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This is what an $8 million synagogue renovation looks like
(New York Jewish Week) — Ansche Chesed, a historic Conservative synagogue located in a large, Romanesque- and Byzantine-inspired building on the Upper West Side, has completed an $8 million, two-year renovation project.
The updates to the landmarked 53,000-square-foot building, which began construction in 1927, included adding an elevator, which will improve the building’s accessibility; tripling the size of the lobby, and adding bathrooms, a coat room and a lounge. Upgraded security measures include a security booth near the entrance, an updated camera system and an electronic seal on interior doors.
Located at 251 W. 100th Street, the 600-family congregation will have a rededication ceremony and celebration during services on Saturday.
“We’re feeling fabulous,” said Jeremy Kalmanofsky, the congregation’s senior rabbi who has been at Ansche Chesed since 2001.
“We have evolved the various ways in which we use it,” Kalmanofsky said of the 96-year-old building, and why the congregation, which was founded in 1829, decided to renovate. “It was dark and it was not terribly welcoming and now we’ve opened it up in so many ways — greater light, more welcoming and easier to get around, especially for folks who use wheelchairs and walkers.”
The ground floor main entry lobby tripled in size and was renovated with updated lighting and HVAC system. It also includes a coat room and updated bathrooms. (Courtesy of Studio ST Architects)
The synagogue partnered with New York-based Studio ST Architects on the project. “In our work, we tried to really capture and maintain the nature of that congregation. The word they used is heimish — a Yiddish word for homey and welcoming,” said the principal architect Esther Sperber. “They wanted it to be nice, clean and comfortable, but down to earth. They didn’t want it to be fancy and they weren’t looking for lots of marble or gold.”
“We shared a real sense about what it means to be building up Jewish ritual communal spaces,” Kalmanofsky said.
Both Sperber and Kalmanofsky noted that the largest improvement to the space — and the biggest undertaking of the renovation — was adding a small elevator from the lobby to the sanctuary, which seats 1,200 people. Before, congregants who needed it had to use a “clunky chairlift” that could only be used one at a time and required a second person to operate.
“It really was not a dignified way for people to enter the space and it made them feel as if they were potentially not welcome,” Sperber noted.
Another angle of the updated basement lobby. An elevator was added to get from the lobby to the sanctuary, which substantially improved the synagogue’s accessibility.(Courtesy of Studio ST Architects)
Nearly every part of the ground floor and basement levels was renovated — except for the sanctuary, Sperber said. “The sanctuary is a beautiful, historic space,” Sperber said, adding that it had recently been repainted. “We updated the fire alarm system, added the elevator which now reaches the sanctuary … but the design of the space was kept.”
The social hall was expanded with new flooring and lighting and will now be able to accommodate extra seating for High Holiday services and major celebrations. (Courtesy of Studio ST Architects)
Renovation on the building began in the winter of 2021, and it stayed open while undergoing construction, though Kalmanofsky noted that during 2021 the building was used far less due to the pandemic.
Sleek bronze signage was added to the exterior of the building with the name and address of the congregation. The architects also upgraded the building’s HVAC systems and relocated the office spaces from the first floor to the fifth.
The newly renovated offices (left) are on the fifth floor of the building, rather than in a windowless space off the lobby (right). (Courtesy of Studio ST Architects)
“Our offices, which were literally in windowless dungeons, are now much more filled with light,” Kalmanofsky said. “It’s easier for people to feel happy to be in them when our members come into the office to see us.”
The renovation also updated the lighting and floors of the social hall, which was last renovated in the 1980s, Kalmanofsky said. “We have a social hall space now that is worthy of larger and more elegant celebrations, both of our own members and maybe, if we’re so fortunate, other people will want to celebrate in our building as well,” he said.
Bathrooms were updated on the ground level. (Courtesy of Studio ST Architects)
“When you enter the building, it doesn’t feel like you’re entering an old building — it feels like you’re entering something contemporary,” Kalmanofsky said. “It’s nice and inviting and modern.”
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The post This is what an $8 million synagogue renovation looks like appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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This Jewish philosopher would have called out the Trump administration’s b.s. in Minneapolis
Last week, the Trump administration immediately defended the fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis, insisting that the ICE officer who shot her acted in self-defense after she had tried to run him down. That same night, the city’s mayor, Jacob Frey, replied to the administration’s claims: “Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly, that is bullshit.”
Frey’s language shocked some Americans, but perhaps reminded others of the word’s philosophical lineage. Last year marked the 25th anniversary of the publication of Harry Frankfurt’s On Bullshit, which became a surprise bestseller, blasting past Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink and Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner’s Freakonomics to the top of the Times nonfiction list. But the Gray Lady spelled the title as On Bull—-, which exemplified, as yet another philosopher wryly noted, “what Frankfurt has castigated in his text.”
“One of the most salient features of our culture,” Frankfurt warns at the start of the book, “is that there is so much bullshit.” But the philosopher, whose book was published before the explosions of the internet, social platforms, AI, and Donald Trump descending the escalator at Trump Tower, had no idea just how much more bullshit could fill the world.
Yet, in light of events in Minneapolis, Frankfurt’s exploration of bullshit has now become, quite literally, deadly relevant. Frankfurt observes that the liar and truth-teller have something in common: Both acknowledge the existence of truth. The former, who tries to hide it, along with the latter who seeks to state it, recognize that truths abound in the world.
Not so, though, for the bullshitter, who simply ignores what is and is not true. He does not, as Frankfurter writes, simply “reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all.”
This leads to the heart of our present predicament. “The one thing the bullshitter does hide,” he remarks, “is that the truth values of her statements are of no central interests to her.” For this reason, Frankfurt concludes, “bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.”
This claim should give us pause. After all, we honor those mythic figures who never tell a lie, be it George Washington or Horton the elephant. At the same time, we are shocked by those who honor Machiavelli, who famously advised the prince to “be a great liar,” observing that “a deceitful man will always find plenty ready to be deceived.”
Frankfurt salvages the reputation of the Machiavellian liar, reminding us that liars at least understand they are lying. In turn, this means they understand that there are truths hidden behind the lies. This is unfortunate, but not unexpected; as Mark Twain quipped, “Truth is the most precious thing we have. Economize it.”
Bullshitters are another matter altogether. In fact, they are truly dark matter because such people are ignorant of or indifferent to truth. Standing behind a podium in the White House press room or in front of ICE agents while wearing a 50-gallon cowboy hat, such individuals, Frankfurt explains, launch unhesitatingly into “a description of a certain state of affairs without genuinely submitting to the constraints which the endeavor to provide an accurate representation of reality imposes.”
This frees them from submitting to the constraints that a common understanding of morality imposes on us. In terms of foreign policy, Trump summarized this new standard of morality in his marathon interview with the Times last week. When asked if he recognized any limits on his use of power on the world stage, he replied, “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
The same worldview is now on display in the aftermath of the murder of Renee Good. The sole constraint on the behavior of the administration and its agents are their own minds — minds that, to paraphrase John Milton, are their own places, busy turning reality into a hell of their own making.
The funny thing about bullshitters is that they might just as easily utter a truth as a lie. Trump displayed such inadvertent truth-telling during his press conference following the attack on Venezuela, when time and again he emphasized its rationale. It was not to bring democracy, liberty and prosperity to the country, but instead to bring oil out of Venezuela and to him. But he does not care when he happens to stumble across a truth. “It is just this lack of connection to a concern with truth,” writes Frankfurt, “this indifference to how things really are, that I regard as the essence of bullshit.”
It is tempting to say that when Frankfurt’s book was published in 2005, we had a glimpse, thanks to George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, of the real-world consequences of bullshitting. My guess, though, is that Dubya and his cabinet still recognized and, in a way, valued truth. (Consider Dick Cheney’s deathbed denunciation of Donald Trump.)
But those days now seem halcyon compared to the hell we now face, one where both epistemological and moral truths have been tossed into the woodchipper. Perhaps one step we can take to resist this state of affairs is, like Mayor Frey and Harry Frankfurt, to start calling the Trump administration’s lies what they really are.
The post This Jewish philosopher would have called out the Trump administration’s b.s. in Minneapolis appeared first on The Forward.
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After facing backlash, California congressional hopeful Scott Wiener says Israel is committing ‘genocide’
(JTA) — After declining to say whether he believed “Israel is committing genocide in Gaza” during a debate last week, California congressional candidate Scott Wiener has announced that he does, in fact, believe Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a genocide.
Wiener’s demurral during the Wednesday debate, during which his two Democratic opponents endorsed the genocide charge without hesitation, elicited jeers from the audience. Afterwards, Wiener said he thought the lightning-round format was inappropriate for such a complex question but said he believed Israel’s actions in Gaza represented “an absolute moral stain.”
Facing ongoing criticism over his stance, Wiener — a leader of the Jewish caucus in California’s legislature — issued a video statement on Sunday saying that he had come to a clear conclusion.
“For years, I’ve condemned Netanyahu and his extremist government and the devastation they’ve inflicted on Gaza,” he wrote on X, introducing his statement. “It’s why I’ve been clear I won’t support U.S. funding for the destruction of Palestinian communities. I’ve stopped short of calling it genocide, but I can’t anymore.”
Wiener is running for the seat being vacated by Nancy Pelosi, a pro-Israel stalwart. His comments mean that all three Democratic candidates for the seat have firmly taken the position that Israel is committing genocide, a charge that Israel and the United States reject.
In the video, Wiener elaborated on his thinking.
“As a Jew, I am deeply aware that the word genocide was created in the wake of the Holocaust, which was the industrial extermination of 6 million Jews. For many Jews, associating the word genocide with the Jewish state of Israel is deeply painful and frankly traumatic,” he said. “But despite that pain and that trauma, we all have eyes, and we see the absolute devastation and catastrophic death toll in Gaza inflicted by the Israeli government. And we all have ears, and we hear the genocidal statements by certain senior members of the Israeli government. And to me, the Israeli government has tried to destroy Gaza and to push Palestinians out, and that qualifies as genocide.”
Wiener’s statement comes as harsh criticism of Israel becomes de rigueur among Democrats amid a bottoming-out of support among Democratic voters. Anti-Israel sentiment is on the rise among Republicans, too, shattering a decades-old consensus on the right about support for Israel.
Wiener has faced sustained protest from pro-Palestinian activists over his liberal Zionist stances. He has also long faced right-wing scorn as well as antisemitism-laced criticism over his stance on transgender rights, which he supports.
The post After facing backlash, California congressional hopeful Scott Wiener says Israel is committing ‘genocide’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Iran threatens to attack Israel if Trump strikes Tehran over crackdown on protesters
(JTA) — Iranian leaders say they could attack Israel if the United States strikes Iran over its response to a sweeping anti-government protest movement.
“Let us be clear: in the case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories as well as all U.S. bases and ships will be our legitimate target,” Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, a former commander in the country’s Revolutionary Guards, said on Saturday. Iranian officials use “the occupied territories” to refer to Israel, which the Iranian Islamic Republic regime has sworn to destroy and attacked repeatedly.
Qalibaf was responding to U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated comments signaling potential U.S. retaliation against Iran in the event that Iranian officials begin killing anti-government protesters who have been demonstrating with increasing strength since late last month.
On Monday, Qalibaf reportedly escalated his threats at a pro-government rally in Tehran, saying Iran would deal Trump “an unforgettable lesson” if he follows through on his continued threats to intervene. Agence France Presse reported that he spoke in front of banners reading “Death to Israel, Death to America” in Persian.
Trump has openly said the United States is considering weighing in against the Iranian government. “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before,” he wrote on Truth Social, his social media network, on Saturday. “The USA stands ready to help!!!”
On Sunday, amid reports that the Iranian regime had embarked on a bloody crackdown, Trump said again that he was considering “very strong options” against Iran, though he also said Tehran had reached out to negotiate. Amid reports that he expected to be briefed on military options against Iran on Tuesday, Trump indicated that the United States could act sooner.
“Iran wants to negotiate, yes. We may meet with them — I mean a meeting is being set up,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One late Sunday. “But we may have to act, because of what’s happening, before the meeting.”
Protest leaders said hundreds if not thousands of protesters had been shot to death in Tehran on Sunday, though official numbers were much lower and impossible for independent news organizations to verify in part because of an internet blackout that the government put in place last week.
“There seem to be some people killed that aren’t supposed to be killed,” Trump said. “These are violent — if you call them leaders, I don’t know if they’re leaders or just if they rule through violence. And we’re looking at some very strong options. We’ll make a determination.”
The potential for armed conflict between the United States and Iran, Israel’s sworn enemy, has prompted sharp concerns in Israel, which last year waged a 12-day war with Iran that ended under U.S. pressure following a U.S. strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on Sunday to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Reuters reported that Israeli intelligence officials said the country was on “high alert.”
At least one Israeli official has indicated that Israeli agents are active on the ground in Iran during the swelling protest movement, fueling criticism from Tehran that the protests have been stoked by foreign actors.
Demonstrations in support of the Iranian protesters, who are responding not only to the country’s repressive religious leadership but also an economic crisis, took place in cities around the world over the weekend. Some of the protests included Jewish Iranian expats and expressions of support for Israel.
The post Iran threatens to attack Israel if Trump strikes Tehran over crackdown on protesters appeared first on The Forward.