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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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Argentina’s Milei Visits Rebbe’s Ohel, Grave of Chabad Leader, in New York, Reaffirms Strong Support for Israel
Argentine President Javier Milei speaks during a Plenum session of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, in Jerusalem, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Argentina’s President Javier Milei visited the Rebbe’s Ohel, the resting place of Chabad-Lubavitch leader Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, in Queens, New York on Sunday during his US diplomatic tour, reaffirming his strong support for Israel and solidarity with the Jewish community amid rising Middle East tensions.
Alongside Rabbi Simon Jacobson, chairman and publisher of The Algemeiner, the Argentine president visited the mausoleum of the world-renowned Jewish thinker and spiritual leader.
Over the years, the site has drawn not only devoted Jewish pilgrims but also leaders and public figures from around the world seeking guidance, inspiration, and a moment of reflection.
Milei’s visit to the Ohel marked his first stop in New York, a spiritually significant and politically symbolic gesture that comes amid surging antisemitism around the world and ongoing conflict in the Middle East, where the US and Israel continue to wage a military campaign against Iran.
Together with Foreign Secretary Pablo Quirno, Chief of Staff Manuel Adorni, and Secretary General of the Presidency Karina Milei, the Argentine leader began his diplomatic tour in Miami earlier this week, marking his 15th visit to the United States.
Organized by the Argentine Embassy as part of Argentina Week, in partnership with Bank of America and J.P. Morgan, this latest tour aims to strengthen diplomatic ties with allied leaders while attracting new investment to Buenos Aires.
On Saturday, Milei participated in the “Shields of the Americas” summit in Miami, which brought together political leaders and business figures from across the continent.
He also attended a luncheon hosted by US President Donald Trump and was honored with an award at the Hispanic Prosperity Gala.
While in New York, Milei spoke at Yeshiva University in Manhattan, delivering a speech that underscored his commitment to fighting terrorism and promoting stronger international cooperation.
“I feel like the most Zionist president in the world,” the Argentine leader said during his speech.
He also reaffirmed his support for Israel and the United States amid the current escalation in the war with Iran, declaring, “We are going to win.”
Since the start of the war, Milei has voiced strong backing for the US and Israel’s military campaign against Iran. At the same time, his government has heightened security alerts amid growing concerns that Iran and its terrorist proxies could activate sleeper cells abroad in retaliation.
While in New York, he is also set to attend The Algemeiner‘s annual gala, where on Monday he will be honored for his “unwavering moral clarity, principled leadership, and steadfast support for Israel and the Jewish people.”
Milei will conclude his tour with a visit to Chile to attend the presidential inauguration of newly elected president José Antonio Kast.
Since taking office over a year ago, Milei has been one of Israel’s most vocal supporters, strengthening bilateral relations to unprecedented levels and in the process breaking with decades of Argentine foreign policy tradition to firmly align with Jerusalem and Washington.
Last year, Milei formally launched the Isaac Accords with the aim of strengthening political, economic, and cultural cooperation between the Jewish state and Latin American governments.
The Argentine leader called his country a “pioneer” alongside the United States in promoting the new framework, emphasizing its role in fostering closer ties between Israel and the region across key strategic fields.
Milei also announced plans to relocate the country’s embassy to Jerusalem next spring, fulfilling a promise made last year, as the two allies continue to strengthen their bilateral ties.
Less than a year after the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Argentina became the first Latin American country to designate the Palestinian Islamist group as a terrorist organization.
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French Jewish Girl Assaulted Near Paris, Adolescents Arrested for Antisemitic Attack
Sign reading “+1000% of Antisemitic Acts: These Are Not Just Numbers” during a march against antisemitism, in Lyon, France, June 25, 2024. Photo: Romain Costaseca / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect
Three teenage boys assaulted a 14-year-old Jewish girl and threatened to kill her in the Parisian suburb of Sarcelles on Friday, police said, resulting in a trip to the hospital for the victim and arrests for two of the 12-year-old suspects.
The incident began when three younger boys approached an older teenage girl to ask why she failed to observe Ramadan, according to local media reports. After she disclosed her Jewish identity, the three reportedly began calling her a “dirty Jew” and one threatened, “I’ll kill you on the Koran.” They then allegedly beat her, especially on her face.
The assault required a trip to the emergency room, where hospital staff described her as in a state of shock.
Paris law enforcement arrested two suspects that evening and seek to identify the third.
Another suburb of Paris also saw an antisemitic incident on Sunday when vandals hit a Kosher restaurant in Levallois-Perret, spray-painting “dirty Jew” in red across the building’s windows.
A kosher restaurant in Levallois-Perret, near Paris vandalized with antisemitic graffiti reading “Dirty Jew.” Photo: Screenshot
Antisemitic vandals hit Kokoriko, another Kosher restaurant in Paris, just two weeks earlier. Investigators say the criminals sprayed acid on tables, walls, and the floor, rendering silverware and plates unusable.
That attack came just days after the French Interior Ministry last month released its annual report on anti-religious acts, revealing a troubling rise in antisemitic incidents documented in a joint dataset compiled with the Jewish Community Protection Service.
Antisemitism in France remained at alarmingly high levels last year, with 1,320 incidents recorded nationwide, as Jews and Israelis faced several targeted attacks, according to the data.
Although the total number of antisemitic outrages in 2025 fell by 16 percent compared to 2024’s second highest ever total of 1,570 cases, the newly released report warned that antisemitism remained “historically high,” with more than 3.5 attacks occurring every day.
Even though Jews make up less than 1 percent of France’s population, they accounted for 53 percent of all religiously motivated crimes last year.
Between 2022 and 2025, antisemitic attacks across France quadrupled.
The most recent figure of total antisemitic incidents represents a 21 percent decline from 2023’s record high of 1,676 incidents, but a 203 percent increase from the 436 antisemitic acts recorded in 2022, before the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
The surge in antisemitism appears to have carried into this year. Last month, a 13-year-old boy on his way to synagogue in Paris was brutally beaten by a knife-wielding assailant.
“How do you find the words to explain to a 13-year-old child that he is being attacked because he is Jewish? Who will be able to restore his confidence in the future tomorrow?” Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF), said of the incident.
One-third of last year’s antisemitic incidents in France explicitly referencing Palestine or the war in Gaza, indicting that anti-Israel rhetoric is fueling antisemitism.
The prominence of anti-Zionist forms of antisemitism has prompted French leaders to propose legislation combating this type of hate, as announced by French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu last month at CRIF’s annual gathering,
“To define oneself as anti-Zionist is to question Israel’s right to exist. It’s a call for the destruction of an entire people under the guise of ideology,” Lecornu said, announcing that the government would introduce a bill to criminalize anti-Zionism. “There is a difference between legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and rejecting the very existence of the Jewish state. This ‘blurring’ must stop.”
Lecornu declared that “hatred of Jews is hatred of the Republic and a stain on France.”
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Belgian Synagogue Damaged in Blast Considered Antisemitic Attack
Police secure the site of a synagogue damaged by an explosion early on Monday, in Liege, Belgium, March 9, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
An explosion hit a synagogue in the Belgian city of Liege early on Monday in what authorities said was an antisemitic attack that caused damage but no injuries.
The explosion, which happened around 4 am (0300 GMT), blew out the windows of the synagogue, as well as those of a building on the opposite side of the road, public broadcaster RTBF said.
The cause was not clear, but prosecutors said the case had been passed to federal authorities, which normally investigate incidents linked to terrorism or organized crime.
Belgian Interior Minister Bernard Quintin called the explosion “a despicable antisemitic act that directly targeted the Jewish community of Belgium.”
He said security measures around similar sites will continue to be reinforced.
Eitan Bergman, Vice-President of the Coordinating Committee of Jewish Organizations in Belgium (CCOJB), said the targeting of the synagogue was deeply shocking.
“Liege is home to a very small but vibrant Jewish community where I personally grew up. Today, the feelings among our community members are a mixture of sadness, worry and profound shock,” he told Reuters.
Police have cordoned off the largely residential street on the bank of the river Meuse opposite Liege city center.
Federal prosecutors declined to give further details of the incident.