Uncategorized
Kenneth Kronen, cantor who survived fiery Rikers Island plane crash in 1957, dies at 95
(New York Jewish Week) — Kenneth Kronen, a cantor, businessman and Jewish leader who survived a fiery 1957 airplane crash that left at least 20 people dead at New York City’s Rikers Island, died Friday at the MorseLife senior care campus in Palm Beach, Florida. He was 95.
Kronen, his then wife and two young sons were among the 81 survivors when the Northeastern Airlines plane crash-landed on Rikers on Feb. 1, after takeoff from nearby LaGuardia Airport. The crash made heroes of the prisoners of the island’s jail who were allowed out to assist in rescue efforts.
The Miami-bound flight took off in a blinding snowstorm. After the crash, one of its wings was shorn off and the cabin burst into flames. Kronen, who was 29 at the time, recalled throwing his then 6-week-old son Mark from the burning aircraft while his wife Selma cared for their other son Richard, 2.
Prison “trusties,” meanwhile, were let out of the jail and assisted the survivors. “They were the people who rescued us,” Kronen said of the prisoners in a 2017 interview with the New York Post. “I don’t know if all of us would’ve even gotten out without them. We were all burning. It was so hot, and the plane was on fire.”
Prisoners also spotted the baby, Mark, covered in snow. The family, who had assumed the baby hadn’t survived, were reunited two days later.
In the years after the crash, Kronen and his partners built Black Stone Webbing into what became the largest elastic company in the world. He and Selma later divorced and in 1976 he married Jerilyn (née Levy), a psychologist in Manhattan.
Kenneth Kronen, a textile manufacturer, “grabbed the joy of life” after the 1957 crash, his wife Jerilyn Kronen said. (Courtesy)
On Wednesday, Jerilyn Kronen said her late husband “grabbed the joy of life” after the crash, but suffered from what she called symptoms of PTSD. He would shy away from loud noises and sounds of police activity. Although he returned to air travel in the years after the crash, the attacks of Sept. 11, 20o1 heightened his anxiety, she said.
He also became “very religious” following the crash. “He believed he was somehow saved, and had a purpose here,” she said. He spent years leading services at the Plainview Jewish Center on Long Island, and supported The Hampton Synagogue, Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in Manhattan and the Palm Beach Synagogue in Florida. He was also a founding member, with Rabbi Leibel Baumgarten, of Chabad of East Hampton.
Rabbi Marc Schneier of The Hampton Synagogue, who led funeral services for Kronen at Manhattan’s Riverside Chapel on Tuesday, said Kronen, who grew up with his grandparents in the boarding house they ran in Rockaway Beach, embraced the second chances he was given in life and love.
“If I were to paraphrase what I would consider signature [Jerilyn] language, I wouldn’t describe him as a victim of circumstance,” said Schneier in his eulogy. “Ken Kronen was a victor of circumstance. He was a victor of circumstance because he literally rose from that negative event, and from that unspeakable horror and anguish he distilled from life a new insight, a keener understanding and a greater meaning.”
Kronen traveled to Israel at least 10 times, said Jerilyn Kronen, and served as the chairman of American Friends of Assaf Harofeh Medical Center in Be’er Ya’akov, Israel.
Despite his fears of flying, Kronen “figured out a way to have a martini and get on a plane,” she said, “because he felt Hashem was with him.”
He is survived by his sons Mark and Richard; two sons he raised with Jerilyn, Ari and Josh; six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
—
The post Kenneth Kronen, cantor who survived fiery Rikers Island plane crash in 1957, dies at 95 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
US Hits Military Targets on Iran’s Kharg Island, Vance Says No Change to Strategy
US Vice President JD Vance delivers remarks at the Wilshire Federal Building in Los Angeles, California, US, June 20, 2025. Phone: REUTERS/Daniel Cole
US strikes on Iran’s Kharg Island do not represent a change in American strategy, US Vice President JD Vance said on Tuesday as a US official separately told Reuters the additional strikes on military targets did not impact oil infrastructure.
The official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, described at least some of the strikes as targeting sites that had been previously struck before and said the attack occurred in the early morning hours of Tuesday.
Vance, speaking separately in Budapest, said the strikes were not a change in US strategy, with the Trump administration confident that it can get a response from Iran by 8 pm (0001 Wednesday GMT) in negotiations to end the conflict. US President Donald Trump is demanding Iran forswear nuclear weapons and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a critical oil transit waterway.
“We were going to strike some military targets on Kharg Island, and I believe we have done so,” Vance said.
“We’re not going to strike energy and infrastructure targets until the Iranians either make a proposal that we can get behind or don’t make a proposal,” he added. “I don’t think the news in Kharg Island … represents a change in strategy, or represents any change from the President of the United States.”
Uncategorized
French Nationals Leave Iran After Three and a Half Years Amid Softer France Tone on War
A woman walks past posters with the portraits of Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris, two French citizens held in Iran, on the day of support rallies to mark their three-year detention and to demand their release, in front of the National Assembly in Paris, France, May 7, 2025. The slogan reads “Freedom for Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris.” Photo: REUTERS/Abdul Saboor
Two French nationals were heading home on Tuesday after Iran allowed them to leave the country following three and a half years in detention, a surprise move that came as Paris sought to distance itself from the war in the region.
Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris had been confined to France‘s embassy in Tehran since November, after being held since 2022 in the notorious Evin prison on spying charges that France has said were unfounded.
“This is a relief for all of us and obviously for their families,” President Emmanuel Macron said in a post on X. “Thank you to the Omani authorities for their mediation efforts.”
Neither the French presidency nor the foreign ministry responded to requests for comment on what had been agreed between the two sides to ensure their release.
Iran‘s official news agency IRNA said the couple were freed following an understanding under which France would in turn release Mahdieh Esfandiari, an Iranian student living in the French city of Lyon, and withdraw a complaint against Iran at the International Court of Justice.
However, both assertions were unclear. Esfandiari, who was convicted at the end of February for glorifying terrorism in social media posts, was released after serving almost a year in prison but has appealed the conviction.
It was not clear whether she had left the country, as ordered by the February ruling. France dropped the ICJ complaint last September.
Iran‘s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi spoke with his French counterpart Jean-Noel Barrot on Sunday, confirming the pair’s imminent release.
Macron has criticized US President Donald Trump’s approach to the US-Israeli war on Iran and said France would only help restore freedom of navigation to the Strait of Hormuz once there is a ceasefire and after consultations with Tehran.
France last week refused Israel permission to transfer weapons through French airspace for the war and has led efforts to water down a draft UN Security Council resolution that could have opened the door to forceful action in the strait.
A French official briefing reporters after the release denied that France had a softer position towards Iran and said Paris had warned the Iranians about the safety of their citizens given the escalation in the war.
“I think the Iranians rightly considered that if anything happened to our compatriots, the reactions here would have been extremely catastrophic,” the official said, declining to comment on the details of the negotiation.
French officials have also refused to comment on why a container ship belonging to French shipping group CMA CGM was able to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a sign that Iran may not consider France to be a hostile nation.
Uncategorized
Gunfight Outside Israeli Consulate in Istanbul Leaves One Attacker Dead
A drone view shows police officers and medics standing at the scene, after a gunfire was heard near the building housing the Israeli consulate, according to a witness, in Istanbul, Turkey, April 7, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Mehmet Emin Caliskan
One attacker was killed and two others were wounded in an extended gun battle with police outside the tower building housing the Israeli consulate in Istanbul on Tuesday.
Footage showed the backpack-wearing attackers firing with automatic rifles and handguns, and police officers returning fire and seeking cover, as they maneuvered among parked white police buses near a checkpoint. One body lay on the street.
Shots rang out for at least 10 minutes among the glass towers in Turkey’s main financial district, Reuters witnesses said. One person was seen covered in blood.
No Israeli staff were at the consulate, which occupies a floor in one of the towers, at the time of the attack, Turkish and Israeli authorities said.
Israeli diplomats had left Turkey shortly after the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza began in late 2023, a conflict that prompted large pro-Palestinian protests outside the consulate and across the country, and a deep chill in Turkish-Israeli diplomatic ties.
US ENVOY SAYS CONSULATE WAS TARGET
The three attackers had links to an organization that “exploits religion,” Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci said, without giving any name. Two of them were brothers, and they had traveled in a rented car from the city of Izmit, he added.
While Turkish authorities did not say what motivated the attackers, Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Turkey, said on X that it was an attack on the Israeli consulate and he condemned it.
President Tayyip Erdogan said the “heinous terrorist attack” would not dent Turkey’s trust and security. Israel’s foreign ministry said it appreciated Turkish security forces’ “swift action in thwarting this attack.”
Two police officers were also lightly wounded, Istanbul Governor Davut Gul told reporters at the scene of the midday incident, which occurred next to a major motorway as thousands of nearby workers were breaking for lunch.
DIPLOMATIC CHILL AMID GAZA WAR
Turkey, a fierce critic of Israel’s military operations in Gaza as well as in Lebanon and Iran, had recalled its ambassador from Israel in November 2023, and diplomatic relations have been effectively frozen since then.
At the same time that year, Israeli diplomats left Turkey due to security concerns, including the protests. Since then, heavily armed police and armored vehicles have been stationed in a broad area surrounding the consulate.
Militant violence has mostly subsided in Turkey in recent years after a violent spate from 2015 to 2016 when Islamic, Kurdish, and leftist militants carried out attacks amid the spillover from the Syrian civil war.
The latest incident was late last year when three Turkish police officers and six Islamic State terrorists were killed in a gunfight in the town of Yalova in northwest Turkey, amid raids on militant cells believed to be planning Christmas and New Year attacks.