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Prominent LA Conservative synagogue relocates Shabbat services due to planned pro-Palestinian protest
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Temple Beth Am, Los Angeles’ third-oldest Conservative synagogue, told congregants it would be moving its Saturday afternoon Shabbat services this weekend due to safety concerns over a pro-Palestinian protest happening at a nearby park.
In an email sent to the community on Thursday, Rabbi Adam Kligfeld and temple president Mark Samuel said that “out of an abundance of caution,” afternoon services would be moved to a private home. But they stressed that the synagogue did not make the decision lightly.
“I don’t remember a more agonizing decision,” Kligfeld wrote in the email, which was obtained by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “On one hand, not that much is at stake. This was not Kol Nidre or a bar/bat mitzvah or even ‘normal’ Shabbat AM service, times during which hundreds of people are on our campus happily and unselfconsciously and proudly doing Judaism. This was about ‘only’ the 12-16 people or so who normally show up for Shabbat afternoon services and learning. Not that momentous.”
He continued: “On the other hand, it felt hugely momentous. In 2023? In the city of Los Angeles? A Jewish community even considering not holding religious services at their own synagogue because of a looming threat posed by a rally that has a very good chance of spilling from pro-Palestinian rhetoric to virulently anti-Zionist and dangerously antisemitic? It boggles the mind that that is where we are in modern America. But it is where we are.”
The rally is being billed as “Black and Palestinian Solidarity for a Ceasefire this Christmas” and is set to take place Saturday at 3 p.m. in La Cienega Park, which is just a few minutes’ walk from the synagogue located in L.A.’s heavily Jewish Pico-Robertson neighborhood.
In the email, Kligfeld referenced the recent slew of antisemitic incidents in the L.A. area, including the death of pro-Israel protestor Paul Kessler, who was fatally injured during an altercation during dueling pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian rallies in the suburb of Thousand Oaks in early November. A man has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in the case.
In addition to Kessler’s death, there have been numerous other incidents since the Israel-Hamas war broke out on Oct. 7 that have rattled the L.A. Jewish community — including a hate crime against a Jewish man on his way to synagogue in Beverly Hills, a charter school housed at a synagogue teaching students that Israel was committing genocide and a break-in at a Jewish family’s home that was also investigated as a hate crime.
Kligfeld also acknowledged that “during the conversation we had about this, many expressed discomfort with the notion of cowering, rather than representing.” He encouraged his congregants to “respond to this moment … by having a large and robust crowd.”
The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles said it is monitoring the situation. “We are disheartened and saddened that Jewish ritual observances have to be moved out of an abundance of caution. We continue to hope and pray for peace,” the organization said in a statement to the Jewish Journal.
Temple Beth Am is not the first synagogue to have its Shabbat services disrupted by pro-Palestinian protests. A Melbourne, Australia, synagogue was evacuated by police during Shabbat services last month after a violent turn at a major protest in an adjacent park.
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The post Prominent LA Conservative synagogue relocates Shabbat services due to planned pro-Palestinian protest appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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