Uncategorized
1 year ago, a mass shooting in Buffalo brought our Jewish and Black communities together. What took so long?
(JTA) — The attack on the Tops Friendly Market on Buffalo’s Jefferson Avenue last May 14 shook Western New York to the core. In the span of less than 10 minutes, an 18-year-old wielding an AK-47 killed seven and injured three Black people.
The victims were teachers, caretakers, activists, new fathers, grandmothers, community leaders and all around good people. If not for the heroism of retired police officer Aaron Salter Jr., who lost his life in the attack, and the quick response of the Buffalo Police Department, the death toll could have been far higher.
For our Buffalo Jewish community, the attack was a call to action. In years past, the Jefferson Avenue corridor was the heart of the Jewish community. As Jews joined the white flight to the suburbs, it became a place where very few Jews ever frequented. The vigils held in the aftermath of the attack were the first time many Jews in our community had been back in the East Side of Buffalo in decades, if not more.
The gunman had specifically targeted the neighborhood, traveling three hours away from his home to “kill black people.” As the national media emphasized over and over, Buffalo is the sixth most segregated city in the country.
What does it mean that our white Jewish community is so removed from our Black and brown neighbors? A casual remark by a young Jewish parent a few weeks after the attack really struck home for me. He said the shooting at the school in Uvalde, Texas in June 2022 hit a lot closer to home than the shooting just down the road at Tops. As a parent of school age children he could relate to the suffering of the parents in Texas, not to the horror that occurred in Buffalo’s inner city. How could this be? Where did our community go wrong?
As the rabbinic consultant at our local Jewish Communal Relations Council, I take this disconnect very personally. I grew up in a predominantly Black part of West Philadelphia. Back in the 1980s, none of my classmates in my suburban Jewish day school would come to visit my house. They and their parents were afraid to come by, locking their car doors whenever they happened to drive by my home. Sadly, the divide has only grown worse.
Starting in 2017, our local Jewish federation has made a concerted effort to bridge this divide. We have held two missions to Israel, specifically geared to our local African-American leadership. We hired a racial justice coordinator, and are part of the initial cohort of the Jewish Federations of North America’s Jewish Equity and Diversity Initiative.
It has begun to make a difference. The Sunday after the May 14 attack, dozens of Jewish communal leaders showed up on the street outside Tops. Over the course of the past year, we have held racial healing circles, hosted museum tours of local Black artists, held a Freedom Seder and toured gardens on Buffalo’s predominately Black East Side. While we are very far from the shared society we aspire to, I can honestly say we are making strides toward closing the gap. Our community is much more open and accepting of Jews of color, and its members are beginning to accept our role in the systemic racism that is pervasive in our society.
This has been a very bad year for us in Western New York. Beyond the mass shooting at Tops, we had the stabbing of Salman Rushdie at the Chautauqua Institution, two major blizzards that left more than 40 people dead and the near death of Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin on the football field.
The one-year anniversary of the Tops attack will hit us hard, but it will not deter us from the work ahead. We, the Buffalo Jewish community, will be there in full force at the various events planned to mark the occasion, not as bystanders, but as upstanders. We are, after all, not only Jews, but Buffalonians.
As my friend, fellow recent traveler to Israel and poet laureate of Buffalo, Jillian Hanesworth, wrote in her poem “Choose Love”: “[W]hen evil tries to break us / we choose to stand tall/ We’ll shout loud and live louder / until the walls of hate fall / because justice can’t be limited / so we choose it for all… So, no matter what others say / no matter what they try to do / love, light, and each other / is what we will always choose.”
—
The post 1 year ago, a mass shooting in Buffalo brought our Jewish and Black communities together. What took so long? appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
How the Israeli police’s first trans volunteer fought bigotry on the force
From the beginning of the biographical documentary The First Lady, Efrat Tilma makes it clear she has mixed feelings about the film, which details how she became the first trans woman to volunteer in Israel’s police department. When asked why she wanted to make the movie, she tells one of the directors, “I didn’t want to. You asked me.” This prickly demeanor persists throughout the film, although she later acknowledges that she wants “to show people that a trans woman is just like any other woman, like any other person.”
Tilma starts her story in 1964, the year she first tried living as a woman. Using archival footage, animation, and present-day interviews, directors Udi Nir and Sagi Bornstein present a moving portrait of Tilma’s life, unveiling how the burdens of her past have followed her into the present.
When Tilma was 14, she often wandered the streets of Tel Aviv to escape her abusive father. There she met another trans woman, Gila Goldstein, who introduced her to a whole network of trans women who taught Tilma about hormones and gender reassignment surgery. That same year, a man held her hostage in his apartment for a day and a half and sexually assaulted her. Not long afterwards, she says, an Israeli police officer threatened to kill her for dressing as a woman.
These experiences made her determined to carve her own path in spite of obstacles or the opinions of others, including the film directors. In one scene, as the team records her coming out of her apartment building, she strikes several poses.
“Natural, Efrat. We said natural!” a director reminds her.
“Kiss my ass!” Tilma responds, before strutting away.
But behind all the bravado is a vulnerable human being, who spends her first moment in the film nervously rehearsing the speech she is going to give at a 2023 Pride celebration in Israel. Tilma acknowledges that she’s not sure she’s been able to process her trauma and still carries it with her.
After leaving Israel in 1967, Tilma spent nearly four decades living in Europe, where she created a new life for herself as a woman. She performed in nightclubs, worked as an airline stewardess, got sex reassignment surgery in Morocco, married a man, and, nearly two decades later, divorced him. In 2005, she finally moved back to Israel and, on a whim, began volunteering with the Israel Police.
She wasn’t open about her gender identity at first, given the negative way she saw her colleagues treat trans women on the street. But when the police captain eventually discovered she was trans, the result ended up being positive: She began leading workshops on approaching the trans community with empathy and respect.
The film jumps between Tilma’s past and the present, as she reacts to Netanyahu’s 2022 re-election and the creation of a far-right coalition in Israel. Convinced that the world is reverting to the hateful days of her youth, Tilma leaves the police force and plans how she’ll kill herself if the government attempts to round up trans people. As protests start to sweep the country, however, she decides to channel her fear into activism. Shots of her among the protesters are mixed with recollections of her 1971 sex reassignment surgery and abuse she faced from a doctor in 1973.
Respecting Tilma’s boundaries while encouraging her to share her life story, the filmmakers capture both Tilma’s toughness and sensitivity, giving the film the honesty and heart that make The First Lady feel so intimate. They get Tilma to open doors into her life — literally.
Several times, the directors try to convince Tilma to bring the film crew into her apartment, where she says that no one else has been for a decade. When she finally lets them inside, they encounter piles of clothing, discarded plastic bottles, and other hoarded objects. The filmmakers tell her that the film crew will help her reorganize the apartment bit by bit, in much the same way they piece together her story: bit by bit.
Even if she approaches the whole process with a bit of attitude, Tilma remains determined to never give up fighting for a better life — or a better apartment.
The First Lady will screen at the New York Jewish Film Festival on Jan. 20.
The post How the Israeli police’s first trans volunteer fought bigotry on the force appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Exclusive: Israeli Officials Harshly Critical of Steve Witkoff’s Influence on US Policy on Gaza, Iran, i24NEWS Told
US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
i24 News – Amid growing disagreements with the Trump administration over the composition of the Board of Peace for Gaza and the question of a strike on Iran, officials in Israel point to a key figure behind decisions seen as running counter to Israeli interests: Special Envoy Steve Witkoff.
The officials mention sustained dissatisfaction with Witkoff. Sources close to the PM Netanyahu told i24NEWS on Saturday evening: “For several months now, the feeling has been that envoy Steve Witkoff has strong ties, for his own reasons, across the Middle East, and that at times the Israeli interest does not truly prevail in his decision-making.”
This criticism relates both to the proposed inclusion of Turkey and Qatar in Gaza’s governing bodies and to the Iranian threat. A senior Israeli official put it bluntly: “If it turns out that he is among those blocking a strike on Iran, that is far more than a coincidence.”
Uncategorized
EU Warns of Downward Spiral After Trump Threatens Tariffs Over Greenland
European Union flags flutter outside the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on June 17, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Yves Herman
European Union leaders on Saturday warned of a “dangerous downward spiral” over US President Donald Trump‘s vow to implement increasing tariffs on European allies until the US is allowed to buy Greenland.
“Tariffs would undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral. Europe will remain united, coordinated, and committed to upholding its sovereignty,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU Council President Antonio Costa said in posts on X.
The bloc’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said tariffs would hurt prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic, while distracting the EU from its “core task” of ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“China and Russia must be having a field day. They are the ones who benefit from divisions among allies,” Kallas said on X.
“Tariffs risk making Europe and the United States poorer and undermine our shared prosperity. If Greenland’s security is at risk, we can address this inside NATO.”
Ambassadors from the European Union’s 27 countries will convene on Sunday for an emergency meeting to discuss their response to the tariff threat.