Free Republic

Bomb threats were sent to Jewish schools and synagogues across Southern California this week, as a wave of antisemitism continues. Breitbart News sources indicate that 20 Jewish institutions in Los Angeles received bomb threats on Tuesday, causing those Jewish schools that had been scheduled to open on January 2 to remain closed. In San Diego, six synagogues (or temples) were threatened, as the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Wednesday:

LOS ANGELES, California — Pro-Palestinian protesters vandalized buildings near synagogues, as well as a nearby church, with anti-Israel graffiti on Friday night after demonstrating against President Joe Biden at a nearby fundraiser on Friday night. As Breitbart News reported, the protesters gathered outside a fundraiser near Beverly Hills, waving signs that included “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — a call for Israel to be destroyed.

WASHINGTON — President Biden told a group of rabbis on Thursday that he was “raised in the synagogues” of Delaware — after previously claiming to have been raised by the state’s then-tiny Puerto Rican community. “I, you might say, was raised in the synagogues of my state. You think I’m kidding, I’m not,” Biden said during a call ahead of Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish new year holiday that begins Friday.

American Jews are feeling vulnerable. The 2018 Tree of Life and 2019 Poway Chabad house synagogue shootings; the Colleyville, Texas hostage standoff in January of this year; and arrests of those threatening to harm Jews in synagogues in New York, New Jersey, and Michigan in recent months contribute to this unease. Coupled with largely unpunished street violence against Jews in Brooklyn and social-media threats worsened by Kanye West’s anti-Semitic ravings, Jews have had to bolster security measures at houses of worship. While President Biden recently announced an interagency taskforce to combat anti-Semitism, and while the governor and mayor of New...

A highly unusual move by the Justice Department to retry Florida nursing home owner Philip Esformes on health-care fraud criminal charges after then-President Donald Trump commuted his 20-year prison sentence is headed to an appeals court hearing as defense lawyers suggest prosecutors are motivated by anger at Trump. "The situation is entirely unique because the actions of the prosecutors here are incredibly outrageous," said Joe Tacopina, a leading New York criminal defense attorney. "There's no question in my mind that the [Justice Department's] flagrant disregard of President Trump's clemency order is motivated by acrimony towards him," said Tacopina. Tacopina is...

Portland reporter Mike Bivins was arrested on Saturday over alleged attacks of vandalism and arson at houses of worship, according to the Portland Police Bureau. Michael E. Bivins, 34, of Portland, Oregon was booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center early Saturday. Bivins was charged with multiple counts of criminal mischief in the first degree, criminal mischief in the third degree, and arson in the first degree. On April 30, Bivins allegedly broke windows to Congregation Shir Tikvah, a Jewish Synagogue, located at 2420 NE Sandy Blvd in Portland. On May 2, Bivins allegedly graffitied the Jewish Synagogue Congregation Beth...

On July 11, the American Jewish establishment tried to prove that it could fight anti-Semitism and be progressive at the same time. It failed. Outside of Congress that day, dozens of American Jewish groups co-sponsored a rally against the rising tide of Jew-hatred in America. The organizers had hoped that tens of thousands would show up for the event, and for good reason. In April 2002, a hundred thousand American Jews from all over the country congregated in Washington on short notice to rally in support of Israel during “Operation Defensive Shield.” And here they were supposed to rally...

A New York judge has released a man suspected of vandalizing synagogues across the Bronx - just hours after another judge defied the state's bail reform laws and ordered him locked up. Jordan Burnette, 29, faces 42 charges over a string of attacks on Jewish places of worship. He appeared in court Sunday, and was expected to be freed because New York State's bail reform laws say a suspect with his charges cannot be held on bail.

A Bronx judge went rogue on Sunday and set $30,000 bail for the alleged vandal charged with terrorizing Riverdale’s Jewish community — even though the man was set to be sprung under the state’s new bail reform laws. Jordan Burnette, 29, was hit with 42 charges, including a number of hate crime-related offenses for smashing windows at various synagogues. But none of them are on the so-called “bail eligible” list, prosecutors noted at his arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court. “Given the number of attacks, we probably would have asked for substantial bail before January of 2020,” Assistant District Attorney Theresa...

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is downplaying the significance of a Supreme Court decision blocking him enforcing stringent attendance limits on religious institutions in Covid hot spots. “That Supreme Court ruling on the religious gatherings is more illustrative of the Supreme Court than anything else,” Cuomo said on a Thanksgiving morning briefing call. “It’s irrelevant from any practical impact.”

In Agudath Israel of America v. Cuomo, (2d Cir., Nov. 9, 2020), the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 decision refused to grant an injunction pending appeal to a group of Jewish synagogues and to the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn in a case challenging New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's restrictions on spots in which clusters of COVD-19 cases have broken out. (See prior posting.) The majority said in part: The Court fully understands the impact the executive order has had on houses of worship throughout the affected zones. Nevertheless, the Appellants cannot clear the high bar necessary...

In a meeting of the government's coronavirus cabinet today, Construction and Housing Minister Yakov Litzman (UTJ) demanded that synagogues be subject to the same restrictions as those applied to hotel restaurants, which are permitted to accommodate up to 35% of their capacity at any one time. "There is no logical reason for discriminating between people coming to pray in a synagogue, where only 10 people are currently permitted to gather at any one time, and restaurant clientele, where up to 35% of the area's capacity may be filled. The discrimination is even more blatant considering that people eating in a...

President Donald Trump spoke briefly at the White House Friday and called for state governors to allow for churches and other places of worship to reopen to the public. Trump says he considers houses of worship “essential” and wants them to reopen this weekend.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told American rabbis on Thursday that synagogues in the US may be able to be open for the Jewish High Holy Days in the fall, but only if certain conditions are met in terms of testing, contact tracing and social distancing. Speaking during a conference call organized by the Orthodox Union and quoted by Haaretz, Fauci expressed optimism that religious activities could be renewed before the end of the year. He noted, however, that synagogues would not be able to operate in the same way as...

Turkey al-Qaida Leader Said Killed in Iraq Fri Sep 10, 2:52 PM ET By JAMES C. HELICKE, Associated Press Writer ANKARA, Turkey - Turkish television broadcast on Friday a video from militants saying that the suspected leader of a Turkish al-Qaida cell blamed for suicide bombings in Istanbul was killed by U.S. airstrikes in Iraq (news - web sites). The video showed a body of a bearded man with a bloody face said to be that of Habib Akdas. A man, apparently a Turkish militant, was heard in the video saying Akdas was killed in a bombing raid this week...

A British organization has launched an ambitious project aimed at restoring old, abandoned synagogues across Europe and bringing them back to community life, and commemorating communities that were wiped out in the Holocaust. The Foundation of Jewish Heritage has identified 3,300 pre-Second World War buildings used for Jewish prayer, of which at least 19 could be brought back into use - out of an estimated total of 17,000 that were in use before the Second World War. The remaining buildings, of which just 718 are still being used as synagogues, have been carefully catalogued based on their artistic, urban, and...

In the end there will be only two types of Democrats: anti-Semites and cowards. Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. The Democrats care about anti-Semitism. They care so much that they had a presidential candidate and convention speaker who led an anti-Semitic riot through a Jewish neighborhood. “If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house,” he had taunted his victims. He became a close presidential adviser whose endorsement is sought after by every Democrat...

There is shocking news this week from Germany. Three Palestinian Muslims who torched a synagogue in Wuppertal, Germany have been given suspended sentences because their actions allegedly represented a justified criticism of Israel. A regional court has upheld the decision of a lower court, also agreeing that the actions of these Muslim men were not antisemitic. And to think that this happened in Germany, a nation that still bears the shame of the Holocaust.According to many historians, the Holocaust began on the evening of Nov. 9, 1938, known today as Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. On that fateful...

At least they're not bombing them. Yet. As Gatestone's Yves Mamou reports, the growing support for Jihad among Muslim settlers in France is affecting law enforcement. A leaked confidential memo from the Department of Public Security, published by Le Parisien,details 17 cases of police officers radicalized between 2012 and 2015. Particularly noted were the police officers who listen to and broadcast Muslim chants while on patrol. Some of these police officers have openly refused to protect synagogues or to observe a minute of silence to commemorate the deaths of victims of terrorist attacks. ...the police were alerted to a policewoman...

BEIT SHEMESH, Israel — The carved stone block is about the size of an occasional table. It has held its secrets for two millenniums. Whoever engraved its enigmatic symbols was apparently depicting the ancient Jewish temples. But what makes the stone such a rare find in biblical archaeology, according to scholars, is that when it was carved, the Second Temple still stood in Jerusalem for the carver to see. The stone is a kind of ancient snapshot. And it is upending some long-held scholarly assumptions about ancient synagogues and their relationship with the Temple, a center of Jewish pilgrimage and...