Uncategorized
How one man’s burial brought Jews and Christians together — and what it still teaches 120 years later
“The beautiful little synagogue was filled to capacity,” the Tupper Lake Herald reported on February 12, 1915. “Many were there who had known Mr. Cohn for the past twenty years — old Adirondack pioneers… The air was heavy with tears as Rev. Boyd of the Episcopal Church lifted a Hebrew prayer book given him by Mr. Cohn a few years ago.”
The man they gathered to honor was Harris Cohn, an early Jewish resident of Tupper Lake, New York. His funeral filled the small Beth Joseph Synagogue, the same wooden building that still stands today, now celebrating its 120th anniversary.
Just a decade earlier, in 1904 or 1905, local families — peddlers, merchants, and new immigrants — had pooled roughly $450 to build it, holding Hebrew school classes in the town hall while waiting for carpenters to finish the sanctuary. In 1911 they purchased an acre for a cemetery beside the Methodist burial ground.
Cohn, the paper wrote, was “the personification of honor, truth, and integrity” — a man of “deep religious convictions… the firm believer of righteousness, benevolence, charity and prayers.” His “belief in God,” the editor added, “was so ideal, so far elevated above all earthly things, that no sacrifice was too great to show and prove his devotion to his Maker.”
Rabbi S. Freedman of Beth Joseph led the prayers, chanting the memorial service in Hebrew. Then the local Episcopal minister rose to speak.
He held up the worn Hebrew prayer book Cohn had given him and said, “I prize this book so much, for Mr. Cohn was a man whom I admired and with whom I established a strong and lasting friendship.” Then he turned to the young people present and urged them “to hold fast to whatever denomination they were reared under,” reminding them that conviction and faith come from devotion to one’s own tradition.
The rabbi had spoken of religion not as a convenience but as “a deep solace to the soul.” The minister, moved also by faith, echoed it in his own words. Jews and Christians mourned together. When the eulogies ended, the mourners recited kaddish, an ancient prayer offering comfort and acknowledging God.
I came across this article, digitized through the New York State Historic Newspapers archive, while researching Jewish life in nearby Ogdensburg and Massena. I paused to hold this memory. I had been tracing the histories of small-town synagogues — some now closed, others still standing in places like New York’s North Country and across the Midwest. In Tupper Lake, as in so many places, Jewish life grew quickly and then thinned with time: by 1913 a Sisterhood had formed; by 1914, a lodge of the Independent Order of Brith Abraham met in the synagogue twice a month; and by 1918, Beth Joseph had joined the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. Each step spoke to a community that saw itself as part of something enduring, even in a place far removed from America’s largest Jewish centers.
The story of Harris Cohn’s funeral felt familiar. I had come across many such moments in small-town American history, and it revealed something essential that runs through so many of these places: a moral imagination larger than their size.
These were communities where faith was not theoretical. Jews and their neighbors depended on one another — through long winters, economic hardship, and the isolation of distance. Synagogues, often built by peddlers and storekeepers, became civic landmarks as much as houses of worship. A century later, when we look back at the geography of American Jewish life, we see that its reach was far wider than today’s metropolitan map suggests. For every major center of Jewish population, there were dozens of smaller congregations that carried the same prayers into fields, factory towns, and forest settlements.
It’s easy to forget that these rural sanctuaries once embodied outposts of Jewish belonging. Their stories are rarely told, overshadowed by the better-known narratives of New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles. Yet in towns like Tupper Lake, Judaism became part of the spiritual language of the whole community.
That is what moved me about the 1915 funeral. The newspaper account wasn’t written for a Jewish audience. It was published for the whole town, describing the service with reverence and curiosity but without exoticism. The boundaries between communities blurred, and what emerged was shared moral clarity: the belief that dignity, faith, and friendship can withstand every division.
There is something profoundly Jewish in the humility of that service. The simplicity of the synagogue, the equality of all before death, the act of remembrance itself — all mirror the same values I have seen in Jewish life today. In Tupper Lake, that ethos endured. By the 1930s, Beth Joseph opened its doors to patients from the nearby state hospital for Passover Seders, and in 1925 Rabbi Freedman — the same clergyman who eulogized Cohn — offered words of comfort at a Masonic memorial for a Presbyterian pastor. The boundaries were always more porous than history remembers.
Beth Joseph’s continued presence in Tupper Lake is a kind of quiet miracle. This year marks its 120th anniversary — a milestone few rural synagogues reach. The synagogue testifies that Jewish life has, at various times and places, reached into nearly every corner of America, leaving behind something worth remembering: the habit of neighborliness, the belief that God is present wherever people honor one another.
When Rev. Boyd lifted that Hebrew book at a funeral in 1915, he could not have known how far that gesture would travel. But in reading it more than a century later, I think of it as an act of faith in its own right. A Christian minister, holding the sacred words of another tradition, showing them to his townspeople with tenderness. That is a kind of sermon that still preaches.
The story of Harris Cohn’s funeral is not about a vanished world. It is about a world that, at least for one afternoon in the Adirondacks, revealed its best self.
The prayer book may no longer exist, but its lesson remains open: that the sacred is never confined by walls, and that remembering each other is itself a holy act.
The post How one man’s burial brought Jews and Christians together — and what it still teaches 120 years later appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Stephen Spielberg wins Grammy, becoming 9th Jew in elite EGOT ranks
(JTA) — The legendary director Stephen Spielberg has become the ninth Jew to secure “EGOT” status after winning a Grammy for producing a documentary about the music of John Williams.
Spielberg was awarded the Grammy for producing “Music by John Williams,” which won best music documentary, before the televised ceremony on Sunday. The win makes him the 22nd person to win the coveted quartet of Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards.
Spielberg has won three Oscars, including best picture for the 1993 Holocaust drama “Schindler’s List”; four Emmys for TV programming including two World War II dramatic miniseries; and a Tony for producing the Broadway show “A Strange Loop.”
Spielberg adds to a large proportion of Jewish artists to win all four of the top entertainment awards. Nine of the 22 EGOTs have been Jewish, including the first person to ever reach the status, composer Richard Rodgers. Rodgers and Marvin Hamlisch, who was also Jewish, are the only people to have added a Pulitzer Prize to the EGOT crown. The most recent Jewish winner before Spielberg was the songwriter Benj Pasek, who secured the status in 2024 with an Emmy.
One of Spielberg’s more celebrated recent works was a drama based loosely on his own Jewish family. “The Fabelmans,” released in 2022, earned him three Oscar nods — for best picture, best director and best screenplay — but no wins.
In promoting that movie, Spielberg said antisemitic bullying when he was a child had informed his sense of being an “outsider,” which he translated into his filmmaking.
“Schindler’s List,” meanwhile, spurred the creation of the USC Shoah Foundation, a leading center for preserving Holocaust testimonies that has also recently embraced the task of preserving stories of contemporary antisemitism, too.
“It was, emotionally, the hardest movie I’ve ever made,” Spielberg said about his most decorated movie — for which John Williams earned an Oscar for the score. “It made me so proud to be a Jew.”
The post Stephen Spielberg wins Grammy, becoming 9th Jew in elite EGOT ranks appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
A border official mocked an attorney for observing Shabbat. Orthodox lawyers say the issue is not new.
Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol official who led immigration raids in Minneapolis, reportedly mocked the Jewish faith of Minnesota’s U.S. attorney during a phone call with other prosecutors in mid-January. According to The New York Times, Bovino complained that Daniel Rosen, an Orthodox Jew, was hard to reach over the weekend because he observes Shabbat and sarcastically pointed out that Orthodox Jewish criminals don’t take the weekends off.
The call took place at a moment of extreme tension in Minneapolis, as federal agents under Bovino’s command carried out an aggressive immigration crackdown that had already turned deadly. It came between the fatal shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, both killed during enforcement operations, and amid fierce backlash from local officials and residents.
Bovino made the remarks in a derisive, mocking tone, the Times reported, casting Shabbat observance as a point of ridicule. Bovino had already drawn national attention for frequently wearing an olive double-breasted greatcoat with World War II-era styling, leading some critics to call him “Gestapo Greg” and accusing him of “Nazi cosplay.” Bovino, who pushed back on those comparisons, has since been reassigned.
Rosen, a Trump nominee, was confirmed as Minnesota’s U.S. attorney in October 2025 after a career in private practice and Jewish communal leadership. He has said that rising antisemitism helped motivate his decision to take the job, and that prosecuting hate crimes would be a priority for his office.
For many Orthodox Jewish lawyers, Bovino’s alleged remarks were not surprising. They echoed a familiar challenge: explaining that Shabbat — a full day offline — is not a lack of commitment, but a religious boundary that cannot be bent without being broken.
In a profession that prizes constant availability, that boundary can carry consequences. Some lawyers say it shows up in subtle ways: raised eyebrows, jokes about being unreachable, skepticism when they ask for time off. Others say it has shaped much bigger decisions, including how visibly Jewish they allow themselves to be at work.
David Schoen, an Orthodox criminal defense attorney who served as lead counsel for President Donald Trump during his second impeachment trial, said he has long been mindful of how religious observance is perceived in the courtroom.
“I have made a conscious decision not to wear my yarmulke in front of a jury,” Schoen said, explaining that jurors often “draw stereotypes from what they see.”
Those concerns were reinforced by experience. Schoen said he has noticed a “definite difference in attitude” from some judges depending on whether he wore a yarmulke. In one case, he recalled, a Jewish judge pulled him aside during a jury trial and told him she thought he had made the right choice — a comment Schoen said he found disappointing.
For Sara Shulevitz, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor, the Bovino episode brought back memories from early in her career.
Orthodox and the daughter of a Hasidic rabbi — now married to one — Shulevitz said her unavailability on Jewish holidays was often treated as a professional flaw rather than a religious obligation. “It held me back from getting promotions,” she said.
In court, the scrutiny could be blunt. “I was mocked by a Jewish judge for celebrating ‘antiquated’ Jewish holidays,” she said, recalling requests for continuances for Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah. In another case, she said, a judge questioned her request for time off for Shavuot and suggested she had already “taken off for Passover.”
When another judge assumed Passover always began on the same day in April, “I had to explain the Jewish lunar calendar in the middle of court while everyone was laughing,” she said.
Not every encounter, Shulevitz added, was rooted in hostility. Sometimes judges simply didn’t understand Orthodox practice. When she explained she couldn’t appear on a Jewish holiday, judges would suggest she join the hearing by Zoom — forcing her to explain that Orthodox Jews don’t use electrical devices on Shabbat or festivals.
The misunderstanding often slid into a familiar assumption. “They think you’re lazy,” she said. “It’s not laziness. Any Jewish woman knows how much work goes into preparing for Passover.”
Rabbi Michael Broyde, a law professor at Emory University who studies religious accommodation, said that Bovino’s alleged “derogatory remarks” are “sad and reflects, I worry, the antisemitic times we seem to be living in.”
He added that the criticism of Rosen reflected a basic misunderstanding of how law offices operate, calling it “extremely rare” for a lawyer’s religious practices to interfere with their obligations, especially when senior attorneys delegate work and courts routinely grant continuances.
“No one works 24/7,” Broyde said.
The episode echoed a similar Shabbat-related incident during Trump’s first term. In his 2022 memoir, former Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro described how a group sought to undermine Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner’s role in the 2020 campaign by scheduling a key White House meeting with Trump on a Saturday, knowing Kushner — who is Shabbat observant — would not attend. Navarro titled the chapter recounting the episode, “Shabbat Shalom and Sayonara.”
The tension between Jewish observance and public life is not new. Senator Joe Lieberman, the first observant Jew to run on a major-party presidential ticket, famously walked to the Capitol for a Saturday vote and ate fish instead of meat at receptions. His longtime Senate colleague Chris Dodd joked that he became Lieberman’s “Shabbos goy.”
Still, Schoen said, visibility can cut both ways. During Trump’s impeachment trial, while speaking on the Senate floor, he reached for a bottle of water and instinctively paused. With one hand holding the bottle, he used the other to cover his head — a makeshift yarmulke — before drinking.
The moment was brief, but it did not go unnoticed. In the days that followed, Schoen said he heard from young Jewish men and businesspeople who told him that seeing the gesture made them feel more comfortable wearing their own yarmulkes at work.
The attention, he said, was unexpected. But for some in the Orthodox community, it became a source of pride.
“I felt honored,” Schoen said.
My guess in all seriousness is that he normally wears a yarmulke and this was reflex. Schoen is modern Orthodox so that would make sense. But I defer to @jacobkornbluh https://t.co/MkKx6W03v2
— Jake Tapper 🦅 (@jaketapper) February 9, 2021
Jacob Kornbluh contributed additional reporting.
The post A border official mocked an attorney for observing Shabbat. Orthodox lawyers say the issue is not new. appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Deni Avdija becomes first Israeli to be selected as an NBA All-Star
(JTA) — Portland Trail Blazers star Deni Avdija’s meteoric rise has officially reached a new stratosphere, as the 25-year-old forward has become the NBA’s first-ever Israeli All-Star.
Avdija was named an All-Star reserve for the Western Conference on Sunday, an expected but deserved nod after the northern Israel native finished seventh in All-Star voting with over 2.2 million votes, ahead of NBA legends LeBron James and Kevin Durant. Avdija’s breakout performance this season has earned him repeated praise from James and others across the league.
Avdija’s star turn began last year in his first season with Portland, when he further captured the adoration of Jewish fans across Israel and the U.S. But he took another step forward this season, averaging 25.8 points, 6.8 assists and 7.2 rebounds per game. His points and assists clips are by far the best of his career, and rank 13th and 12th in the NBA, respectively. He’s considered a front-runner for the league’s Most Improved Player award.
For close observers of Israeli basketball, Avdija’s All-Star selection is the culmination of a promising career that began as a teenage star with Maccabi Tel Aviv and made him the first Israeli chosen in the top 10 in an NBA draft.
“Deni Avdija being named an NBA All-Star reserve is an unbelievable achievement in the mind of every Israeli basketball fan,” Moshe Halickman, who covers basketball for the popular Sports Rabbi website, wrote in an essay for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “This is a dream come true for many — a dream that became realistic and even a must-happen during his breakout season — but something that in his first five seasons in the NBA never came across as something that was going to be real.”
Halickman, who has covered Avdija in Washington, D.C., and in Israel, wrote that Avdija is not only considered the greatest Israeli hooper of all time, but perhaps the best athlete to come out of Israel, period.
Oded Shalom, who coached Avdija on Maccabi Tel Aviv’s Under-15 and Under-16 teams, echoed that sentiment in a recent profile of Avdija in The Athletic.
“Even though he is only 25, I think he is Israel’s most successful athlete in history,’’ Shalom said. “We’ve had some great gymnasts — and I hope everyone forgives me for saying it, because we’ve had some great athletes — but I think Deni has become the greatest.”
Avdija’s ascension has also come against the backdrop of the Gaza war and a reported global rise in antisemitism, which he has said affects him personally.
“I’m an athlete. I don’t really get into politics, because it’s not my job,” Avdija told The Athletic. “I obviously stand for my country, because that’s where I’m from. It’s frustrating to see all the hate. Like, I have a good game or get All-Star votes, and all the comments are people connecting me to politics. Like, why can’t I just be a good basketball player? Why does it matter if I’m from Israel, or wherever in the world, or what my race is? Just respect me as a basketball player.”
Now, Avdija’s talents will be on display at the NBA All-Star Game, on Sunday, Feb. 15, in Los Angeles.
The post Deni Avdija becomes first Israeli to be selected as an NBA All-Star appeared first on The Forward.