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They were denied Jewish weddings in the Soviet Union. So these 3 couples just got married again.
BOSTON (JTA) – Veiled brides holding white bouquets; a gold-colored chuppah; the signing of ketubahs, Jewish marriage contracts; lively Jewish music wafting through a social hall as guests danced the hora.
It had all the telltale signs of a traditional Jewish wedding. But the three couples were already married — and had been for a collective total of 125 years.
The event on Wednesday was an opportunity for three Ukraine-born couples to have the Jewish ceremonies they could not have when they first wed, when Jewish practice was forbidden under communism in their country.
“It was my dream for many, many years and dreams come true,” said Elisheva Furman, who first married her husband Fishel in Ukraine 50 years ago.
Held by Shaloh House, a Chabad Lubavitch organization in Boston that serves Jews from the former Soviet Union, the event was also an opportunity for Chabad rabbinical students to practice officiating at Jewish weddings.
Shaloh House launched a rabbinical training institute in 2021, after Rabbi Shlomo Noginski, an educator at the school, was stabbed eight times outside the building in a vicious attack that jolted Boston and especially its Jewish community.
“This wedding ceremony is a victory of love and kindness over oppression and hate,” said Rabbi Dan Rodkin, director of Shaloh House, in a statement. “It is a testament to the strength of the Jewish people and the resilience of these Soviet-born couples, who want to celebrate their union in accordance with their faith and heritage.”
Rodkin himself grew up in Russia. The Chabad movement, which is especially strong in the former Soviet Union, where it was born, has sought to reach Jews from the region whose practices and connection to Judaism were attenuated by living under communism. Shaloh House offers a school, synagogue and community center all focused on Boston’s substantial community of Russian-speaking emigres.
Growing up, despite antisemitic repression, Elisheva and Fishel Furman both said their families maintained a strong Jewish identity and privately observed Jewish holidays. But “it was dangerous” to show their faith in public, said Elisheva, the grandmother of four. So when they got married, they did so only in a civil ceremony.
A couple prepares to step on a glass, a symbol in Jewish weddings, after their Jewish ceremony in Boston, Feb. 7, 2023. (Photo by Igor Klimov)
Their religious ceremony and the two others that took place Wednesday, individualized for each couple, stretched for more than four hours and featured a festive meal and desserts including traditional Ukrainian and Russian foods.
The event took place in the lead-up to the one-year anniversary on Feb. 24, of Russia’s invasion into the couples’ homeland that is under ruthless bombardment that is devastating Ukraine.
Rimma Linkova, who’s been married to Alexander Linkov for 40 years, and one was of the other couples being married, has a cousin still in Ukraine. They talk regularly, she said.
“It’s almost one year of the war and it’s still not ended. It’s very difficult. It’s dying for no reason.” Linkov said.
The third couple was Sofya Hannah and Gedalia Gulnik, who used their Hebrew names.
Yelena Gulnik said she was thrilled to see her parents have a Jewish wedding, something she said her father was initially hesitant to do after so many years of marriage. The mother of three, whose kids attend Shaloh House’s day school, was born in Odessa and came in 1994 with her parents to Boston when she was 12 years old.
“My parents never had a chuppah, they never had a religious ceremony. They were not familiar with many religious Jewish traditions,” Gulnik said. “But it was an amazing opportunity. I don’t think they would have ever done this if Rabbi Rodkin hadn’t offered.”
Being at a wedding for her grandparents is “a little weird since you don’t see it every day,” Yelena’s oldest daughter said. “But it’s certainly exciting.”
Among the attendees were New England Patriots Jewish owner Robert Kraft, and his wife, Dana Blumberg, who themselves were married in November. Kraft, whose Campaign to Fight Antisemitism philanthropy launched in 2019, made a $250,000 donation following the attack on Noginski that helped start the rabbinic program.
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft dances at a wedding ceremony for Ukrainian couples who did not have Jewish weddings in their native country, Boston, Feb. 7, 2023. Rabbi Shlomo Noginski is on his left. (Photo by Igor Klimov)
“When I saw Rabbi Noginksi getting stabbed in my hometown of Boston, it hurt me,” Kraft told JTA at the wedding.
“This hit close to home, which was shocking to me,” he elaborated in an email response to a question. “It’s an important reminder that antisemitism and hate happens everywhere, even in a community like ours.”
“Since the attack, I have been moved by how Rabbi Noginski has used this horrible incident as an opportunity to raise awareness of the prevalence of antisemitism and the need to stand up to all acts of hatred,” Kraft wrote. “He is a real hero, who not only saved lives that day, but continues to use his experience to educate others.”
Noginski’s personal story has struck a chord for many. As a young man growing up in St. Petersburg, he and his mother experienced antisemitism, eventually leading them to move to Israel. He and his wife, who at the time of the attack had only recently arrived in Boston, have 12 children.
He has added his voice beyond Boston, speaking in Hebrew at a Washington D.C. rally on antisemitism in July 2021, less than two weeks after the attack. His alleged attacker was arrested but has not yet been tried.
But while the attack was in the background at the wedding event, it was not the main focus as the families celebrated together.
“The wedding has enormous meaning,” said Dmitry Linkov about his parents’ ceremony.
He was 5 when his family left Kyiv and settled in Boston. They lived secular lives when he and his younger sister was growing up, he said, but he and his wife, active in Chabad in Chestnut Hill, now embrace more religious practice and observe Shabbat and keep a kosher home.
“What my parents have done tonight will be passed on for generations. It’s a blessing for our future generations,” Dmitry Linkov told JTA.
He hopes the Jewish wedding ceremony inspires other Jews from the former Soviet Union who fled persecution.
“They are celebrating for a nation,” he said. “It’s pretty amazing.”
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Israel becomes first country to recognize Somaliland, drawing condemnation from Egypt, Turkey and Somalia
Israel became the first country to formally recognize Somaliland, a self-declared sovereign state in the Horn of Africa, in a decision that was immediately condemned by Somalia and other nations.
“The Prime Minister announced today the official recognition of the Republic of Somaliland as an independent and sovereign state,” wrote Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office in a post on X. “The State of Israel plans to immediately expand its relations with the Republic of Somaliland through extensive cooperation in the fields of agriculture, health, technology, and economy.”
Somaliland’s president welcomed the announcement from Netanyahu in a post on X, adding that he affirmed the region’s “readiness to join the Abraham Accords,” the normalization agreements between Israel and a handful of Arab states that was brokered during President Donald Trump’s first term.
Somaliland proclaimed independence from Somalia in 1991 during the country’s civil war, but has failed to receive recognition from the international community in part due to Somalia’s opposition to its secession. Somalia officially rejects ties with Israel, and has consistently refused to recognize the state of Israel since 1960. Somalia and Somaliland are overwhelmingly Muslim.
“The ministers affirmed their total rejection and condemnation of Israel’s recognition of the Somaliland region, stressing their full support for the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Somalia,” Egypt’s foreign ministry said in a statement following a phone call between Egypt’s foreign minister and his Somali, Turkish and Djiboutian counterparts, according to Reuters.
In November, the Israeli think tank Institute for National Security Studies argued in a report that recognizing Somaliland could be in Israel’s strategic interest.
“Somaliland’s territory could serve as a forward base for multiple missions: intelligence monitoring of the Houthis and their armament efforts; logistical support for Yemen’s legitimate government in its war against them; and a platform for direct operations against the Houthis,” the report read.
It is unclear if the United States will follow suit. In August, Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz wrote to Trump urging him to recognize Somaliland.
“Somaliland has emerged as a critical security and diplomatic partner for the United States, helping America advance our national security interests in the Horn of Africa and beyond,” wrote Cruz.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Israel becomes first country to recognize Somaliland, drawing condemnation from Egypt, Turkey and Somalia appeared first on The Forward.
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‘Jesus is a Palestinian,’ claims a Times Square billboard. Um, not quite
“Merry Christmas,” proclaims a billboard in Times Square: “Jesus is Palestinian.”
Countless people will walk by the display or see it on social media, and many will believe it.
So, let’s go through why that statement is such a mistake, once again.
Jesus was a Jew. He was born to Jewish parents, was circumcised under Jewish law — traditionally, on Jan. 1, which is how that day became known as the Feast of the Circumcision — and lived as a Jew. He taught from the Hebrew Scriptures. He worshiped in the Jerusalem Temple. He observed Jewish festivals. He debated Jewish law with other Jews using Jewish modes of argument.
Go back to the Gospels in the New Testament — specifically Luke 4:16: “He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom.” Or, John 4:9, in which a Samaritan woman asks Jesus: “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”
Cross-reference other ancient sources. Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian, refers to Jesus as a Jewish figure executed in Judea. No serious historical study of Jesus elides this basic truth: Jesus was a Jew.
Yet many efforts through history have sought to sever Jesus from his Judaism — often, if not always, in an attempt to denigrate Jews.
In the second century, the theologian Marcion sought to completely sever Christianity from Judaism. For him, the God of Israel was inferior and the God of the Christians was morally superior. Jesus, therefore, belonged to a different moral universe. The early Church condemned Marcionism precisely because it erased Jesus’s Jewish roots, and ultimately dismissed the idea as a heresy that needed to be rejected.
In the twentieth century, Nazi theologians attempted to portray Jesus as Aryan and anti-Jewish, which Susannah Heschel documents in her book The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany.
But it’s not just because of his religion that Jesus shouldn’t be considered Palestinian.
“Why not?” you might ask. “Didn’t he live in Palestine?”
The short answer is: Not yet.
When Jesus lived, the land of Israel was called Judea. It was under Roman rule, and it fell under several administrative districts: Judea, Galilee, and Samaria.
So, what is the source of the name “Palestine” for that area? It comes from the ancient people known as the Philistines, a perennial enemy of the Israelites. After the Romans crushed Jewish independence, they deliberately renamed the province in an effort to sever Jewish historical ties to the land, as well as to humiliate them by naming the land after their ancient foes.
To call Jesus “Palestinian” is therefore anachronistic.
Yet even so, the idea of Jesus as Palestinian appears in some strands of Palestinian liberation theology. Those strands tend to envision the Palestinian people as Jesus on the cross — crucified by Israel and the Jews, in an image that recalls the longstanding and deeply misguided allegation that “the Jews killed Jesus.”
This language appears repeatedly in the writings and sermons of Naim Ateek, the influential founder of the Jerusalem-based Christian organization Sabeel. In his 2001 Easter message, he wrote “as we approach Holy Week and Easter, the suffering of Jesus Christ at the hands of evil political and religious powers two thousand years ago is lived out again in Palestine,” adding that “Jesus is the powerless Palestinian humiliated at a checkpoint, the woman trying to get through to the hospital for treatment, the young man whose dignity is trampled, the young student who cannot get to the university to study, the unemployed father who needs to find bread to feed his family; the list is tragically getting longer, and Jesus is there in their midst suffering with them.”
Yes, of course, Palestinians have suffered and continue to suffer. But illustrations of that suffering should not include the pretense that Jesus was Palestinian. It suggests that Palestinians need to be seen as akin to Jesus to deserve safety and dignity, when in fact they deserve safety and dignity simply because they are human. And casting Israel and the Jews as crucifiers only resurrects medieval theology and hatreds; it adds nothing to the hopes for justice for Palestinians.
Mainstream Christianity has rejected this foul mythology. We have recently celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of the Christian world’s most vociferous denial of that ancient hatred. In 1965, Vatican II’s Nostra Aetate explicitly rejected the charge that Jews are responsible for Jesus’s death. The World Council of Churches issued similar warnings about reviving Passion-based antisemitism — the revival of the ancient accusation that Jewish leaders were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus, and that Jews bear that guilt eternally.
History matters. Theology matters. And words matter — especially when they carry two thousand years of blood-soaked memory.
The post ‘Jesus is a Palestinian,’ claims a Times Square billboard. Um, not quite appeared first on The Forward.
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82 years after his plane was shot down in China, Jewish WWII pilot Morton Sher is laid to rest at home
An American Jewish fighter pilot whose plane was shot down in the Chinese theater during World War II was given a proper burial 82 years after his plane went down, according to the United States Department of Defense.
The remains of Lt. Morton Sher, identified earlier this year, were buried in Greenville, South Carolina on Dec. 14 — what would have been his 105th birthday.
Sher was a member of the pilot group known as the “Flying Tigers” — formed to protect China from Japanese invasion following the assault on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He was piloting a P-40 Warhawk when he was shot down by Japanese bombers on Aug. 9, 1943. His mother Celia received Sher’s Purple Heart that same year.
Sher’s squadron put up a memorial stone at the crash site in Xin Bai Village, and a postwar army review in 1947 concluded that his remains had been destroyed and were assumed to be unrecoverable.
The remains of Morton Sher were returned to Greenville, North Carolina and buried on Dec. 14, 2025. (Courtesy Department of Defense)
Two attempts were made to locate his remains in 2012 and 2019, but neither was successful. A breakthrough came in 2024 when a Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency excavated a crash site in the province where Sher’s plane fell, and then in April 2025, when DNA analysis was conducted. The match was confirmed in June.
Sher was born in Baltimore, Maryland on Dec. 14, 1920, and his family later moved to Greenville where they became members of the Conservative synagogue Congregation Beth Israel. In high school, he was a member of the aviation club and enrolled in ROTC. Sher was a founding member of B’nai B’rith Youth Organization’s Aleph Zadik Aleph chapter in Greenville, according to the funeral home that organized his burial.
“He dreamed of being a pilot,” Sher’s nephew, Steve “Morton” Traub told Greenville’s local NBC station. “This guy did a lot for his country. He was my hero.”
Traub, who never met his uncle, but heard stories and read his letters, was raised by Sher’s father, David.
“I wish I had known him, but if he had, I wouldn’t have been named after him. I feel like I knew Mason because I knew Papa,” Traub said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post 82 years after his plane was shot down in China, Jewish WWII pilot Morton Sher is laid to rest at home appeared first on The Forward.