Free Republic

Suspicious white powder, together with vile anti-Semitic rant, triggered security scare; man could face year in prison. A Boulder man accused of sending letters containing a suspicious white powder to two Jewish organizations in the Colorado city pleaded guilty. Jeffery Thomas Klinkel, 34, pleaded guilty late last month to one count each of felony menacing and using a hoax chemical or biological weapon, the Daily Camera reported Monday. He will be sentenced on June 1 and faces up to five years in prison. On April 6, 2015, the Boulder JCC received a letter that read, "This Goyim is enjoying the...

Ted Cruz Joins New York Jews Preparing for Passover By Joel Leyden Israel News AgencyBrooklyn, New York — April 7, 2016 … U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate Ted Cruz joined dozens of Jewish children today preparing for the Jewish holiday of Passover. The event took place at the Chabad Neshama Model Matzah Bakery this afternoon. After the matzah making party, Cruz then visited the Jewish Center of Brighton Beach where he wished dozens of New York rabbis and their families a happy and festive Passover. The Texas senator, who is in the process of closing PLO offices in Washington, was...

Israel News Agency Endorses Ted CruzBy INA Editorial StaffJerusalem, Israel — March 14, 2016 … No candidate running for the office of Presidency in the United States has both the documented foreign policy experience and dedication to Israel’s security as Senator Ted Cruz. “Off the charts brilliant,” is how legendary Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz described his former student in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer a year ago. As both Republican and Democrat candidates attempt to prove who loves Israel more, Cruz has been an outspoken critic of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran for several years. As Donald Trump could...

The Democratic presidential candidate, who has been fairly hesitant to discuss his religious background during the campaign, expressed pride in his roots during a debate with rival Hillary Clinton on Sunday in Flint, Michigan. ... During a debate between Democratic presidential contenders Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton on Sunday, the former rebuffed accusations that he was not proud of being Jewish. When Sanders was asked if he was deliberately keeping his Jewish faith in the background on the campaign trail, said his father's family was wiped out in the Holocaust. He described going shopping with his mother as a boy...

The Anti Defamation League, who chastised Donald Trump for his lack of response after being endorsed by infamous KKK leader David Duke, said on its official website on Tuesday that anti-Semitic Islamic religious leader Louis Farrakhan has thrown his support behind the bombastic presidential hopeful. Nation of Islam (NOI) leader Farrakhan delivered his statements in support of Donald Trump during his 2016 Saviors’ Day ser­mon on Sunday at the NOI’s Mosque Maryam in Chicago in which he also made anti-Semitic accusations of Jew­ish gov­ern­men­tal control. "[Donald Trump] is the only mem­ber who has stood in front of [the] Jew­ish com­mu­nity,...

US Republican Jewish Community Endorses Ted Cruz By Joel Leyden Israel News AgencyNew York — February 29, 2016 … Donald Trump is a master at marketing but he is not Presidential material. That is the opinion of most Republican Jews from New York to Los Angeles. Trump does have his blind support. If one goes to the Jewish Republicans or Jews 4 Trump Facebook groups and criticizes Trump, some will knee jerk and call you a Liberal, Democrat for Hillary or a member of JStreet. Never mind the fact, that this writer served in the IDF for several years, consults...

On a cold winter morning just before sunrise, snow is falling gently onto the sidewalk outside of Kossar's (367 Grand Street, 212-473-4810). Inside, the talk is all about bialys. "I can't tell you how much I missed this," says one man, taking a bite before heading back outside. "Butter. Yes please, lots of butter," a woman says as she places her order. "Oh, wow, I didn't realize there were so many kinds," says another man. Following a five month renovation, the revered Jewish bakery, in a neighborhood that has grown exponentially over the past 80 years, recently reopened with a...

A 25-year-old Jewish was stabbed Wednesday morning in crown heights in a possible hate crime, NYPD chief of detectives robert boyce said. At around 11:40 a.m. in front of 644 Empire Boulevard, the victim identified by sources as Yehuda Leib Brikman, was stabbed by a man, who Yehuda believed to be the suspect, had just passed him. Yehuda walked into a nearby check cashing center where he was treated for a stab wound in his upper back, police said, Hatzalah transported the man to Kings County Hospital where he sustained a collapsed lung police said. iac-log-default-460x330_1-300x215 From his hospital bed...

his one went by so fast that most of us seem to have missed it. This past weekend’s Saturday Night Live had not one but two Jewish jokes. One was moderately funny, notable mainly for the fact that it came from the mouth of Senator Bernie Sanders, during a back-and-forth with his doppelganger Larry David. The other, delivered by Weekend Update fake news co-anchor Michael Che, was far more pointed and may just have crossed a line. Here’s Che’s bit: “On his first visit to a U.S. mosque, President Obama called on U.S. television producers to create characters that are...

Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders has tapped several critics of Israel to advise him on foreign policy, including one who has compared Israelis to “Nazis” and accused them of waging “a Holocaust.” Sanders, who is Jewish and had family members slaughtered during the Holocaust, recently disclosed that his top foreign policy advisers include J Street, a dovish Middle East advocacy group that backs some of Congress’ most vocal critics of Israel, former assistant Secretary of Defense Larry Korb, and James Zogby, an Israel detractor who heads the Arab American Institute. The inclusion of these advisers in the Sanders’ campaign, which...

NGO Monitor's Professor Gerald Steinberg blasts America's liberal Jewish 'leadership' in this week's Jewish Week. In blaming Israeli policy for the fact that on many U.S. campuses, the classmates of Jewish students “shun them for identifying with Israel at all,” perhaps American Jewish leaders are overlooking the failures at home, particularly among liberal progressive diaspora Jewish leaders. Many Jewish students are stuck entirely in an American bubble, with no understanding of the centrality of Jewish self-determination (i.e., Zionism) to our survival as a people. So how can they even begin to understand Israel, let alone give us advice? For...

One of the three winners of the record-breaking Powerball lottery jackpot in the United States became wealthy overnight thanks to the generosity of her boss, one of the American Jewish community’s leading philanthropists. Shlomo Rechnitz, a health care magnate who owns 80 assisted living facilities throughout California, purchased nearly 18,000 lottery tickets for all of his employees, one of which happened to contain the winning numbers. The unprecedented $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot will be divided among three winning tickets purchased in Tennessee, California and Florida. Each ticket is worth $528.8 million, lottery officials said in California, one of 44 states...

Alain Ghozland, 73, a French Jewish politician from outside of Paris, was found dead in his apartment on Tuesday, with his body showing multiple lacerations that appeared to be stab wounds, according to reports. Mr. Ghozland was a municipal councillor in Creteil, and initial reports suspect he was murdered, but police have no leads regarding his assailant, L’Express reports. Though an official autopsy has not been concluded, early reports state his apartment was ransacked and his body was covered with stab wounds. There are also reports that his car is missing. Le Figaro, speaking with police, reported there were signs...

A Turkish teen who was arrested for stabbing his Jewish teacher in Marseille, France, on Monday stated that he was acting on behalf of Daesh. The 15-year-old student rushed at the teacher in broad daylight, chasing him and stabbing him from behind until he fell. The 35-year-old teacher’s shoulder and hand were injured in the attack. He survived by kicking the teenager off and using a Torah he was carrying as a shield. Prosecutor Brice Robin explained at a news conference that the teenager "has the profile of someone who was radicalised on the Internet.” The teen, who will turn...

Solomon"s seal is coming into play, This is not just another day, For I have woven my body into one, And this is something that must be done, So stay within the fabric of my Word, Dismiss the lies that you have heard, For the eye of the needle waits for you, But only in true unity may you pass through, So let the child within begin,for a pure heart is free of sin, Allow my virtue to take you through, That is my spirit inside of you! Galatians 3:28 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor...

Maybe it's the centuries of living under Christian and Muslim rule. Maybe it's the history of forced conversion. Maybe it's that there's no religion requirement for the Jewish afterlife. Whatever the reasons, Jews have traditionally been uncomfortable proselytizing. But a Maryland foundation is flouting the taboo by funding outreach programs to non-Jews in an effort to bring them into the fold. "Our primary purpose is to support programs that publicize Judaism to non-Jews," Ellen Gerecht, executive director of the National Center to Encourage Judaism, says from her second-floor office in Silver Spring, Maryland. "We think Judaism has a lot to...

A Jewish group offering therapy for same-sex attraction will be ceasing operations in January as a result of a lawsuit filed against it in New Jersey. Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing, also called JONAH International, sent an email to supporters on New Year's Eve announcing the closure. "The N.J. court delivered its final judgement on Dec. 18, 2015. Under the order, JONAH must permanently cease operations, including providing referrals and operating its website and listserv,"read the email. "That means that our site, www.jonahweb.org, will no longer be available online after mid- January 2016, and neither of us will be...

The leader of a far-right organization in Israel reportedly is calling for Christmas celebrations to be banned in the country where, according to the Christian Bible, Jesus lived, sparking outrage from religious groups who are demanding an investigation into his remarks. Benzi Gopstein of Lehava wrote "Christmas has no place in the Holy Land" on an ultra-Orthodox Jewish website earlier this week, according to the Daily Telegraph and other Israeli media outlets. Gopstein also called on Christians to be expelled from Israel. "Let us remove the vampires before they once again drink our blood," Gopstein wrote.

If you have been a loyal reader, you may remember that I have written previous columns about Jews and Christmas. Two years ago I wrote The Jewish Joy of Christmas Music; last year it was the Jewish Joy of Christmas Lights. A Christian friend suggested that I complete the process and attend services. So for my final column on Jews sharing Christmas in this Christian country, I decided that would be fine idea. Then came the dilemma which services to attend. Of course, there are the more traditional Catholic services. I considered the myriad of other Protestant versions of Christianity. I knew...

CARDINAL KOCH & RABBI ROSEN Catholics should not try to convert Jews and should work with them to fight anti-Semitism, the Vatican said on Thursday in a major document drawing the Church further away from the strained relations of the past. It was the latest move on a host of issues, such as gay rights and re-marriage, that the Vatican or Pope Francis have made showing a desire to be more compassionate and open and to move further away from entrenched traditions. In the past, for example, Catholic prayers have denounced Jews for not believing in Jesus. Jews have also...