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This Jewish temple is providing a home for a historic church in the Village
(New York Jewish Week) — After a six-alarm fire left a historic Manhattan church homeless, a synagogue stepped in to provide a space for church-goers to continue worshiping while they figure out a plan for a new home.
Two years later, the bond between the two congregations has only grown, with a new twist: East End Temple on E. 17th St. is supporting Middle Collegiate Church in its clash with the Landmarks Preservation Commission over plans to rebuild their damaged building in the East Village.
Dec. 5 marked the two-year anniversary of the fire that brought her church to the Reform congregation, or “out of a place in the wilderness,” as the Reverend Dr. Jacqui Lewis told the New York Jewish Week. Lewis said that East End’s Rabbi Josh Stanton was one of the first people who reached out to her after the fire, which started next door and destroyed the 128-year-old sanctuary.
“We just made a covenant to move in there,” Lewis said. “Josh was offering me a tabernacle. This big-hearted rabbi opens the door to a church, in a time of rising antisemitism, that’s just bold, fierce love at work.”
Stanton told the New York Jewish Week that the relationship between the two faith communities “predates the fire itself.”
“The reverend has been a friend and a mentor for years,” Stanton said. “When her community’s building went up in flames, I reached out to her and just said, ‘anything you need, just know that I’m here, know that our community is here.’”
Middle Collegiate Church started using the temple’s space on Easter Sunday that spring. The synagogue’s president Brian Lifsec said he was there on the first day.
“It felt like a tent in the desert for these congregants,” Lifsec said.
It’s not all bleak out there.
I went to church last Sunday, where East End Temple, a Jewish synagogue in the East Village, has been hosting @middlechurch for almost two years after a fire destroyed their historic building. pic.twitter.com/0FjtlXr7TA
— Jacob Henry (@jhenrynews) December 8, 2022
Stanton said that East End Temple covers “upwards of 95% of the cost” for the church to rent the space.
“That’s because of the generosity of our donors,” Stanton said. “And because our community understands that walking the walk of Judaism means reaching out to people who might themselves not be Jewish.”
Lewis is the first woman and first African-American to serve as a senior minister for the Collegiate church system, which dates back to the Reformed Dutch Church congregations that formed in the New York area in the 1600s. She is comfortable leading church services in front of an ark, a menorah and Hebrew scriptures, but aches to get back into her own building.
How and whether she can do that depends in part on the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which is responsible for preserving New York City’s historically significant buildings. It seeks to protect the historic facade made of limestone that remains standing. The church, following an 18-month study by several architectural and engineering firms, says there is too much damage to the existing structure to integrate it into a new home.
“The walls themselves are historic,” Stanton said. “Despite the church’s best efforts, there is no way to keep them safely up. What is so sad and problematic is that from an architectural standpoint, there is nothing they can do.”
Lewis said that the church has spent over $4 million to secure the site, clean up debris, stabilize the facade with stainless steel and paint the bricks so they don’t deteriorate — and it is still not safe to rebuild.
“We did that because we wanted the facade,” Lewis said on Sunday after prayer, as she led some church members to the site of the burnt-down building. “We just can’t afford it. We’re wanting to build a building that is appropriate for this historic neighborhood but also has the capacity for 22nd-century ministry.”
The Reverend Dr. Jacqui Lewis of Middle Collegiate Church leading services at East End Temple. (Courtesy)
In a phone call last week, Lewis said that she doesn’t want this to feel like she’s in “a battle” with the preservation community.
“But some parts of the preservation community are pretty strident about us keeping up the wall,” Lewis said.
The church is waiting on a decision from the commission on Dec. 13, which will decide the fate of their building.
Anthony Donovan, a church member who has lived in Greenwich Village for 31 years, told the New York Jewish Week that “there are deep pockets of real estate that would really love this facade” as part of their own plans.
“Luxury housing would look fantastic behind this facade,” Donovan said. “And they have millions to keep that facade that we don’t have.”
Village Preservation, an activist group opposed to the demolition of the facade, said in an emailed press release that alternatives need to be studied.
“We are urging the Landmarks Preservation Commission not to grant such permission at this time, because we don’t believe there is sufficient documentation that alternatives to preserve the historic facade have been fully explored, nor that there is sufficient evidence at this time to justify the permanent and irreversible removal,” the organization said.
“The facade is on life support,” Lewis said. “We could pull the plug and come back to life. We could have a resurrection. We could have a new life that is both historic and moves into the 22nd century, and that’s what we want to do.”
Assembly member Harvey Epstein, who is Jewish and represents the district, gave testimony supporting the church at a previous hearing with the Landmark Preservation Commission.
“While I understand Landmark’s concerns, I think more important than just what that physical piece is that the actual church and the people behind it get to come back,” Epstein told the New York Jewish Week over the phone.
He added that Rabbi Stanton is an example of someone “living Jewish values everyday” by allowing the church to worship at East End Temple.
“It’s really critical, especially in times where you see an increase in antisemitism, that people who are Christian know that people who are Jewish, while having different religious beliefs, are allies to them as well,” Epstein said.
Stanton said that if it is decided that the walls have to stay up, then the conversation will move into “the realm of heartbreaking decisions.”
“It is not clear if the walls have to stay up, that the church will have to rebuild at all, even if it raises significant funds to do so,” Stanton said. “If they move out of this area, there’s going to be a huge gaping void for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers. It just wouldn’t be the same.”
The building has served the community since 1892. Before the fire, it served as a community hub for other programs, some run by other synagogues, that include soup kitchens and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
The Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis of Middle Collegiate Church leads congregants outside the destroyed remains of the previous church building. (Jacob Henry)
It has also played a role in supporting people during the AIDS crisis, helping people pay rent during Covid and more recently, supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia.
Together, the church and synagogue communities also hold a “food for families” program, where members help feed 1,500 families every Sunday.
Edna Benitez, a church-goer who has lived in the Village for 27 years, told the New York Jewish Week that when the fire broke out, the church was housing a Torah for another synagogue, The Shul of New York.
“They had an ancient Torah,” Benitez said. “Our fire destroyed the building, but the Torah stayed. It’s a huge symbol. We’re here two years later celebrating in a temple. We housed the Torah, this incredible, prized possession that meant so much to you, and now you’re housing us.”
Whatever happens with the Landmarks Commission, Lewis said that she expects her partnership with Stanton and East End Temple “to be lifelong.”
“We have so many things to do together,” Lewis said. “I know that we’ll be welcome there, and I also know that they know that we need a bigger space. In the meantime, they’ve been incredible hosts and they are offering us ongoing hospitality.”
Outside the church facade, Stanton spoke out how in a time of troubling antisemitism — fueled by celebrities like Kanye West and Kyrie Irving and propagated by groups like the Black Hebrew Israelite sect — the relationship between his synagogue and the church represents “real life.”
“While antisemitism is on the rise, so too is allyship,” Stanton said. “The Reverend Dr. Jacqui Lewis, who embodies allyship at its best, is one of the people who reaches out every single time that something awful happens to a Jewish community.”
Lewis, who can command a stage (or bimah), led a passionate sermon on Sunday, with the fire on the back of everyone’s mind.
“Could we do a little interior work as we go along this pilgrim’s journey so that we are not accidentally putting fuel on the fire that is raging and burning down the world?” she said.
—
The post This Jewish temple is providing a home for a historic church in the Village appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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How wrong I was about the young Ukrainian with the Chabad yarmulke
מײַן מאַמע, עליה השלום, פֿלעגט מיר זאָגן, אַז בעסער איז טראַכטן גוטס וועגן אַ שלעכטן מענטשן, איידער שלעכטס — וועגן אַ גוטן.
ניט איין מאָל אין פֿאַרלויף פֿון מײַן לעבן האָב איך זיך אָנגעמאַכט צרות און צומאָל זיך צעקלאַפּט ביז בלוט מײַן אייגענעם פּרצוף, זיך באַמיִענדיק פֿאָלגן די דאָזיקע עצה. עס זײַנען געווען פֿאַלן, ווען איך בין אָפּגעטראָטן פֿון דעם דאָזיקן פּרינציפּ, און איך באַדויער דאָס טאַקע.
הײַנט אַרבעט איך ווי אַ פֿאָרשטייער פֿון דער ייִדישער אַגענץ אין מאָלדאָווע מיט ייִדישע — און צומאָל מיט ניט־ייִדישע — פּליטים פֿון אוקראַיִנע. מײַן אויפֿגאַבע איז פֿאַרשנעלערן דעם פּראָצעס פֿון זייער אַרויספֿאָרן קיין ישׂראל. הונדערטער פּנימער, הונדערטער גורלות. כּמעט אויסשליסלעך — פֿרויען מיט קינדער און זקנים. ניט זעלטן זקנים, וועלכע האָבן איבערגעלעבט אַלס קינדער די צווייטע וועלט־מלחמה. צו מאָל — קינדער, וועלכע שרעקן זיך פֿון דעם, וואָס איך רעד אויף רוסיש מיט אַ מאָסקווער אויסשפּראַך. אַזוי רעדן דאָך רוסישע מערדער.
דאָס גאַנצע באַזיניקטע לעבן מײַנס בין איך געווען אַ ייִדישער נאַציאָנאַליסט און איך בלײַב אַזאַ ביז איצט. איך בין ניט קיין „רוסישער“ ייִד, הגם איך בין געבוירן געוואָרן אין מאָסקווע און רעד רוסיש, ווי אַ מאָסקווער גוי. איך בין ניט קיין „אוקראַיִנישער“ ייִד, הגם מײַן מאַמע איז געבוירן געוואָרן אין פּיריאַטין אין דער פּאָלטאַווער געגנט, און איך רעד גאַנץ נישקשה אוקראַיִניש.
איך בין אַ ייִדישער ייִד. מײַן היימלאַנד אינעם סאַמע טיפֿסטן זין פֿונעם וואָרט „היים“ איז ישׂראל, און קיין שום בירגערשאַפֿט, חוץ דער ישׂראלדיקער, האָב איך ניט און דאַרף איך ניט. אָבער דאָ און איצט זע איך אַן אַבסאָלוט בייז און אַן אַבסאָלוט גוטס, וועלכע מעקן אָפּ גרענעצן פֿון נאַציאָנאַליטעטן און צווינגען זיך צו דערמאָנען, אַז מיר אַלע זײַנען בני־אָדם, אַז מיר זײַנען געבוירן געוואָרן מענטשן און מוזן שטרעבן צו בלײַבן מענטשן. טאַקע יענץ, וואָס אויף ייִדיש רופֿט מען „אַ מענטש“.
זיך אומקערנדיק צום אָנהייב, צו מײַן מאַמעס עצה — שלאָג איך זיך על־חטא: נעכטן אין איינעם פֿון די פּונקטן אין אוקראַיִנע, וווּ עס זײַנען צײַטווײַליק אײַנגעאָרדנט די ייִדישע פּליטים, האָב איך זיך פֿאַרנומען מיט מײַן אַרבעט. צו מיר איז געווען אַ גאַנץ גרויסע ריי. צווישן די, וואָס האָבן געוואַרט אין דער ריי, האָט זיך געוואָרפֿן אין די אויגן אַ יוגנטלעכער מיט אַ חב״דישער יאַרמלקע. „מסתּמא אַ דעזערטיר, וואָס אַנטלויפֿט פֿון מאָביליזאַציע אין דער אוקראַיִנישער אַרמיי,“ האָב איך אַ טראַכט געטאָן און דערפֿילט אַן אַנטיפּאַטיע צו אים.
ניט לאַנג צוריק האָב איך באַזוכט מערבֿ־אוקראַיִנע און געטראָפֿן דאָרט עטלעכע מאַנצבילן — אוקראַיִנישע בירגער, בתוכם ייִדן, וועלכע האָבן זיך באַמיט אויסמײַדן מאָביליזאַציע אין דער אוקראַיִנישער אַרמיי, געגנבֿעט די גרענעץ צווישן אוקראַיִנע און מאָלדאָווע. איך האָב געמיינט, אַז דער דאָזיקער יונגער חב״דניק איז איינער פֿון יענע, וואָס האָבן באַוויזן זיך אַרויסצושמוגלען.
אָבער איך האָב אַ טעות געהאַט. ס׳האָט זיך אַרויסגעוויזן, אַז ער איז בכלל אַ רוסלענדישער בירגער פֿון איינער פֿון די צוויי הויפּטשטעט. צופֿעליק איז ער געווען צוליב זײַנע חב״דישע ענינים אין אוקראַיִנע, אין קיִעוו, ווען עס האָט זיך אָנגעהויבן די מלחמה. דער בחור איז געבליבן אַלס וואָלונטיר אין דער אָרטיקער ייִדישער קהילה. במשך פֿון אַ חודש האָט ער געהאָלפֿן אַרויספֿירן ייִדישע פּליטים פֿון דער שטאָט דער באַשאָסענער מיט ראַקעטן, אין בײַשטעט פֿון וועלכער ס׳איז שוין אַרײַן דאָס רוסישע מיליטער. בלויז איצט, ווען די באַוואָפֿנטע כּוחות פֿון אוקראַיִנע הייבן אָן איבערצוגיין אין דער קיִעווער געגנט צו אַ קאָנטער־אָנגריף, איז ער אַוועקגעפֿאָרן פֿון אוקראַיִנע קיין מאָלדאָווע כּדי עולה זײַן קיין ישׂראל.
הײַנט וועט דער דאָזיקר יונגער חב״דניק מיט גאָטס הילף זײַן אין ישׂראל.
זײַ מיר מוחל, בחור אין דער חב״דישער יאַרמלקע. איך זאָג צו צו האַלטן זיך אין דער צוקונפֿט שטרענגער בײַ דער עצה פֿון מײַן מאַמען: בעסער איז טראַכטן גוטס וועגן אַ שלעכטן מענטשן, איידער שלעכטס — וועגן אַ גוטן.
The post How wrong I was about the young Ukrainian with the Chabad yarmulke appeared first on The Forward.
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Teenager eulogizes slain father who saved his life in West Bank terror attack just before Yom Kippur
(JTA) — Standing at his father’s grave after Yom Kippur 16-year-old Yoav Shukron thanked him for the warning that saved his life a day earlier, when a Palestinian gunman opened fire on the two of them at a West Bank spring.
“Dad, I want to say thank you for 16 years together. Thank you for giving me life,” Yoav said on Monday night as his father, Netanel Shukron, 48, was laid to rest in the West Bank settlement of Alei Zahav.
“Thank you for shouting out to me during the attack, when the terrorist came in. I don’t remember what you said to me, and I ran,” he added, in remarks carried by Channel 12 news.
Yoav had accompanied his father to the Ein Riya spring near the settlement of Neve Tzuf on Sunday to immerse ahead of Yom Kippur when the attack took place.
Yoav escaped unharmed. Shukron, a father of six, was critically wounded and later pronounced dead at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva.
Hundreds of relatives, friends and residents attended the funeral, held after the Yom Kippur fast ended.
“Nati was the most involved father in the world,” his wife, Merav Shukron, said.
Reflecting on their 18-year marriage, she said, “We came from different families, but that didn’t stop us from being soulmates. Nati, our family is perfect, everything was perfect.”
The couple had six children, ages 4 to 16. Shukron worked as an information systems analyst at Hachshara Insurance Company, while Merav Shukron is a lecturer at Ariel University.
Merav said the family had been due to travel abroad the following week and that her husband had carefully planned the trip around spending time together, including packing a sukkah and food for the holiday.
According to the Israeli military’s preliminary investigation, the Palestinian attacker drove to the spring and opened fire. An Israeli military tracker who was nearby in an armored vehicle returned fire and wounded the gunman, preventing him from continuing the attack.
The attacker fled and was located several hours later receiving treatment at a hospital near Ramallah, where soldiers from the elite Duvdevan unit arrested him.
Israeli security officials identified the suspected attacker as Qadri Samara, a resident of the Palestinian town of Biddu who is affiliated with the Hamas terror group and was previously known to Israeli security forces, according to Channel 13. Investigators said he had visited the spring the previous day and determined that large numbers of people would be there to immerse in its waters ahead of Yom Kippur, a practice observed by some Jews before the fast.
In the aftermath of the attack, Israeli troops carried out a large operation in Biddu, mapping Samara’s home ahead of its possible demolition, searching about 100 locations and questioning about 90 suspects. The military also reinforced its forces across the West Bank, including by deploying the elite Egoz unit to the area.
About an hour after the shooting, soldiers thwarted a separate attempted car-ramming attack at the Ganim military post in the northern West Bank. One attacker was killed and a second was arrested, Channel 13 reported, adding that no soldiers were wounded.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a post on X, “No terrorist is immune, neither are those who assist them; we will settle scores with all of them – in Gaza, in Lebanon, and in Judea and Samaria,” using the biblical term for the West Bank.
President Isaac Herzog noted that the attack came “on the eve of Yom Kippur, as the people of Israel gather for the holy day.”
“Terror will not break us or shake our spirit,” he said. “We will stand against it together, united, determined and full of faith.”
Shukron’s killing has also become the first case in which Israeli officials are considering applying a death penalty law approved by the Knesset in March, according to the KAN public broadcaster.
The law, long championed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and his far-right Otzma Yehudit party, makes death the default sentence for non-Israelis convicted in Israeli military courts of carrying out deadly nationalist attacks, while allowing judges to impose life imprisonment in “special circumstances.” It passed the Knesset 62-48 and immediately drew a High Court challenge.
Ben-Gvir raised the possibility of applying the law to Samara during a security meeting before Yom Kippur, arguing that the case was the first to meet the law’s criteria. Netanyahu did not rule out the proposal and asked IDF representatives for their position on applying the law, which they said they saw no impediment to doing, according to KAN, though the report noted that the military advocate general was not present at the meeting. The issue is expected to be discussed again in a smaller cabinet forum with the IDF’s legal chief present, the report said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Teenager eulogizes slain father who saved his life in West Bank terror attack just before Yom Kippur appeared first on The Forward.
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Herzog’s Yom Kippur pardon of soldier crystallizes choice for Israeli voters
On the eve of Yom Kippur, President Isaac Herzog pardoned Elor Azaria, an Israeli soldier convicted of manslaughter for shooting a wounded Palestinian attacker in the head in Hebron a decade ago.
Azaria served nine months of an 18-month sentence and was released in 2018. His conviction remained on his record, with the ordinary process leaving it in place until 2032, complicating life for the now 30-year-old.
To ease that burden, Defense Minister Yisrael Katz, from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party, in July asked Israeli President Isaac Herzog, to grant Azaria clemency, expunging the record.
This Herzog did on the eve of Yom Kippur. There is a coherent argument for that decision. Azaria was a young soldier when the shooting occurred, he served his sentence, and a criminal record can continue to impose practical obstacles on civilian life long after a formal prison sentence has ended. Herzog invoked reconciliation and the possibility of a new beginning, as well as the consequences Azaria had already endured.
But the army did not agree. Current military chief Eyal Zamir and other senior officers opposed the request, arguing that Azaria had never expressed genuine remorse.
The pardon has now returned the Azaria affair to the center of Israeli politics at a particularly consequential moment.
Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, the military chief at the time who publicly pushed for prosecution, is now the main political leader in the opposition and its leading candidate for prime minister. Netanyahu, the prime minister at the time who called for Azaria’s pardon, is still leading the other side of Israel’s great political argument. After the Oct. 27 election, Herzog will consult the elected factions and probably assign the task of forming a government to one of them, based on who he believes has the best chance.
If the numbers leave neither Eisenkot nor Netanyahu with a clear path to a majority of 61, Herzog could face a genuinely consequential exercise of presidential judgment between the two men who stand on opposite sides of the Azaria case – which he himself has turned into an election issue.
The roots of that divide go back to March 24, 2016, when Israeli soldier Azaria aimed his rifle at Abdel Fattah al-Sharif and pulled the trigger. Al-Sharif had attacked Israeli soldiers with a knife and was shot and incapacitated. Minutes later, as he lay on the ground, Azaria nonchalantly raised his rifle and fired, from a few meters away. Al-Sharif was clearly not threatening the numerous soldiers milling around.
The shooting was captured on video, and what might otherwise have remained a disputed incident became one of the defining political arguments in Israel. It was a moment when Israeli politics – notoriously complex and sometimes inscrutable even to insiders – briefly came into focus: the fault line is whether you think this is OK.
The military treated the shooting as a serious criminal matter,. Eisenkot’s position, which earned vilification from the political right, was that a soldier could use lethal force against a genuine threat but could not simply kill a captive. The case became a test of whether the IDF’s rules meant anything when enforcing them was unpopular.
Netanyahu, who then as now was prime minister, is a man of sharp political instincts. During the controversy he called Azaria’s father, Charlie, offering sympathy. The eventual conviction was for manslaughter. After Azaria’s conviction, Netanyahu openly went all the way to politicize the case, calling for Azaria to receive a pardon.
The difference was unmistakable. Eisenkot saw the case through both the institutional obligations of the army and morality; he still believed in the old Zionist notion of the IDF as the world’s most ethical military. Netanyahu saw the political benefit in amplifying and harnessing the emotional identification of many frightened people with the soldier.
Israeli society was changing, the inflection point being the Second Intifada – a campaign of barbaric suicide bombings against civilians that was launched between 2000 and 2004, even as Israel was offering Palestinians statehood on the vast majority of the West Bank and Gaza. In 2005 Israel unilaterally pulled out of Gaza, uprooting thousands of settlers, resulting in Hamas jihadists taking over and years of rocket fire. The 2010s saw more killings.
After so many disappointments and so much bloodshed, many Israelis had just given up on the Palestinians (and to be fair, the feeling was mutual, largely because of the continuing occupation and the constant expansion of West Bank settlements). A significant part of the public had become indifferent at best to the idea that a soldier confronting a terrorist should be constrained by rules that might prevent him from firing. Netanyahu was either riding the tiger or goading it on, and perhaps both at the same time.
A decade later, the institutional divide exposed by the case remains remarkably intact. The current military leadership’s opposition to the pardon places today’s IDF, at least on this issue, in the same institutional tradition that Eisenkot represented in 2016: the conviction that the army’s rules must survive the political passions surrounding a particular soldier.
On the baseline level, this sad affair is about where self-defense ends and vengeance begins, and what to do when many citizens no longer care. But on a higher level, it encapsulates a contradiction from the earliest days of Zionism. The founders wanted two things at once: to turn the Jews, via national sovereignty, into “a people like all others”; and to make of their state “a light unto the nations.” Both sound good, yet one must choose.
The bullet that Azaria fired in Hebron helped crystallize that choice, which maps neatly into the political one between Eisenkot and Netanyahu. In placing his own signature on the final page of the Azaria affair, Herzog ensured it will be a highlight of the campaign, and of the legacy of both Eisenkot and Netanyahu.
It is no coincidence that the same person advocating for a man many consider a murderer is also feverishly machinating to dismantle the foundations of liberal democracy in Israel, while on trial for corruption. For Netanyahu, the ship of old-time Zionist mythology has sailed, and he’s not aiming to cast any light unto the nations. Eisenkot, essentially, still is.
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