Jewish Organizations Call on Pennsylvania Legislators to Increase Security Funding
Jewish schools, synagogues, camps and community institutions spent recent days urging Pennsylvania lawmakers to protect at-risk populations. The campaign, conducted while state budget negotiations were underway, was coordinated by Teach PA, a project of the Orthodox Union.
The two security grant programs they advocated for increased funding toward are the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Safe Schools Targeted Grant Program and the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency’s Nonprofit Security Grant Fund.
Teach PA aimed to increase the Safe Schools Targeted Grant Program to $5 million for nonpublic schools, and the Nonprofit Security Grant Fund to $10 million.
“When our community becomes our own activists and advocates, our legislators can’t avoid listening to us and, in this case, investing in our safety and that of our children,” Teach PA Executive Director Arielle Frankston-Morris said. “We thank Gov. [Tom] Wolf and our legislators for creating these programs, but with the increase in hate crimes we are seeing across the country, specifically attacks against Jews, we are urging them to increase the security funding in a meaningful way so that more institutions will have access to these critical funds.”
Stockton U. to Discuss SJ Chicken Farms
Stockton University faculty and staff will discuss the history of South Jersey chicken farms started by Holocaust survivors as part of its educational summer lecture series hosted by the Shirat Hayam synagogue, 700 N. Swarthmore Ave. in Ventnor, New Jersey.
The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held at 7 p.m. on July 9, prior to Shabbat services. Question-and-answer sessions will follow.
Gail Rosenthal, executive director of the Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Center at Stockton, will speak about the research and upcoming fall exhibit on the history of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust after World War II who lived in Atlantic, Cape May and Cumberland counties. The exhibition will highlight six families who settled on chicken farms.
On July 16, the series will discuss the history of Stockton, while the Aug. 13 installment will feature Stockton Professor Beverly Vaughn and Stockton Oratorio Society members, who will share the historical impact of Black music on gospel and popular music.
Members of the public interested in participating through Zoom can contact Cantor Jacqueline Menaker at [email protected] for the link.
Former Mossad Agent to Speak About Adolf Eichmann’s Capture, Trial
Lt. Col. Avner Avraham will discuss the capture and trial of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann at 6:30 p.m. on July 6 at Congregation Mikveh Israel, 44 N. Fourth St. in Philadelphia.
Eichmann facilitated and managed the logistics involved in the mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and concentration camps during World War II. He was captured by the Mossad in Argentina in 1960, found guilty of war crimes and executed by hanging in Jerusalem in 1962.
Avraham is a film producer and curator, as well as the senior adviser on the film “Operation Finale.”
Admission is free and open to the public, although a donation of $10 is sought.
For further information or to RSVP, call the synagogue office at 215-922-5446 or email [email protected].
