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This Jewish temple is providing a home for a historic church in the Village
(New York Jewish Week) — After a six-alarm fire left a historic Manhattan church homeless, a synagogue stepped in to provide a space for church-goers to continue worshiping while they figure out a plan for a new home.
Two years later, the bond between the two congregations has only grown, with a new twist: East End Temple on E. 17th St. is supporting Middle Collegiate Church in its clash with the Landmarks Preservation Commission over plans to rebuild their damaged building in the East Village.
Dec. 5 marked the two-year anniversary of the fire that brought her church to the Reform congregation, or “out of a place in the wilderness,” as the Reverend Dr. Jacqui Lewis told the New York Jewish Week. Lewis said that East End’s Rabbi Josh Stanton was one of the first people who reached out to her after the fire, which started next door and destroyed the 128-year-old sanctuary.
“We just made a covenant to move in there,” Lewis said. “Josh was offering me a tabernacle. This big-hearted rabbi opens the door to a church, in a time of rising antisemitism, that’s just bold, fierce love at work.”
Stanton told the New York Jewish Week that the relationship between the two faith communities “predates the fire itself.”
“The reverend has been a friend and a mentor for years,” Stanton said. “When her community’s building went up in flames, I reached out to her and just said, ‘anything you need, just know that I’m here, know that our community is here.’”
Middle Collegiate Church started using the temple’s space on Easter Sunday that spring. The synagogue’s president Brian Lifsec said he was there on the first day.
“It felt like a tent in the desert for these congregants,” Lifsec said.
It’s not all bleak out there.
I went to church last Sunday, where East End Temple, a Jewish synagogue in the East Village, has been hosting @middlechurch for almost two years after a fire destroyed their historic building. pic.twitter.com/0FjtlXr7TA
— Jacob Henry (@jhenrynews) December 8, 2022
Stanton said that East End Temple covers “upwards of 95% of the cost” for the church to rent the space.
“That’s because of the generosity of our donors,” Stanton said. “And because our community understands that walking the walk of Judaism means reaching out to people who might themselves not be Jewish.”
Lewis is the first woman and first African-American to serve as a senior minister for the Collegiate church system, which dates back to the Reformed Dutch Church congregations that formed in the New York area in the 1600s. She is comfortable leading church services in front of an ark, a menorah and Hebrew scriptures, but aches to get back into her own building.
How and whether she can do that depends in part on the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which is responsible for preserving New York City’s historically significant buildings. It seeks to protect the historic facade made of limestone that remains standing. The church, following an 18-month study by several architectural and engineering firms, says there is too much damage to the existing structure to integrate it into a new home.
“The walls themselves are historic,” Stanton said. “Despite the church’s best efforts, there is no way to keep them safely up. What is so sad and problematic is that from an architectural standpoint, there is nothing they can do.”
Lewis said that the church has spent over $4 million to secure the site, clean up debris, stabilize the facade with stainless steel and paint the bricks so they don’t deteriorate — and it is still not safe to rebuild.
“We did that because we wanted the facade,” Lewis said on Sunday after prayer, as she led some church members to the site of the burnt-down building. “We just can’t afford it. We’re wanting to build a building that is appropriate for this historic neighborhood but also has the capacity for 22nd-century ministry.”
The Reverend Dr. Jacqui Lewis of Middle Collegiate Church leading services at East End Temple. (Courtesy)
In a phone call last week, Lewis said that she doesn’t want this to feel like she’s in “a battle” with the preservation community.
“But some parts of the preservation community are pretty strident about us keeping up the wall,” Lewis said.
The church is waiting on a decision from the commission on Dec. 13, which will decide the fate of their building.
Anthony Donovan, a church member who has lived in Greenwich Village for 31 years, told the New York Jewish Week that “there are deep pockets of real estate that would really love this facade” as part of their own plans.
“Luxury housing would look fantastic behind this facade,” Donovan said. “And they have millions to keep that facade that we don’t have.”
Village Preservation, an activist group opposed to the demolition of the facade, said in an emailed press release that alternatives need to be studied.
“We are urging the Landmarks Preservation Commission not to grant such permission at this time, because we don’t believe there is sufficient documentation that alternatives to preserve the historic facade have been fully explored, nor that there is sufficient evidence at this time to justify the permanent and irreversible removal,” the organization said.
“The facade is on life support,” Lewis said. “We could pull the plug and come back to life. We could have a resurrection. We could have a new life that is both historic and moves into the 22nd century, and that’s what we want to do.”
Assembly member Harvey Epstein, who is Jewish and represents the district, gave testimony supporting the church at a previous hearing with the Landmark Preservation Commission.
“While I understand Landmark’s concerns, I think more important than just what that physical piece is that the actual church and the people behind it get to come back,” Epstein told the New York Jewish Week over the phone.
He added that Rabbi Stanton is an example of someone “living Jewish values everyday” by allowing the church to worship at East End Temple.
“It’s really critical, especially in times where you see an increase in antisemitism, that people who are Christian know that people who are Jewish, while having different religious beliefs, are allies to them as well,” Epstein said.
Stanton said that if it is decided that the walls have to stay up, then the conversation will move into “the realm of heartbreaking decisions.”
“It is not clear if the walls have to stay up, that the church will have to rebuild at all, even if it raises significant funds to do so,” Stanton said. “If they move out of this area, there’s going to be a huge gaping void for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers. It just wouldn’t be the same.”
The building has served the community since 1892. Before the fire, it served as a community hub for other programs, some run by other synagogues, that include soup kitchens and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
The Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis of Middle Collegiate Church leads congregants outside the destroyed remains of the previous church building. (Jacob Henry)
It has also played a role in supporting people during the AIDS crisis, helping people pay rent during Covid and more recently, supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia.
Together, the church and synagogue communities also hold a “food for families” program, where members help feed 1,500 families every Sunday.
Edna Benitez, a church-goer who has lived in the Village for 27 years, told the New York Jewish Week that when the fire broke out, the church was housing a Torah for another synagogue, The Shul of New York.
“They had an ancient Torah,” Benitez said. “Our fire destroyed the building, but the Torah stayed. It’s a huge symbol. We’re here two years later celebrating in a temple. We housed the Torah, this incredible, prized possession that meant so much to you, and now you’re housing us.”
Whatever happens with the Landmarks Commission, Lewis said that she expects her partnership with Stanton and East End Temple “to be lifelong.”
“We have so many things to do together,” Lewis said. “I know that we’ll be welcome there, and I also know that they know that we need a bigger space. In the meantime, they’ve been incredible hosts and they are offering us ongoing hospitality.”
Outside the church facade, Stanton spoke out how in a time of troubling antisemitism — fueled by celebrities like Kanye West and Kyrie Irving and propagated by groups like the Black Hebrew Israelite sect — the relationship between his synagogue and the church represents “real life.”
“While antisemitism is on the rise, so too is allyship,” Stanton said. “The Reverend Dr. Jacqui Lewis, who embodies allyship at its best, is one of the people who reaches out every single time that something awful happens to a Jewish community.”
Lewis, who can command a stage (or bimah), led a passionate sermon on Sunday, with the fire on the back of everyone’s mind.
“Could we do a little interior work as we go along this pilgrim’s journey so that we are not accidentally putting fuel on the fire that is raging and burning down the world?” she said.
—
The post This Jewish temple is providing a home for a historic church in the Village appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Netanyahu Applauds Eurovision Runner-Up Noam Bettan: ‘Everyone Is Very Proud of You’
Noam Bettan, representing Israel, performs “Michelle” during the dress rehearsal 2 of the Grand Final of the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest, in Vienna, Austria, May 15, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Lisa Leutner
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Israeli singer Noam Bettan on finishing in second place in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday, despite boos and anti-Israel protests in the audience and boycotts from several countries due to Israel’s participation.
“Noam, what an amazing victory, what an achievement, and how much pride, strength, confidence, and artistry,” Netanyahu told the 28-year-old singer during a phone call. “You are on a path to greatness. In any case, you have the gratitude of the entire nation. Everyone is very, very proud of you.”
The prime minister also applauded the singer for standing “tall against those hollow verbal potshots.”
“You did it exactly as it should be done,” Netanyahu told Bettan. “You did a wonderful job. And I saw that the audience, as usual, was more supportive than the judges. Well done to you. Keep moving forward, rise and succeed, and many blessings.”
During their call, Bettan thanked Netanyahu for his kind words and said it was “a great privilege” to represent Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest, “to bring honor, to represent us in a positive light, and to bring some light and goodness into this world.”
“And I have a certain hope, because I felt there was a very great unity tonight, and I hope so much that it stays with us and continues in two days, in a year, and in 50 years,” Bettan noted. “I want unity so much, and I truly hope it continues.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with singer Noam Bettan, who represented Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest and won an impressive second place in the competition > >https://t.co/dxTAe2NiRQ pic.twitter.com/lVMZYl2JlQ
— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) May 17, 2026
The 2026 Eurovision Song Contest took place at the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna, Austria.
Bulgaria won with the upbeat dance track “Bangaranga,” performed by Dara. The victory marked the first ever Eurovision win for the Balkan nation, which will host next year’s competition. Bettan finished second with “Michelle,” a trilingual song in Hebrew, French, and English that is about putting oneself first when in a toxic relationship.
Anti-Israel protesters who disrupted Bettan’s performance during the semifinals last week were removed from the audience inside Vienna’s Wiener Stadthalle after chanting “stop, stop the genocide” and “Free, free Palestine.”
“One audience member, close to a microphone, loudly expressed their views as the Israeli artist began his performance, and during the song, which was heard on the live broadcast,” Austrian national broadcaster ORF and the European Broadcasting Union, which organizes the Eurovision, said in a joint statement about the incident. “They were later removed for continuing to disturb the audience. Three other people were also removed from the arena by security for disruptive behavior.”
Bettan told Reuters he also heard boos from a few pro-Palestinian protesters in the audience when he first went on stage for the semifinals.
Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Iceland refused to participate in this year’s Eurovision because of Israel’s inclusion, in protest of the country’s military operation in the Gaza Strip targeting Hamas terrorists who orchestrated the deadly attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israel also finished second in the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest.
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Harry Styles Responds ‘Correct’ to Fan Shouting ‘Long Live Palestine’ at Amsterdam Concert
Harry Styles poses on the red carpet during for the BRIT Awards at the Co-op Live Arena, in Manchester, Britain, Feb. 28, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Temilade Adelaja
British pop star Harry Styles on Saturday night interacted with a fan who shouted a slogan in support of Palestinians during the kickoff of his “Together, Together” world tour in Amsterdam.
The “Aperture” singer was performing in Amsterdam’s Johan Cruijff Arena on the opening night of his tour and stopped to adjust his earpiece on stage when an audience member shouted, “Viva, Viva Palestina!” which means “Long Live, Long Live Palestine” in Spanish. The former One Direction singer replied to the comment saying, “Correct.” A clip of the interaction was posted on social media.
One of the charity partners for the “Together, Together” tour is Choose Love, which provides humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including food and medical treatment.
The tour will include more than 60 performances around the world, including in The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Australia, Mexico, and Brazil. Styles’ only shows in the United States will be 30 consecutive nights at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. The singer’s fourth solo album, “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally,” was released in March.
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Israel Warns of Escalating Terror Threat in West Bank as Iran, Turkey, Hamas Seek to Stoke Extremism
Israeli soldiers walk during an operation in Tubas, in the West Bank, Nov. 26, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman
Israeli security officials have warned of a rapidly deteriorating security situation in the West Bank, citing deepening Iranian and Turkish involvement alongside Hamas efforts to expand terrorist infrastructure and orchestrate attacks across the territory.
According to the Israeli news outlet Walla, defense officials point to a growing role by Iran, Turkey, and Hamas in financing, directing, and sustaining terrorism, while also leveraging Gaza-linked networks to expand coordination, incitement, and operational activity across the West Bank.
With Israeli communities in the West Bank steadily expanding, the local military command is under significant strain, operating with 22 battalions while confronting a wide range of security challenges, including dismantling terrorist infrastructure, disrupting terrorist financing channels, locating weapons caches, protecting settlements, and stopping arms smuggling from Jordan.
Israeli officials have previously warned that large-scale terrorist attacks targeting local communities could serve as a destabilizing flashpoint amid the wars in Gaza and Iran.
Last year, Israeli forces uncovered documents suggesting Hamas is actively preparing plans for raids on settlements in the area.
Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, arrested six Arab Israeli citizens last month suspected of transferring millions of shekels from Hamas’s Turkish branch into the West Bank as part of an underground terrorist financing network believed to have smuggled more than three million shekels to fund attacks against Israel.
Experts also point to a growing threat from the Jenin Brigades in the northern West Bank — an alliance of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas operatives that has transformed refugee camps into bases for shootings, bombings, and ambushes.
The group’s operations are reportedly sustained by a complex financing system that moves Iranian funds through Palestinian banking channels, siphons off Israeli-collected tax revenues, and makes use of international facilitators.
“By sustaining this West Bank front through Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad networks, Tehran forces Israel to fight simultaneously across multiple fronts, drains resources that could otherwise consolidate gains in Gaza, and keeps the Palestinian issue politically radioactive enough to sabotage broader Arab-Israeli alignment,” Jose Lev Alvarez, a writing fellow at the Middle East Forum think tank, explained in a recent article.
“Tehran [then] advances its axis-of-resistance doctrine at minimal cost — no Iranian boots, no direct missile exchanges, just calibrated chaos designed to obstruct any credible day-after plan for Gaza and derail normalization agreements with Saudi Arabia or Gulf states demanding Palestinian stability,” he continued.
Last year, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) warned that Iran was driving a growing terrorist threat in the West Bank, with concerns that Iranian-backed arms smuggling could enable an Oct. 7-style attack.
Israeli intelligence and security forces have since intensified operations across the territory amid fears that Iranian-supplied weapons are increasingly reaching Palestinian terrorists and escalating the risk of a large-scale assault.
Israeli intelligence assessments have also warned that terrorists operating in the West Bank are believed to possess weapons capable of breaching Israeli defenses, including what officials described as “standard Iranian weapons.”
According to Joe Truzman, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based think tank, Israeli officials should be closely monitoring the West Bank as Hamas regroups and rearms in the Gaza Strip after more than two years of war.
“Hamas and its allied factions understand that igniting violence in the territory would divert Israel’s attention during a critical time of rebuilding the group’s infrastructure in Gaza,” Truzman told The Algemeiner last year.
“The release of convicted terrorists to the West Bank under the [Israel-Hamas] ceasefire agreement may be a factor in the resurgence of organized violence in the territory,” he continued.
As of last February, Israeli security forces foiled nearly 1,000 terrorist plots over the past year, with senior military officials increasingly worried that the volatile situation in the West Bank could lead to a large-scale attack similar to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, onslaught against Israeli settlements and communities near the security barrier.
According to a survey released last year by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, 70 percent of all respondents — and 81 percent of Jewish respondents — expressed fear of an Oct. 7-style attack coming from the West Bank. In contrast, 53 percent of Arab respondents said they were not worried about such an attack.
In response to these concerns, the IDF has established a special command to address potential threats in the West Bank and launched a nearly unprecedented counterterror operation in the northern part of the territory.