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Mia Simring, 41, Rikers Island chaplain
Mia Simring, 41, is a rabbi and a Jewish chaplain at Rikers Island, New York City’s largest and most notorious jail complex. Simring, who lives on the Upper West Side with her family, says she was inspired to become a chaplain when her mother was hospitalized with cancer. “I felt very much like I wanted to be there at the most intense moments and not just tragic moments, but really joyful moments as well,” she says. Simring became a chaplain at Rikers in 2018 where, she says, “I get to talk to people and I get to pray with people. A lot of it is also explaining the diversity of Jewish life. People have a lot of questions about what it means to be Jewish. Just getting into those conversations and using them as springboards for these pastoral encounters can be really powerful.”
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.
Was there a formative Jewish experience that influenced your life path?
I trained in healthcare settings throughout rabbinical school and after, but over the years my activism was also maturing. I was lead organizer of a “moral minyan” against ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] detention with T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights; it gained a lot of momentum and we had some amazing speakers and performers.
The more the social injustices of the world started to stand out to me, the more I wanted to be involved. I started to look for ways that I could use what skills I had as a rabbi to provide direct service to vulnerable people. I’m less able to fully embody that activist side in my work now, but to really to be in there [at Rikers] with a lot of people who feel so isolated and so forgotten is really powerful for me. It gives me a good feeling of going something for those who are sort of at the bottom of society and need help and can’t always access it.
What was your best experience as a Jewish New Yorker?
Being raised here and raising my children here
What are three spots in NYC that all Jewish New Yorkers should visit?
I grew up very secular and I grew up in Gramercy. I used to walk through the East Village a lot and there was sort of a spot that always inspired me, which was Emma Goldman’s historic home. These things that seems so radical at the time, like the 40-hour work week and having a weekend and workers’ rights, are now what we take for granted. To think about the Jewish immigrant community that my family really came out of, and that we all — Jewish and non-Jewish — benefited from always sort of gave me a little bit of a nice energy.
Another spot would be tashlich at the Hudson River. It’s just so much energy, so many different Jewish groups kind of end up in the same place and it’s really inspiring and uplifting.
Thirdly, the tailor statue in the Garment District. When my grandmother’s family came over, her mom was a garment worker doing piecework, which is now considered sweatshop conditions because you got paid by how much you produce and not by your time and labor. Most garment workers now are Asian and Latina women, and it reminds me that we’ve gone through many waves of people making clothes who are frequently from disenfranchised groups. It’s a moment for solidarity between all of us.
What is your favorite book about New York?
It’s always the last book I read for me, so the last New Yorky book I read was “This Time Tomorrow” by Emma Straub. I also really love “Tepper Isn’t Going Out” by Calvin Trillin because in college I got a car, and then I had to figure out how to park it when I would come home and visit, and that is a book about parking in New York City.
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Qatari PM Meets Iran’s Larijani in Tehran, Discusses Easing Regional Tensions
Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani speaks after a meeting with the Lebanese president at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon February 4, 2025. REUTERS/Emilie Madi
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani met with top Iranian security official Ali Larijani in Tehran and reviewed efforts to de-escalate tensions in the region, Qatar’s foreign ministry said on Saturday in a statement.
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Tesla Receives Approval to Test Autonomous Driving in Israel
March 12, 2025, Seattle, Washington, USA: A row of brand-new Tesla Cybertrucks stands in a Tesla Motors Logistics Drop Zone in Seattle, Washington, USA, on Wed., March 12, 2025. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
i24 News – The Ministry of Transport announced on Sunday that it has granted Tesla official approval to conduct trials of its autonomous driving system on Israel’s roads. The move comes as part of an effort to examine how the car manufacturer’s advanced technology can be integrated into the local driving environment, with full support from the ministry.
The trials will focus on Tesla’s Fully Self-Driving (FSD) system, a supervised autonomous driving platform. Under the terms of the approval, a driver must remain present in the vehicle at all times to supervise the system, despite its autonomous capabilities. This ensures safety while allowing the technology to be tested in real-world conditions.
The Ministry of Transport described the approval as a significant step toward advancing vehicle regulation in Israel. Officials said the initiative aims to create a regulatory framework that will allow for the routine, supervised use of autonomous driving systems in the future, safely and efficiently.
Tesla will use the trials to assess how the FSD system interacts with Israel’s road infrastructure, traffic patterns, and local driving behaviors. Data collected during the experiment will help refine the system and inform potential regulatory updates to accommodate autonomous vehicles.
The ministry emphasized that the pilot program is limited in scope and strictly monitored. It noted that all necessary safety protocols are in place and that public safety remains the top priority throughout the testing period.
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Reopening of Gaza’s Rafah Crossing Expected Monday, Officials Say
An aid truck moves on a road after entering Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, February 1, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Gaza’s main border crossing in Rafah will reopen for Palestinians on Monday, Israel said, with preparations underway at the war-ravaged enclave’s main gateway that has been largely shut for almost two years.
Before the war, the Rafah border crossing with Egypt was the only direct exit point for most Gazans to reach the outside world as well as a key entry point for aid into the territory. It has been largely shut since May 2024 and under Israeli military control on the Gazan side.
COGAT, the Israeli military unit that oversees humanitarian coordination, said the crossing will reopen in both directions for Gaza residents on foot only and its operation will be coordinated with Egypt and the European Union.
“Today, a pilot is underway to test and assess the operation of the crossing. The movement of residents in both directions, entry and exit to and from Gaza, is expected to begin tomorrow,” COGAT said in a statement.
A Palestinian official and a European source close to the EU mission confirmed the details. The Egyptian foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
STRICT SECURITY CHECKS
Israel has said the crossing would open under stringent security checks only for Palestinians who wish to leave the war-ravaged enclave and for those who fled the fighting in the first months of the war to return.
Many of those expected to leave are sick and wounded Gazans in need of medical care abroad. The Palestinian health ministry has said that there are 20,000 patients waiting to leave Gaza.
An Israeli defense official said that the crossing can hold between 150-200 people altogether in both directions. There will be more people leaving than returning because patients leave together with escorts, the official added.
“(The Rafah crossing) is the lifeline for us, the patients. We don’t have the resources to be treated in Gaza,” said Moustafa Abdel Hadi, a kidney patient in a central Gaza hospital, awaiting a transplant abroad.
“If the war impacted a healthy person by 1 percent, it has impacted us 200 percent,” he said, sitting as he received dialysis treatment at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. His travel request, he said, has been approved.
Two Egyptian officials said that at least 50 Palestinian patients will be processed on Sunday to cross Rafah into Egypt for treatment. In the first few days around 200 people, patients and their family members, will cross daily into Egypt, the officials said, with 50 people returning to Gaza per day.
Lists of Gazans set to pass through the crossing have been submitted by Egypt and approved by Israel, the official said.
NEXT PHASE OF TRUMP’S GAZA PLAN
Reopening the border crossing was a key requirement of the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the Israel-Hamas war.
But the ceasefire, which came into effect in October after two years of fighting, has been repeatedly shaken by rounds of violence.
On Saturday, Israel launched some of its most intense airstrikes since the ceasefire, killing at least 30 people, in what it said was a response to a Hamas violation of the truce on Friday when militants emerged from a tunnel in Rafah.
The next phases of Trump’s plan for Gaza foresee governance being handed to Palestinian technocrats, Hamas laying down its weapons and Israeli troops withdrawing from the territory while an international force keeps the peace and Gaza is rebuilt.
Hamas has so far rejected disarmament and Israel has repeatedly indicated that if the Islamist terrorist group is not disarmed peacefully, it will use force to make it do so.