Jews of Philly Fashion: Kimby Kimmel and Amy Fink

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From left: Kimby Kimmel and Amy Fink | Courtesy of Kimby Kimmel and Amy Fink

It’s the newest edition of Jews of Philly Fashion, introducing you to the Chosen few who dress our city. They might mix wool and linen, but they’ve got some strong opinions on mixing stripes with florals. In this space, we’ll talk to designers, sellers, buyers, influencers, models and more. This week, we spoke to Kimby Kimmel and Amy Fink.

Amy Fink and Kimby Kimmel share quite a bit. They both graduated from the former Akiba Hebrew Academy in 1988, both send their children to the now-Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy today and both found themselves looking for something new during the pandemic.

When it seemed like nothing would ever be the same, the longtime friends looked to each other for support and inspiration.

What came out was Ilyan Jewelry, Kimmel and Fink’s private jewelry company (the name is pronounced “a-lion”). As they don’t have a storefront, customers can view the jewelry by appointment only, and they participate in trunk shows and private charity events. Fink studied gemology at the Gemological Institute of America; Kimmel learned about custom jewelry design from her mother, Nancy Hankin Schwartzman, and co-owned a stationery and invitations business for 20 years.

Fink and Kimmel, friends since they were 14, spoke about inspiration, their favorite pieces of their own and TikTok.

What’s the last book you read?

KK: “To Kill a Mocking Girl: A Bookbinding Mystery” by Harper Kincaid. The author is a good friend and roommate of mine from the University of Miami.

AF: The last book I read was “Mrs. Everything” by Jenifer Weiner. I love all her books.

What clothing trend would you like to see make a comeback?

KK: I would love to see scarves make a comeback. There’s nothing like a colorful Hermès scarf worn with a blazer or thrown over a white T-shirt and jeans.

Best piece of jewelry you own?

KK: It’s not necessarily the best piece that I own, but definitely a favorite and meaningful piece: my emerald-cut blue topaz and gold ring that my mother made for me for my bat mitzvah.

AF: The best piece of jewelry I own are my Cartier tri-color trinity rolling bangles. My aunt gave them to me at my big birthday. They were given to her by my uncle on her big birthday many years ago and I have always loved them. They go with everything.

What’s the best quality in a friend?

KK: The best quality in a friend is someone that is honest and there for you through the good and the bad. Amy and I have been friends since ninth grade at Akiba Hebrew Academy and I can definitely say that she is that kind of friend. There’s a lot of history there and so much more to be made.

What would you be doing if you weren’t in the jewelry business?

KK: If I weren’t in the jewelry business I would just continue to live my best life surrounded by people I love.

What item of clothing should more people be wearing?

KK: Loafers. They’re the perfect shoe to dress an outfit up or down.

What person’s style do you admire?

AF: I love Sarah Jessica Parker. She is so talented and creative in her style. She is extremely fashion forward, but always has a classic and elegant flair.

What talent would you most like to have?

KK: I would love to be able to paint or learn how to do graffiti art.

AF: Anyone who knows me knows that I am a terrible dancer. I have no coordination and wish I did. My daughter is obsessed with TikTok and always asks me to make them with her, but I feel too self-
conscious.

[email protected]; 215-832-0740

Panel on IHRA Anti-Semitism Definition Rankles

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Lila Corwin Berman, Kenneth S. Stern and Joyce Ajlouny discuss the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. | Screenshot by Jesse Bernstein

An April 20 online event hosted by Congregation Rodeph Shalom was meant to educate congregants about the potential for free speech issues surrounding the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism.

In the days before it began, the event drew criticism from some letter-writers and Jewish organizations who characterized it as “strongly biased against Israel and Jews,” as one statement put it, taking issue with both the subject matter and the panelists themselves.

The panelists and organizers vehemently dispute that notion.

The controversy surrounding the event is a miniaturized version of fights that have roiled British and American politics in recent years about how to understand the connection between Israel and anti-Semitism, fights that have often asked thorny questions about free speech, academic freedom and campus politics. In Philadelphia, this most recent controversy has a local flavor, as critics of the event charged its panelists and organizers with disrespecting the memory of Murray Friedman, a local Jewish scholar of national repute. The panelists and organizers deny that charge, too.

The event, “The Weaponization of Discourse: Israel/Palestine, Antisemitism, and Free Speech on Campus,” was co-hosted with Temple University’s Feinstein Center for American Jewish History and the Holocaust and Genocide Studies Program at Stockton University.

Panelists Joyce Ajlouny, general secretary of the American Friends Service Committee, and Kenneth S. Stern, director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate at Bard College, discussed the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism for about an hour.

Stern was one of the original drafters of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. In 2004, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, the European Union’s racism and xenophobia monitor, sought guidance from Jewish academics and NGOs in providing an update to the definition of anti-Semitism. Stern and his co-drafters produced this 38-word statement:

“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

Alongside that statement, Stern and the co-drafters provided 11 illustrative examples of anti-Semitic statements. Seven of the 11 mention bias relating to Israel as potentially anti-Semitic in nature.

The IHRA definition, as Stern said again during the April 20 event, was not meant to be given the force of law, but simply to serve as a guide for monitoring purposes.

But since its publication in 2004, governments worldwide have formally adopted the IHRA definition, concerning a wide range of academics and activists, from pro-Palestinian activists to libertarians.

In the U.S. and abroad, Stern said, the worry is that providing the IHRA definition with legal force could, in effect, create a new category of legally prohibited speech, thereby stifling freedom of speech and academic freedom. Stern contends that groups who would find it in their interest to silence speech that criticized Israel could use the newly empowered definition, adopted by the U.S. government via a 2019 executive order, to threaten pro-Palestinian speakers with legal action.

Even as a Zionist who still finds the original definition useful for understanding anti-Semitism, Stern wrote in a 2019 op-ed for The Guardian, he finds the prospect that it would be used to suppress the speech of anti-Zionists to be fundamentally wrong.

“To establish that as a principle of law is, to me, abhorrent,” Stern said during the panel.

Stern was joined by Ajlouny, born in Ramallah, who has led the AFSC since 2017. The Quaker organization has long championed the cause of the Palestinians, and Ajlouny was director of Ramallah Friends School.

While director, Ajlouny started “Go Palestine,” a summer camp for Palestinian students. The camp, partially funded by USAID, became a target for criticism from U.S. government officials when the programming content was revealed in a 2017 JNS article. Speakers had advocated for the boycott, divestment, sanctions movement, and one speaker, Nassar Ibrahim, was affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Department of State-designated terrorist group.

During the panel, Ajlouny said that she, like Stern, believed that legally codifying the IHRA definition had unfairly privileged a single point of view. But unlike Stern, Ajlouny is a declared anti-Zionist, and said that “constant accusations” of anti-Semitism against Palestinians and their supporters brought to mind “the boy who cried wolf.” Throughout the panel, Ajlouny shared her personal experience of life in Ramallah living “in an apartheid system,” she said. “If I talk about my personal story, I am accused of being an anti-Semite,” Ajlouny said.

Criticism of the event rolled in well in advance.

Moshe Phillips, national director of Herut North America’s U.S. division, wrote in the Jewish Journal that he’d “expect Arab propagandists to spread such lies,” referring to a line in the event description that mentioned “state violence against Palestinians.”

In another op-ed after the event, Phillips accused Ajlouny of displaying “Phony Martyr Syndrome,” and characterized the event as “90 minutes of Israel-bashing disguised as an academic discussion.”

In addition, Zionist Organization of America National President Morton A. Klein and Center for Law and Justice Director Susan B. Tuchman wrote in an open letter that “there is no doubt that the program will be one-sided and hostile to Israel — and potentially harmful to American Jews.” ZOA Philadelphia Executive Director Steve Feldman said the only room for discussion on the IHRA definition should be “in order to strengthen it, and expand local government, state governments and universities embracing it and adopting it.”

The American Jewish Committee described the event as “strongly biased against Israel and Jews” and took particular issue with the involvement of the Feinstein Center. The center was founded by Murray Friedman, a scholar who led AJC Philadelphia for 43 years.

“Hosting a program that is a blatant attack on Israel and questions the most widely accepted definition of antisemitism is an assault on Murray Friedman’s legacy, and all in our community who have been involved with the Feinstein Center for years,” AJC Philadelphia Director Marcia Bronstein said in a statement. She said that she had requested that another speaker be added to the program, but was rebuffed.

Congregation Rodeph Shalom Senior Rabbi Jill Maderer said that the synagogue received many emails using the same language, describing the Stern and the organizers as self-hating Jews, among other charges.

Stern, Ajlouny, Maderer and Feinstein Center Director Lila Corwin Berman each reported their dismay with the criticism.

Stern was particularly dismayed by the AJC’s criticism; Stern was the national AJC’s expert on anti-Semitism for 25 years. He stressed that there were real points of disagreement between him and Ajlouny on the content of the definition and on other matters relating to Israel, and that the charge that the event would have been objectionable to Murray Friedman was false.

The rancor over this particular event, Stern believes, “is a reflection of exactly the danger” of giving the IHRA definition the force of law, “the idea that you can’t even have a discussion about whether a particular definition has a positive or negative impact on combating anti-Semitism.”

Ajlouny said she wasn’t particularly surprised by the backlash.

“It affirms that the attempt to silence narratives is alive and well,” she said.

Academic freedom was also on Berman’s mind.

“Academic institutions generally do not respond to external pressure to change the contents of classes or the contents of programs,” said Berman, who also holds the Murray Friedman Chair of American Jewish History.

Rodeph Shalom hosts many educational events related to Israel that represent a wide variety of perspectives, Maderer said; recent speakers have included Asaf Romirowsky, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, and Israel Defense Forces veterans who are a part of Breaking the Silence. Such speakers always attract controversy, she said.

“If the only ideas I brought in about Israel excluded any tough truths about the territories, let’s say, then I would be missing out on the next generation of the Jewish community,” Maderer said.

[email protected]; 215-832-0740

Oregon College Fires Jewish Tenured Professor Who Alleged Antisemitism

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anti-semitism dictionary definition
tzahiV / iStock / Getty Images Plus

By Ben Sales

Linfield University, a small liberal arts school in Oregon, has fired a Jewish professor who accused the college’s president of making antisemitic remarks.

Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a tenured professor who taught English literature, has accused Linfield President Miles K. Davis of making multiple antisemitic remarks in recent years. The antisemitism, he said, was partly a backlash to Pollack-Pelzner demanding that the school do more to address allegations of sexual assault against multiple university trustees, including Davis.

Pollack-Pelzner and a Linfield University spokesperson both confirmed to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he had been fired but did not comment further. An email from Linfield Provost Susan Agre-Kippenhan to the school community, sent late Tuesday afternoon, said that a member of the faculty had been terminated for “serious breaches of the individual’s duty to the institution.”

“As a matter of policy and privacy, personnel matters are confidential, but maintaining that is not always possible, particularly when the precipitating events involve false public accusations that have, sadly, harmed the university,” Agre-Kippenhan wrote, adding that a safe environment on campus “cannot be achieved if individuals abuse their positions of trust and take deliberate actions that harm the university.”

Because Pollack-Pelzner has tenure, university policies appear to dictate that he must be granted a hearing before being terminated.

Pollack-Pelzner, who has taught at Linfield for more than a decade, recently went public with his allegations of antisemitism, prompting local and national press coverage. He and other professors alleged that Davis made antisemitic comments regarding Jewish noses and the Holocaust.

Linfield, a university near Portland with some 2,000 students, has almost no organized Jewish presence on campus and only a handful of Jewish students and faculty. It is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA.

Pollack-Pelzner also alleged that, in response to his calls to address sexual assault allegations, Davis made a speech to the board of trustees warning of disloyalty and telling them to follow Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Pollack-Pelzner was also a trustee, representing the school’s faculty.

Davis denied the allegations and has said he is not Christian. He has asked the local NAACP to investigate whether accusations against him were motivated by racial animus. Davis is Linfield’s first Black president.

In recent weeks, the local branch of the Anti-Defamation League and the Oregon Board of Rabbis both contacted the school expressing concern about the allegations. The board of rabbis called for the resignations of Davis and the chair of the board, David Baca, whom Pollack-Pelzner also accused of antisemitic remarks.

The faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences also overwhelmingly voted to approve a no-confidence motion calling on Davis and Baca to resign, but the university has stood behind Davis and Baca.

On Monday, days after the faculty vote, the school removed professors’ ability to email the entire faculty as a group.

Because Pollack-Pelzner has tenure, it appears that his termination must go through a process outlined by the school’s faculty handbook. According to the handbook, Pollack-Pelzner must be served a “statement of charges,” and then has the right to a hearing, 20 days later, in front of an “elected faculty hearing committee,” where he would have the right to counsel. He would then be afforded another hearing in front of the school’s governing board.

LGBTQ Students Sue Yeshiva University for Discrimination

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Jewish Exponent Square.jpgBy Simone Somekh

NEW YORK — A group of students and alumni is suing Yeshiva University for discrimination, claiming that the university violated New York City’s human rights law when it refused to recognize an LGBTQ student club.

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in New York County Supreme Court.

Over the last few years, the students repeatedly lobbied the university’s administration to formally recognize a Gay-Straight Alliance club. The university, a prominent Modern Orthodox institution, has grappled with how to reconcile a traditional interpretation of Jewish law, which does not allow homosexual relations, with its engagement with the secular world.

Molly Meisels, a recent Yeshiva University graduate who led the effort for inclusion while enrolled, called the lawsuit “a last resort.” The suit asks the university to officially recognize the club as a student organization and to award damages to the plaintiffs.

“Queer students and allies at Yeshiva University have been meeting with administrators, applying for club status, sharing our stories with rabbinical figures and advocating internally for years,” Meisels told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “When we realized that our efforts were for naught, we knew that filing a lawsuit was the last way for us to succeed in our endeavors.”

Yeshiva University registers as a nonsectarian corporation, and has received “hundreds of millions of dollars” in state funds and benefits, according to the suit. The students say that the school should not “pick and choose which New York City laws apply.”

On Tuesday, 48 faculty members of Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law sent a letter to the president of the university, condemning Y.U.’s refusal to allow LGBTQ students to form a club. “Discrimination against a student organization solely because of its focus on LGBTQ+ issues has no place in a university that holds itself out as a community committed to the flourishing and equal dignity of all its members,” the letter reads. The faculty members also wrote that the university’s decision is “unlawful under federal, state, and city civil rights laws.”

In a statement sent Tuesday evening, the university responded: “Yeshiva University is the bearer of a 3,000 year-old Torah tradition, which we hold sacrosanct. At the heart of our Jewish values is love — love for God and love for each of His children. Our LGBTQ+ students are our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, family and friends. Our policies on harassment and discrimination against students on the basis of protected classifications including LGBTQ+ are strong and vigorously enforced. Our Torah-guided decision about this club in no way minimizes the care and sensitivity that we have for each of our students, nor the numerous steps the university has already taken. We are actively engaged with our students, faculty and rabbinic leaders to facilitate productive discussions with an eye toward understanding and embracing diverse perspectives.”

Birthright Restarting Trips to Israel as Nation Nears Herd Immunity

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Israeli-Flag.jpgBy Ron Kampeas

Birthright, the organization that flies young Jews to Israel for a free 10-day tour, will resume its trips now that the pandemic appears to be winding down.

“Birthright Israel will resume providing the gift of educational trips to Israel for eligible individuals aged 18-to-32 from the United States who are vaccinated or recovered,” its statement said. “Dozens of trips are expected in May and June, and more than 400 tour groups are planned for July, August and October.”

Participants will be required to test for coronavirus before boarding and upon arrival, the statement said. A factor was Israel, a world leader in coronavirus vaccination, nearing herd immunity.

The organization has brought over 750,000 young Jews to Israel over 20 years, including close to 46,000 in 2019.

Along with a number of other organizations, Birthright suspended trips to Israel after the pandemic outbreak.

Virginia Republicans Reverse Decision, Will Accommodate Voting for Shabbat Observers

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Jewish Exponent Square.jpgBy Ron Kampeas

The Virginia Republican Party, reversing a previous decision, has created an opportunity for Jews to vote for a gubernatorial nominee before Shabbat starts.

On Sunday, the party’s State Central Committee took a second vote and unanimously agreed to allow Orthodox Jews to vote during the day on May 7, a Friday, the day before the May 8 convention. They must apply to do so by May 4.

Several days earlier, a majority of the same committee had voted to accommodate Orthodox Jewish voters and others like Seventh-day Adventists who do not vote on Saturday, but the vote did not meet the 75% threshold to pass.

Without the adjustment, voting to pick a nominee would have been confined to Shabbat hours.

The Republican Jewish Coalition asked the party to reconsider. On Monday, two members of the Norfolk Orthodox Jewish community who are also active in the state GOP announced the change.

The statement by Ian Cummings and Ken Reid referred to months of infighting over whether the party should have a convention or a primary to decide who among seven candidates deserves the party’s nod for governor.

“A number of SCC members in the minority were distrustful of this absentee amendment due to months of infighting among two factions in the governing body,” the statement said. “But over the weekend, many of these GOP leaders were able to hear from committed Sabbath-observing Republicans and came to understand that these fears were misplaced.”

The statement also thanked Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chairwoman, and the Coalition for Jewish Values, a national advocacy group, for weighing in on the issue.

Despite COVID Restrictions, Antisemitism Barely Decreased in US in 2020, ADL Says

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anti-semitism dictionary definition
tzahiV / iStock / Getty Images Plus

By Ben Sales

Despite COVID-related restrictions that kept Americans inside for significant portions of last year, the number of reported antisemitic incidents barely decreased in the United States in 2020, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

The number of antisemitic assaults fell sharply, however, and for the first time in three years, no one was killed in an antisemitic attack.

The ADL’s annual audit, published Tuesday, tallied 2,024 incidents of antisemitism in the U.S. in 2020, a decline of only 4% from the 2,107 recorded in 2019. The 2020 tally is the third-highest since 1979, when the ADL began publishing annual audits, and is more than double the 2015 figure of 942. The audits are compiled from reports by victims, law enforcement and community leaders.

With synagogues and other communal institutions shuttered for much of the year, 2020 was free of the deadly anti-Semitic shootings and stabbings that struck the Jewish community in 2019 and 2018. But COVID gave rise to a conspiracy theory in which Jews were blamed for spreading the disease, though the report cautions that “we have not identified cases where we can directly link specific instances of violent antisemitism to conspiracy theories or scapegoating surrounding the COVID-19 virus.”

And while there were fewer physical attacks, the pandemic inspired a new manifestation of hate — “Zoombombing” — in which antisemites would disrupt virtual Jewish meetings with hateful speech or images. The ADL counted almost 200 Zoombombings throughout the year. Zoombombings made up about a third of total antisemitic harassment incidents recorded at Jewish institutions.

“While any decline in the data is encouraging, we still experienced a year in which antisemitic acts remained at a disturbingly high level despite lockdowns and other significant changes in our daily lives and interactions with others,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a press release. “We can’t let our guard down.”

Last year began with a 25,000-person march in New York City, protesting a spate of attacks against Jews in the area late in 2019, two of them fatal. At that point, before the pandemic was at the top of the national agenda, Jews in New York and elsewhere worried about a further escalation of lethal violence, and leaders at all levels of government promised a response.

Then everything shut down. With synagogues, schools and community centers empty for much of the year, and the streets devoid of crowds, physical manifestations of antisemitism plummeted, along with the overall number of incidents. January saw 270 total incidents, as opposed to an average of 155 per month once COVID restrictions began.

The number of antisemitic assaults decreased by nearly half, from 61 to 31, year over year. Vandalism decreased by 18%. Incidents at college campuses decreased by 32%.

Harassment, a relatively broad category that included the Zoombombings, increased by 10%. Examples in the ADL’s report include a virtual Passover seder where an intruder wrote “HEIL HITLER YOU FILTHY K***S. THE BLOOD OF CHRIST IS ON YOUR HANDS. YOU ARE CURSED FOR HIS MURDER” and a Torah study class where someone wrote “Kill Jews” multiple times and drew swastikas.

The number of incidents involving references to Israel or Zionism remained steady, totaling 178 in 2020, as opposed to 175 in 2019.

Incidents perpetrated by known extremist groups or individuals rose more than 20% over 2019, in a year that saw social unrest due to COVID, racial justice protests and the election campaign — all settings that attracted extremist groups. An earlier ADL study found that the volume of white supremacist propaganda doubled in 2020 to the highest number in a decade. And a study by the Network Research Contagion Institute found that online antisemitism peaks during periods of national tension.

The ADL audit is the latest of a few studies showing that antisemitism remained relatively prevalent in recent years. A 2019 ADL study found that more than 60% of Americans believed at least one of 11 anti-Semitic stereotypes while 11% believed a majority of them. A 2020 survey from the American Jewish Committee found that 88% of American Jews say anti-Semitism remains a problem in the United States.

A survey conducted early in 2020 found that more than one in 10 American adults under 40 believes that Jews caused the Holocaust. Another survey published in 2020 found that one-fifth of respondents from 16 European countries believes that a secret network of Jews influences global political and economic affairs.

Stray Bullet Kills Jewish Reporter for NPR Affiliate in Kansas City

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Aviva Okeson-Haberman on the job as a reporter for KCUR in Kansas City, September 2020. (Brandon Parigo via JTA.org)

By Ron Kampeas

Aviva Okeson-Haberman had come home after apartment hunting in Lawrence, Kansas, where the reporter for the Kansas City NPR affiliate was about to start a new job covering social services and criminal justice.

On Friday, Okeson-Haberman was hit by a stray bullet that entered her first-floor apartment in Kansas City’s Santa Fe neighborhood. The Jewish journalist was found unconscious and rushed to a hospital, where she was placed on life support.

On Monday, her colleagues at the affiliate, KCUR, posted an anguished obituary reporting her death. Okeson-Haberman was 24.

Kansas City police are investigating the shooting.

“Social services is a tough beat, but I’m a tough reporter,” she wrote in her application for her new job at the Kansas News Service, a statewide reporting initiative headquartered at KCUR. “I’ll ask the hard questions, dig into the data and spend time building trust with sources. It’s what’s required to provide an unflinching look at how state government affects those entrusted to its care.”

Okeson-Haberman hoped to focus on foster care because she had spent time in foster homes in her teens.

One of her most compelling recent reports was an audio diary of nurses on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic. Peggy Lowe, the reporter who found Okeson-Haberman unconscious and went with her to the hospital, told the first responders about those reports.

“That made the nurses love her last night, even though she wasn’t conscious,” Lowe said in the KCUR obituary.

Kansas City’s mayor and the governor of Kansas were among those who offered their condolences and memories of Okeson-Haberman on Twitter.

Okeson-Haberman, a native of Springfield, Missouri, won prizes for her efforts at the University of Missouri’s highly regarded journalism school, from where she graduated in 2019.

Aviva Okeson-Haberman (Brandon Parigo via JTA.org)

One of her early reports for KCUR was in 2018 at an event featuring talks by survivors of gun violence, among them Jewish students from the mass killing that year in Parkland, Florida. She also spoke to Jack Reeves, a friend of Reat Underwood, one of the victims of a deadly antisemitic attack at the Overland Park Jewish Community Center in suburban Kansas City.

“Losing someone that you personally know is unlike any other feeling because it’s not like it’s some issue that you are isolated from that’s happening on the other side of the country,” Reeves told her. “It’s something that is happening in your community that you have a direct relationship with.”

Okeson-Haberman’s passion and powers of suasion are evident in a high school report from 2015 on practical ways to help the environment. She urged other students to emulate her temple, which she said was “like a church for Jewish people,” and which donated 50 cents for each page of Hebrew school homework for a cause chosen by the class.

“Last year we chose WWF (World Wildlife Foundation), a charity that helps wild animals,” she said at the time. “They wrote back, telling us we raised enough money that we had saved a tiger! They had also enclosed a picture of the tiger. So maybe you could do something like that for your neighborhood. Many small steps lead to one great deed.”

On April 9, on Twitter, she announced her new job and seem more than ready to take on the task.

“I won’t officially start until mid-May but in the meantime you can DM me or reach me at [email protected],” she said.

Barricades Preventing Palestinian Gatherings Removed in Jerusalem

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By Ben Sales

The Israel Police have acquiesced to the demands of Palestinian protesters who called for the removal of barricades that prevented gathering during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

On Sunday, police removed the barriers, which blocked crowds of Palestinians from gathering at Damascus Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City at night, a Ramadan tradition, according to Haaretz. Palestinians had protested the barriers for about two weeks, clashing with police. The past few weeks have also seen street attacks on visibly Orthodox Jews as well as Arabs.

On Thursday, the protests escalated when hundreds of far-right Jews chanting racist slogans marched on the Old City, where they clashed with Palestinian protesters and police in a night that saw arrests, violence and hospitalizations.

Ten Palestinians were arrested in a small protest at the site on Saturday night, according to Haaretz. There was also a protest at the Qalandiya checkpoint in the West Bank.

In recent days, Palestinian militants in Gaza have fired more than 40 rockets at Israel. While the rockets have been fired by smaller armed factions, the barrage has been endorsed by Hamas, the militant group governing Gaza. In a statement reported by the Times of Israel, Hamas told the smaller terror groups to “keep their fingers on the trigger.” The groups say the rocket fire is in response to the unrest in Jerusalem.

The unrest is spilling over into Israel’s ongoing political quagmire. Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right lawmaker and ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, lashed out at Netanyahu because of his response to Thursday’s violence. Netanyahu is currently trying to assemble a new coalition in order to remain prime minister.

After Netanyahu called for calm on “both sides,” Smotrich railed in a tweet against the “Arab enemy” and wrote regarding Netanyahu, “It may be that the time has really come to replace him.”

Jews in France and Elsewhere Demand ‘Justice for Sarah Halimi’

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A crowd of more than 20,000 people took part in the demonstration in memory of Sarah Halimi in Trocadero square, Paris, on April 25. (Andrea Savorani Neri/NurPhoto via JTA.org)

By Cnaan Liphshiz

PARIS — Over 20,000 protesters, many of them Jewish, gathered in Paris to protest the French high court’s decision not to try a man who killed a Jewish woman while screaming about Allah.

Under the banner of “Justice for Sarah Halimi,” the rally Sunday at Trocadero Square, overlooking the Eiffel Tower, reflected the widespread indignation many French Jews feel at the April 14 ruling by their country’s top court. The decision affirmed lower courts’ findings that Halimi’s killer, Kobili Traore, was unfit to stand trial for Halimi’s 2017 murder because Traore’s consumption of marijuana had made him temporarily psychotic.

Critics of the ruling said that Traore appeared to be in control of his actions during and after the murder. A lower court said that Traore killed Halimi, a 65-year-old physician, because she was Jewish. He called her a demon and shouted “Allah is the greatest” as he pummeled her in her third-story apartment, which he entered by force.

He then threw her out the window and shouted, “A lady fell down from the window!” to cover up his actions, witnesses said. He left the scene, allegedly to escape, and was arrested on a nearby street.

Traore, an immigrant from Mali and a neighbor of Halimi’s, was 27 when he killed her.

Others have argued that even if Traore was psychotic at the time of the murder, he was criminally liable when he took the drugs that made him psychotic and should therefore stand trial. He has no documented history of psychiatric problems.

The protest against a ruling on the 2017 murder of Sarah Halimi drew thousands in Paris on April 25, 2021. (Cnaan Lihpshiz)

The protest against a ruling on the 2017 murder of Sarah Halimi drew thousands in Paris on April 25. (Cnaan Lihpshiz via JTA.org)

At the rally on Sunday in Paris, which was held under tight security in a cordoned-off enclosure, the umbrella Jewish organization CRIF played a video on a giant screen in which French Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia demanded another “trial of facts”, even if it ends without a sentence.

The rally is the first time in decades that a large number of French Jews have gathered to protest against institutions or actions of the French state.

Jacques Essebag, a French-Jewish comedian who is known by the stage name Arthur, said in a video message that he has “decided to start using drugs because in France you can do whatever you want, even kill your neighbor if you don’t like her, if you use drugs.” He then added: “What has become of this country.”

The event featured many French and Israeli flags, as well as those of the far-right Jewish Defense League.

A video message by Mayor Anne Hidalgo, a Socialist politician, provoked whistles and booing from many protestors at the event.

Organized by CRIF, the rally aimed “to show our astonishment at a decision that conforms to the the law, but not to justice.”

Thousands protest the French high court's ruling on the 2017 murder of Sarah Halimi in Paris on April 25, 2021. (Cnaan Liphshiz)

Thousands protest the French high court’s ruling on the 2017 murder of Sarah Halimi in Paris on April 25. (Cnaan Liphshiz via JTA.org)

French President Emmanuel Macron has said he would advance legislation to prevent criminals from avoiding trial by using an insanity defense for actions committed under the influence of drugs.

Some Jewish organizations have used harsh language in describing the case. The conservative Europe-Israel group called the Halimi trial “the new Dreyfus Trial,” referring to the false anti-Semitic treason charges infamously leveled at a French-Jewish officer in 1894 that have long been seen as an illustration of  institutional anti-Semitism in purportedly liberal European societies.

In addition to the rally in Paris, additional protest rallies are planned for Sunday in Marseille, Strasbourg and Lyon. Rallies are also scheduled in front of French embassies and consulates in Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Miami, Rome, London, Tel Aviv and the Hague.