Uncategorized
In Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial, Jewish rituals feature as prominently as the carnage of the day
PITTSBURGH (JTA) — Testifying at the trial of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter, Carol Black described how, right before he opened fire, she had taken her yarmulke and tallis out of her velvet tallis bag.
But first, she had to explain what a yarmulke, tallis and tallis bag were.
“In my briefcase is a blue velvet bag that has a zipper on it,” she said. “I have a Ziploc bag of yarmulkes I would wear and a tallis I would wear.” A yarmulke was a “head covering,” she explained, and a tallis was a “prayer shawl.” The items, she said, “just signified being in the presence of God and being respectful.”
Black, 71, was the second witness to testify on Wednesday, the second day of the capital murder trial of the alleged gunman, Robert Bowers. She was one of a few witnesses who interspersed heart-rending testimony about the trial with, effectively, a crash course on Jewish ritual.
Black recalled how she sat in the second seat in from the aisle, because the aisle seat was where her brother Richard Gottfried sat, and they shared gabbai duties. Then Black explained the role of a “gabbai” — calling congregants to the Torah and helping them read through a passage. She described Pesukei d’Zimra, the morning service’s opening prayers, and spelled out the Hebrew name of the morning service, Shacharit, for the court reporter.
“I had just started to open the bag and I heard a loud bang,” she said. “To me it sounded like somebody had dropped a table on the metal floor.”
She added, “The first two sounds, I didn’t recognize them as gunfire. You don’t go to a synagogue and expect to hear gunfire.”
The focus of the trial is the gunfire — the shooting on Oct. 27, 2018 that killed 11 Jews praying at three congregations: Tree of Life, New Light and Dor Hadash. But for the prosecution, explaining the synagogue — and the practices that take place in it — is also proving to be crucial. The painful collision on that Shabbat morning of the sacred and the profane is key to the prosecution’s case that the defendant merits the death penalty.
Of the 63 federal charges Bowers is facing, 22 are capital crimes: two for each of the 11 fatalities that morning, including Black’s brother, Richard Gottfried. One is “obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death” and the other is murder, enhanced with a hate crime charge. So prosecutors, seeking to show that the shooting was motivated by antisemitism, are probing witnesses about their Judaism and how they express it.
“As they did every Saturday, men and women of the Jewish faith made their way to the synagogue, to observe Shabbat,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Soo Song said in her opening statement on Tuesday. “To pray to God in the sanctity and refuge of their shared Jewish faith.”
Conversely, defense lawyer Judy Clarke is out to prove that her client targeted the congregants not because of their religion per se but because of a delusion that they were facilitating an immigration invasion to replace whites. Both she and prosecutors have said in court that he committed the attack.
Clarke occasionally objected when the testimony veered into how American Jews worship, or into explaining what animates Jewish practice. None of her objections to explaining Judaism were sustained — including one where she had tried to preempt the director of one of the congregations’ religious schools from explaining its educational precepts.
Describing the curriculum, Wendy Kobee, the director of the religious school of Dor Hadash, a Reconstructionist congregation, said, “Religious prayers, religious practices, cultural values.”
“Among the cultural values taught at the school was the concept of welcoming the stranger?” prosecutor Mary Hahn asked.
“Yes, that would have been incorporated into the curriculum in an age-appropriate way,” Kobee said.
Both the defense and prosecution acknowledge that the defendant, a white supremacist, targeted the building because Dor Hadash had partnered with HIAS, the Jewish refugee aid group, to celebrate what the group called National Refugee Shabbat.
The trial is shaping up as a seminar on American Jewish tradition. Witnesses have provided the judge, jury and spectators with an impromptu glossary of Jewish terms, and an introduction to parts of modern Jewish thought. Dan Leger, a member of Dor Hadash who was injured in the attack, outlined the teachings of the Reconstructionist movement’s founder, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan.
Kaplan’s “approach is one of looking at the Bible, the Torah specifically as something that guides our life in ways that give value in social interaction,” Leger said. “One of the ways it is most highly demonstrated is welcoming those into the community who need assistance, who need support whether or not they are Jewish, welcoming immigrants into the country.”
Prosecutors also asked witnesses about Jewish practice in order to explain what happened on the day of the shooting. Song asked Leger to explain tallit katan, the small prayer shawl colloquially known as tzitzit that observant men traditionally wear under their clothing, and why he did not have a cell phone handy when the gunman opened fire. It was Shabbat, when some Jews abstain from using electronic devices, he explained.)
Another prosecutor asked Barry Werber, who testified later, why he preferred to attend services at New Light on Friday night and for Sunday breakfasts and not on Saturdays. He liked to sleep in on Saturdays, he said, but he went to services on the morning of the shooting because he felt obliged to honor his mother on her yahrzeit. He explained that a yahrzeit was “the anniversary of someone’s death.”
Like Tree of Life’s rabbi, Jeffrey Myers, had on Tuesday, Leger testified that he recited the Shema when he believed he was dying, after the gunman shot him in the abdomen. He translated the Torah verse and central Jewish prayer for the jury. Leger, a retired registered nurse, and another Dor Hadash congregant, Jerry Rabinowitz, a physician, had run into the shooting to help the injured. Rabinowitz was killed.
“I thought about the wonder of my life, the beauty of it all, the happiness I had experienced, the joy of having two beautiful sons and a wonderful wife and the wife previous to that wife, all the wonderful friends I have in the world,” Leger said. “I prayed for forgiveness for those who I have wronged in my life. I was ready to go.”
The defendant, wearing a dark blue sweater and a light blue collared shirt, his arms folded, stared at Leger.
The stories on the witness stand offered windows into American Jewish families and history. Gottfried started attending New Light after his mother died in 1992, Black testified about her brother, but she said she remained uninterested in frequent synagogue attendance until she injured a hip running about a decade ago. Gottfried, who was younger, encouraged her to come to services, and she celebrated her bat mitzvah as an adult.
“In Uniontown [Pennsylvania] where I grew up, in our Conservative congregation, which incidentally was called Tree of Life, girls did not get bat mitzvahed,” she said.
Black and Werber both discussed the social aspect of Shabbat services, describing the propensity of Melvin Wax, a New Light congregant, to tell jokes. Werber recalled that just before the shooting, Wax was telling jokes to Cecil Rosenthal.
Yet along with descriptions of how ritual and prayer bound the synagogue communities together, the testimonies all came back to the horrific details of the shooting itself.
After sitting with Wax, Werber said, Rosenthal went back upstairs, where the gunman shot him multiple times. Down in the New Light sanctuary, Rabbi Jonathan Perlman led Werber, Wax and Black into a storeroom behind the bimah. Richard Gottfried was in an adjacent kitchen with another New Light congregant, Dan Stein, preparing breakfast for the next morning. He called 911.
The gunman came down the stairs and killed Gottfried and Stein. There was a pause, so Wax peeked out of the storeroom to see what was happening. The gunman shot him twice, and he fell at Black’s feet. The gunman hovered a while in the area and then retreated.
Eventually, emergency responders found the group hidden in the store room. Wax’s body still lay there.
“I had to step over him to get past him,” Black testified, her voice cracking. “Quietly to myself I said goodbye to him and followed the officers.”
—
The post In Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial, Jewish rituals feature as prominently as the carnage of the day appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
World Leaders Show Caution on Trump’s Broader ‘Board of Peace’ Amid Fears for UN
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump is interviewed by Reuters White House correspondent Steve Holland (not pictured) during an exclusive interview in the Oval Office in the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 14, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo
Governments reacted cautiously on Sunday to US President Donald Trump’s invitation to join his “Board of Peace” initiative aimed at resolving conflicts globally, a plan that diplomats said could harm the work of the United Nations.
Only Hungary, whose leader is a close Trump ally, gave an unequivocal acceptance in response to the invitations, which have been addressed to some 60 nations and began arriving in European capitals on Saturday, according to diplomats.
Other governments appeared reluctant to make public statements, leaving officials to express concerns anonymously about the impact on the work of the U.N..
The board would be chaired for life by Trump and would start by addressing the Gaza conflict and then be expanded to deal with other conflicts, according to a copy of the letter and draft charter seen by Reuters.
Member states would be limited to three-year terms unless they pay $1 billion each to fund the board’s activities and earn permanent membership, the letter states.
“This simply offers permanent membership to partner countries who demonstrate deep commitment to peace, security, and prosperity,” the White House said in a post on X.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, visiting South Korea, told reporters her country was “ready to do our part,” although it was not clear whether she was specifically referring to Gaza or the broader peace.
Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Sunday he had agreed to Trump’s Board of Peace for Gaza in principle although details were still being worked out.
The Board of Peace’s mandate was only authorized by the United Nations Security Council through 2027 and was solely focused on the Gaza conflict.
‘DARK TIMES’
The inclusion of a “charter” in the invitation letter stoked concerns among some European governments that it could undermine the work of the United Nations, which Trump has accused of not supporting his efforts to end conflicts around the world.
“It’s a ‘Trump United Nations’ that ignores the fundamentals of the U.N. charter,” said one diplomat.
Three other Western diplomats said it looked as if it would undermine the United Nations if it went ahead.
A further three diplomats and an Israeli source said that Trump wanted the Board of Peace to eventually have a broader role beyond Gaza that would oversee the other conflicts that Trump has said he has resolved.
The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Australia, Canada, the European Commission and key Middle East powers were among those invited to sit on the Board of Peace, according to officials.
“Declaring that durable peace requires pragmatic judgment, common-sense solutions, and the courage to depart from approaches and institutions that have too often failed,” the document showed.
In what appeared to be directed at the United Nations, the document added that there was a “need for a more nimble and effective international peace-building body.”
Trump, who covets the Nobel Peace Prize, said in the letter that the board would convene in the near future, adding: “This board will be one of a kind, there has never been anything like it!”
In public comments in response to a reporter’s question, a senior UN official did not address the plan directly, but said the United Nations was the only institution with the moral and legal ability to bring together every nation, big or small.
“And if we question that … we fall back and very, very, dark, times,” Annalena Baerbock, president of the United Nations General Assembly, told Sky News, adding that it was up to individual states to decide what to do.
The White House on Friday named some individuals who will sit on the board, which would outlive its role supervising the temporary governance of Gaza, under a fragile ceasefire since October.
They included US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, former British prime minister Tony Blair and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas signed off on Trump’s plan, which says a Palestinian technocratic administration will be overseen by an international board, which will supervise Gaza’s governance for a transitional period.
TRUMP GOES FOR GLOBAL PEACE ROLE
“It’s going to, in my opinion, start with Gaza and then do conflicts as they arise,” President Donald Trump told Reuters in an interview earlier this week.
Many rights experts and advocates have said that Trump overseeing a board to supervise a foreign territory’s governance resembles a colonial structure, while Blair’s involvement was criticized last year due to his role in the Iraq war and the history of British imperialism in the Middle East.
The White House did not detail the responsibilities of each member of the board. The names do not include any Palestinians. The White House said more members will be announced over the coming weeks.
It also named a separate, 11-member “Gaza Executive Board” to support the technocratic body.
This would include Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, U.N. Middle East peace coordinator Sigrid Kaag, United Arab Emirates International Cooperation Minister Reem Al-Hashimy, Israeli-Cypriot billionaire Yakir Gabay and officials from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the composition of this board had not been coordinated with Israel and contradicted its policy – possibly a reference to Fidan’s presence, as Israel objects to Turkish involvement. Israel’s government also has a tense relationship with Qatar. An Israeli government spokesperson declined to comment beyond the statement.
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.”