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A Minnesota synagogue built an ice rink — and is inaugurating it with a klezmer skate
(JTA) — A forecasted low of -16 degrees in the Twin Cities on Thursday has the stage set perfectly for two frozen Jewish firsts — a Klezmer on Ice festival and a synagogue-run skating rink.
Such is life in Minnesota, where bone-chilling temperatures are no match for Jewish festivities.
“It kind of shows us the Minnesota-style of thinking about the winter where just because it’s freezing cold outside, you don’t have to stop doing everything,” said Marcus Rubenstein, rabbi at Temple of Aaron in St. Paul.
“I used to be a rabbi in New York. They said you couldn’t schedule any big events in the winter because no one would come in case it snowed,” Rubenstein said. “But [here] sometimes it will snow 6, 7 inches and be -5, -10 degrees, and you’ll have everybody come out. I mean people in their 80s, 90s to little kids. And they just put on their coats and go out and have fun.”
Rabbi Marcus Rubenstein of Temple of Aaron test drives his synagogue’s new ice rink. (Courtesy of Marcus Rubenstein)
Temple of Aaron, a Conservative congregation of about 700 families, is inviting families to bundle up and have fun on what Rubenstein believes is the first-ever skating rink on a synagogue property. The rink, which can accommodate about 30 people at a time, was built and is being maintained by “Ice Captains” — synagogue members who clear it of snow and shovel off any extra ice that forms.
On Thursday, skaters at the rink heard the kickoff performance of the klezmer festival, featuring Jewbalaya, a hybrid klezmer and New Orleans jazz band in which Rubenstein plays the trumpet.
But the music will be piped in from inside the synagogue — a concession, Rubenstein and others associated with the festival said, to the cold.
Last week, musicians promoting Klezmer on Ice with a pre-festival performance alongside Lake Harriett, the (usually frozen-over) body of water at the heart of Minneapolis, ran into some technical challenges. Anticipating frigid temperatures, the musicians planned to play from a lakeside booth decorated like a boom box as part of a pop-art initiative called Art Shanty. But there was a wrinkle.
“We were supposed to have a sousaphone player who by the time they got their heavy big brass instrument into the box, the valves were frozen so they couldn’t play,” said Josh Rosard, an organizer of Klezmer on Ice. The performance went on without the sousaphone.
It’s not just brass instruments that are vulnerable to cold snaps. Strings and woodwinds can quickly go out of tune in the cold, as metal contracts and wood begins to warp. Clarinets and violins, staples of the Eastern European Jewish music genre, just can’t take it.
That’s why most of the Klezmer on Ice events will take place indoors — including but not only at Temple of Aaron. On the schedule for the weekend-long festival are local and national performers Sarina Partridge, Tzipporah Johnson, Izzy Buckner, the Klezmommies and the band Midwood. There will also be a cabaret variety show; klezmer-infused Shabbat services; and a luminary Havdalah ceremony.
Rosard said he saw the event as a breakout moment for the Twin Cities’ klezmer scene and, given the strong track record of longstanding klezmer festivals at spawning new acts, an opportunity.
“I’m really excited for what players in the community are going to take out of the workshops in particular and excited to see what may come out of it in the future,” said Rosard, who grew up casually playing the accordion but got more seriously involved in the klezmer world during the pandemic. He met his Klezmer on Ice co-organizer, Jewish musician and folklorist Sarah Larsson, with whom he attended KlezCanada and the Portland Klezmer Festival.
Still, he acknowledged, “It’s a little bit tongue in cheek to do something like this in the middle of February in Minnesota.”
Rubenstein said his congregants are up for it. Temple of Aaron’s new ice rink will be open not only during the klezmer festival’s opening night but for skating sessions most Saturdays after Shabbat morning services and Hebrew school classes finish.
The sun sets ahead of the Klezmer on Ice Festival’s opening night, which features a free skate session at Temple of Aaron’s ice rink. (Courtesy of Marcus Rubenstein)
If the activity isn’t exactly standard after-synagogue fare, it’s perfectly permitted under the Conservative movement’s interpretation of Jewish law. The movement, of which Temple of Aaron is a part, permits non-competitive ice skating on Shabbat, so long as no Shabbat rules are violated (such as driving to or from a rink or paying to rent skates), and the skating takes place within the boundaries of an eruv, or Jewish legal enclosure inside which certain objects can be carried on Shabbat.
Rubenstein said he was thinking about the activity in different terms — as it relates to making Temple of Aaron a centerpiece of a St. Paul Shabbat.
“The kids are ice skating anyway,” he added. “So why not ice skate at shul and come do it together with their Jewish friends, and build community that way?”
Temperatures are supposed to rise over the course of the weekend, but the high on Friday should be in the low single-digits. So for the klezmer performance that is supposed to take place at Lake Harriet, Rosard says, a plan is in place to avoid last weekend’s snafus.
“We’ll have the sousaphone player drive up as close as possible, then run-slash-briskly walk straight into the performance shelter,” he said. “We didn’t quite have the urgency last time.”
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US Hails Progress in Ukraine Peace Talks But Security Questions Unresolved
US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, US Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll and and other members of the US delegation, and Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak and other members of the Ukrainian delegation sit before closed-door talks on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine, at the US Mission in Geneva, Switzerland, November 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Emma Farge
The United States said it had made significant progress on crafting a plan to end the war in Ukraine during talks on Sunday but no agreement was reached on how to guarantee Kyiv’s security amid concerns about the threat posed by Russia.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio led the talks in Geneva with a high-level Ukrainian delegation after Kyiv and its allies voiced alarm about a US-backed plan because of what they saw as major concessions to Russia, and pressed for changes.
Rubio said work remained to be done on questions including the role of NATO and security guarantees for Ukraine, but that his team had narrowed down unresolved issues in a 28-point peace plan for Ukraine championed by President Donald Trump.
“And we have achieved that today in a very substantial way,” Rubio told reporters at the US mission in Geneva.
Earlier, Trump said Ukraine had not been grateful for American efforts over the war, prompting Ukrainian officials to stress their gratitude to the US president for his support.
European officials joined the US and Ukrainian delegations for talks late on Sunday after crafting a modified version of the US plan for Ukraine that pushes back on proposed limits to Kyiv’s armed forces and mooted territorial concessions.
The European plan proposes that Ukraine be granted a larger military than under the US plan and that talks on land swaps should start from the front line rather than a pre-determined view of which areas should be considered Russian.
On Friday, Trump said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had until Thursday to approve the plan, which calls on Ukraine to cede territory, accept limits on its military and renounce ambitions to join NATO.
For many Ukrainians, including soldiers fighting on the front lines, such terms would amount to capitulation after nearly four years of fighting in Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two. On Saturday, Trump said the current proposal for ending the war is not his final offer.
Rubio said the United States still needed time to address the pending issues. He hoped a deal could be reached by Thursday but suggested that it could also take longer.
US and Ukrainian officials were discussing the possibility of Zelensky traveling to the United States, maybe as early as this week, to discuss the peace plan with Trump, two sources familiar with matter said on Sunday.
The main idea is that they would discuss the most sensitive issues in the peace plan, such as the matter of territory, one of the sources said. There is no confirmed date for now, the source added.
ORIGIN OF U.S. PLAN STIRS CONTROVERSY
The main talks between US and Ukrainian officials got under way in a stiff atmosphere at the US mission, soon after Trump complained in a Truth Social post that Ukraine’s leadership had shown “zero gratitude” to the US for its efforts and Europe continued to buy Russian oil.
Rubio interrupted the meeting to speak to reporters, saying the talks had been probably the best the US had held with Ukraine since Trump returned to power.
He said changes would be made to the plan to work towards a solution that both Ukraine and the US could support.
“Obviously this will ultimately have to be signed off with our presidents, although I feel very comfortable about that happening given the progress we’ve made,” said Rubio.
Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian delegation, was at pains to thank Trump for his commitment to Kyiv during the brief interlude. Minutes later, Zelensky also thanked Trump.
Yermak did not reappear with Rubio when the talks ended.
Since the US plan was announced, there has been confusion about who was involved in drawing it up. European allies said they had not been consulted.
Before heading to Geneva, Rubio insisted on X that Washington had authored the plan after remarks from some US senators suggesting otherwise.
Senator Angus King said Rubio had told senators the plan was not the administration’s position, but “essentially the wish-list of the Russians.”
A PERILOUS MOMENT FOR UKRAINE
The draft US plan, which includes many of Russia’s key demands and offers only vague assurances to Ukraine of “robust security guarantees,” comes at a perilous moment for Kyiv.
Russia has been making gains on parts of the front, albeit slowly and, according to Western and Ukrainian officials, the advances have been extremely costly in terms of lives lost.
The transportation hub of Pokrovsk has been partially taken by Russian forces and Ukrainian commanders say they do not have enough soldiers to prevent small, persistent incursions.
Ukraine’s power and gas facilities have been pummeled by drone and missile attacks, meaning millions of people are without water, heating and power for hours each day.
Zelensky himself has been under pressure domestically after a major corruption scandal broke, ensnaring some of his ministers and people in his close entourage.
He has warned that Ukraine risked losing its dignity and freedom – or Washington’s backing – over the US plan.
Kyiv had taken heart in recent weeks after the United States tightened sanctions on Russia’s oil sector, the main source of funding for the war, while its own long-range drone and missile strikes have caused considerable damage to the industry.
But the draft peace plan appears to hand the diplomatic advantage back to Moscow. Ukraine relies heavily on US intelligence and weapons to sustain its war against Russia.
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Who Was Tabtabai, Hezbollah’s Military Leader Killed by Israel?
People inspect a damaged building, after Israeli military said on Sunday that it struck a militant from the Lebanese Iran-aligned Hezbollah group, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanon November 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Yassin
The Israeli military on Sunday killed Hezbollah’s top military official, Haytham Ali Tabtabai, in a strike on the outskirts of the Lebanese capital that came despite a year-long ceasefire.
His killing was announced by Israel’s military. Hezbollah later confirmed his death, hailing him as “the great jihadist commander” who had “worked to confront the Israeli enemy until the last moment of his blessed life.”
Israel had already eliminated most of Iran-backed Hezbollah’s leadership during a war that raged between October 2023 and November 2024, when a US-brokered truce was agreed.
But Tabtabai, who was appointed as the group’s chief of staff after its recent war with Israel, was killed in a rare post-ceasefire operation against a senior Hezbollah figure.
MILITARY LEADER ROSE THROUGH HEZBOLLAH’S RANKS
Tabtabai was born in Lebanon in 1968 to a father with Iranian roots and a Lebanese mother, according to a senior Lebanese security source. He was not a founding member of Hezbollah but was part of its “second generation,” deploying with the group to fight alongside its allies in Syria and Yemen, the source said.
Israel’s military said Tabtabai joined Hezbollah in the 1980s and held several senior posts, including in its Radwan Force, an elite fighting unit. Israel killed most Radwan figures last year ahead of its ground invasion into Lebanon.
During last year’s war, Tabtabai led Hezbollah’s operations division and rose in rank as other top commanders were eliminated, the Israeli military’s statement said.
Once the ceasefire came into force, Tabtabai was appointed chief of staff and “worked extensively to restore their readiness for war with Israel,” according to the statement.
The Lebanese security source confirmed Tabtabai was swiftly promoted as other top Hezbollah officials were killed, and had been appointed chief of staff over the last year.
The Alma Center, a security research and teaching organization in Israel, said Tabtabai had survived other Israeli attacks both in Syria and during the war in Lebanon.
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Netanyahu, Smotrich to Meet on Israeli 2026 Budget that Faces Battle for Approval
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks with Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich during the weekly cabinet meeting at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, Israel, January 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/Pool
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and senior ministry officials will present Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later on Sunday with the state budget and planned structural reforms for 2026, Smotrich’s office said.
“The Finance Minister will present to the Prime Minister the necessary measures to ensure continued economic growth and to combat the high cost of living,” it said.
It added that cabinet ministers would vote on the budget on Dec. 4 but it is unlikely the budget would be approved by year end.
According to Israeli law, the budget must be approved by parliament by the end of March or new elections are triggered.
Its final approval faces an uphill battle that could ultimately lead to new elections.
The government has splintered in the past two years over the Gaza war, the ceasefire which has halted it and demands by ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties to exempt Jewish seminary students from mandatory military service.