New Yorkers.”
On Oct. 8, 2023, 24 hours following the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, Mamdani published a statement condemning “Netanyahu’s declaration of war” and suggesting that Israel would use the terror attacks to justify committing a second “Nakba.” Many Palestinians and anti-Israel activists use the term “Nakba,” or “catastrophe,” to refer to the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
Mamdani then said that Israel can only secure its long-term safety by “ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid.”
Five days later, he further criticized Israel’s response to the Hamas-led massacres, saying that “we are on the brink of a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza right now.”
In January 2024, he called on New York City to cease sending funds to Israel, saying that “Voters oppose their tax dollars funding a genocide.”
In addition, Mamdani is a high-profile member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a far-left political organization with critical views of Israel. Though the DSA has long opposed Israel, the organization has ramped up its pro-Hamas rhetoric during the ongoing war in Gaza. On Oct. 7, the organization issued a statement saying that Hamas’s massacre was “a direct result of Israel’s apartheid regime.” The organization also encouraged its followers to attend an Oct. 8 “All Out for Palestine” event in Manhattan.
In January 2024, the DSA issued a statement calling for an “end to diplomatic and military support of Israel.” Then in April, the organization’s international committee, DSA IC, issued a missive defending Iran’s right to “self-defense” against Israel. In addition, the socialist group slammed former US Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) over his vote in favor of replenishing Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system.
Mamdani’s political ascendance comes amid a spike in anti-Jewish hate crimes within New York City.
New York City has been ravaged by a surge in antisemitic incidents in the 17 months following the Oct. 7 massacre. According to police data, Jews were targeted as the victims in a majority of all hate crimes in the city last year.
Meanwhile, pro-Hamas activists have held raucous — and sometimes violent — protests on the city’s college campuses, oftentimes causing Jewish students to fear for their safety. New York City schools are also currently facing criticism for failing to protect Jewish and Israeli students from antisemitism.
The post NYC Mayoral Contender Cites Hamas-Produced Casualty Figures While Condemning Israel for Restarting Gaza Campaign first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login