"In a year of division, can #Jewish unity still hold? In this special re-release of Wondering #Jews, Mijal Bitton sits down with #Rabbi David Wolpe for a deep, candid conversation about Jewish solidarity, peoplehood, and the meaning of freedom. They explore why the #Seder remains #Judaism’s most beloved ritual, how to handle #political disagreements at the table, and why Jewish identity is rooted in community as much as in #faith.

So this week we’re continuing our month of re-releasing some of our favorite episodes of Wondering Jews."

https://unpacked.media/rabbi-david-wolpe-on-how-to-keep-jewish-unity-alive/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/aug/14/gaza-starvation-deaths-unrwa-israel-middle-east-crisis-latest-updates-news. #Smotrich wants to make a State of #Palestine completely impossible, because he wants an ethnically pure, #Jewish one-State #GreaterIsrael, @palestine. He, & #Netanyahu, MUST be stopped!

Very oblique example of holocaust revisionism. That's some weird shit right there.

“Then I came to the race laws, and I know that ‘observant’ #Jewish grandparents just made no sense. It disregards the vast majority of the Jewish population who are not observant,” she told the Guardian.

The #Nazis were intent on eradicating all #Jews, regardless of whether they were observant or not, she said. “This is such a misleading impression of the Nazi outlook that for me it’s reprehensible that it stays in the public domain.”

Caro Howell, the IWM’s director general, told the former academic that “full and sincere consideration” had been given to the points she had raised “but we stand by the curatorial choices that we have made and that our expert advisers have reviewed”.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/aug/12/imperial-war-museum-criticism-caption-holocaust-display

Kissing the ring of the far right is gonna get us all really fucked. Celebrating some nutty judge determining we're "the Jewish race" is not fucking good you dumbass MFers.

"McFadden rejected the defense argument that the #Israeli flag merely represents the state of #Israel and that, therefore, the action couldn’t be #antisemitic. “The Star of David — emblazoned upon the Israeli flag — symbolizes the #Jewish race,” he wrote. And in a striking comparison, he added: “Targeting the Star of David is as racially motivated as the highly offensive racial slur, ‘n—.’”

That line may well echo through courtrooms and legislative chambers for years."

https://www.jewishexponent.com/when-antisemitism-hides-behind-protest/

Lol, fucking Belgium

"A Senior #Belgian #politician has refused to send a #Jewish New Year message to the country’s Jewish community, with his staff initially citing “the current situation and sensitivities concerning the tensions in the #MiddleEast”.

https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/senior-belgian-politician-refuses-to-send-jewish-community-rosh-hashana-message/

From Rabbi Jill Zimmerman:
Join our warm and welcoming community of learners as we study core texts from Jewish tradition to illuminate the path, along with mindfulness practices to enrich your experience.

Register: https://jewishmindful.org/hh2025-course/

Tiered Pricing: $72 - $144

From Rabbi Jill Zimmerman:
This personal work is so important that we set aside an entire month (Elul) for reflection.

You think deeply about who you are, where you are, and who you want to be. You review the past year and set new intentions for the coming year. You reflect, repair, and renew.

When you take time to engage in this practice, the High Holy Days season is exponentially more meaningful. They become a tool for spiritual transformation.

Get the Download: https://jewishmindful.org/return/

Interactive PDF: $18-$36

An anniversary of sorts.

"On the night of 12 August 1952, in the basement of #Moscow’s #LubyankaPrison, thirteen #Jewish #intellectuals were taken from their cells, one by one, and executed by gunfire. They had already endured more than three years of isolation, #interrogation and #torture. Some had been compelled to sign elaborate confessions, while others maintained their resistance until the very end. The official charges leveled against them included “#bourgeois #nationalism,” “#treason,” “#espionage,” and “planning to establish a #Zionist homeland in #Crimea,” yet their true offense lay not in #conspiracy but in prominence; they were #Jews in a state where Jewish identity, once briefly encouraged during the war, had by the early 1950s become a mark of suspicion and disloyalty."

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-night-of-the-murdered-poets-seventy-three-years-later/

"A #Jewish couple has reportedly been attacked in #Venice by three men calling the husband a “dirty #Jew,” according to #Italian media.

The Venice newspaper Il Gazzettino reports that the man and the woman, #American tourists in the Italian city for a brief vacation, belong to the #Chabad-Lubavitch #Hasidic group and were therefore very recognizable as Jewish, with the man sporting a kippa and a long beard. The woman is five months pregnant."

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/jewish-man-pregnant-wife-reportedly-attacked-in-antisemitic-incident-in-venice/

"More than 400 singers joined together this summer in celebration of #Jewish #choral #music and community at Zamir Choral Foundation’s annual #NorthAmerican Jewish Choral Festival."

https://www.jns.org/wire/harmonious-voices-at-2025-north-american-jewish-choral-festival/

Today in Labor History August 12, 1952: The Soviet authorities murdered 13 prominent Jewish intellectuals and writers in the Night of the Murdered Poets. All were members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, which fought for the USSR against Nazi Germany. They were falsely accused of espionage and treason, and then imprisoned, tortured, and isolated for three years before being formally charged.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #communism #soviet #ussr #massacre #antisemitism #jewish #poet #poetry #writer #books #censorship #freespeech #torture #prison #nazis #antifascism @bookstadon

Awwww naaaaaaw... hell no, MFers... there's too far, and then there's this

"A 35-year-old woman was #arrested for armed aggression Sunday after police say she threw a “container containing a liquid” at participants of the #Montreal #Pride parade.

The woman targeted members of two #Jewish groups marching in the parade — Ga’ava and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs — a participant told The Gazette. The liquid she threw “smelled like urine,” he said.

Ga’ava and CIJA’s planned involvement in the parade had been a source of controversy in the run-up to the event."

https://www.montrealgazette.com/news/article1094464.html

Have you ever been called Muslim for beard, yarmulke and tsitsit?

"All through the 1950s and 1960s, as I came of age in #FairLawn, my hometown in northern #NewJersey, almost every one of our immediate neighbors, the dozens of families around our block and nearby, all housed in split-level, three-bedroom colonials on quarter-acre plots, was, just like us, #Jewish.

None of this stark reality about our “Jewish” block hit home for me, even though I lived in Fair Lawn from 1954 to 1975. until only last year as Fair Lawn celebrated its 100th anniversary.

The question is why were we #Jews clustered together? Jewish enclaves cropped up elsewhere in town, too – along Greenwood Drive, Saddle River Road and Lyncrest Avenue, among other locales.

Was it because we wanted to be or because we were forced to be?"

https://www.nj.com/opinion/2025/08/was-it-redlining-or-refuge-the-truth-about-my-jewish-neighborhood.html

"The stewardess, on board made a comment that there are so many #Jews onboard they should be going to #Auschwitz," Cohen wrote. "This is what I paid first class for? I am repulsed and offended."

Cohen, who identifies as #Jewish, expressed his disgust at the "completely tone deaf and disrespectful comment" and concluded, "This 'Jew' will never fly #Lufthansa again."

This allegation is particularly poignant given Lufthansa's history.

In 2022, the #German flag carrier issued an apology after more than 100 #Hasidic Jewish passengers were prevented from boarding a connecting flight, an incident the airline's CEO acknowledged was a "mistake" and promised to combat #antisemitism.

Cohen's experience does not appear to be an isolated one.

Jewish advocacy groups and travelers have reported a disturbing increase in #antisemitic incidents involving air travel since the #Hamas-led attacks on #Israel on #October7, 2023."

https://www.jfeed.com/news/lufthansa-antisemitism-incident

"A #Jewish passenger on a #JetBlue (B6) flight received a #kosher meal with the handwritten words “Zio #Nazi” on the packaging, prompting condemnation from the group StopAntisemitism.

This followed a similar incident on an Iberia (IB) flight from Buenos Aires to Madrid, where kosher meals were marked with “Free #Palestine.”

These incidents highlight rising concerns over targeted political messages and #antisemitism in #airline food service."

https://aviationa2z.com/index.php/2025/08/10/jetblue-face-backlash-after-antisemitic-messages/#google_vignette

Apologists for #Israel have long denied what we in the #AntiZionist #Jewish community have always known -- that #Zionism is a racist ethnonationalism that replicates the core logic of the fascist movements. Zionists have sold us out for 150 years now.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/podcasts/2025-08-08/ty-article-podcast/netanyahus-dangerous-gaza-takeover-plan-haaretz-editor-in-chief-aluf-benn-explains/00000198-84d9-d9db-a9be-87db807a0000

This clip from Israel's Dancing with the Stars captures so much of the beauty and complexity of Israel, as the male dancer is a gay rap artist who proudly wears tzitzit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmoNmYSTlhU

Never forget that some of the most vocal opposition to the Israeli #genocide in #Gaza is coming from the #Jewish community: https://www.democracynow.org/2025/8/5/if_not_now

"A second #Spanish #airline has become embroiled in an #antisemitism row after a #Kosher meal had the words ‘Free #Palestine’ scrawled on it during a long-haul flight from #BuenosAires to #Madrid.

This case involves the Spanish flag carrier Iberia, which is owned by the same parent company as low-cost airline #Vueling, which made international headlines last week when police removed a group of #Jewish children from a flight in Valencia.

Passenger Salvador Auday was flying on Iberia flight IB-IB102 from Buenos Aires to Madrid on August 4 when he was presented with a Kosher meal, which had the handwritten ‘Free Palestine’ message scrawled on it."

https://www.paddleyourownkanoo.com/2025/08/05/second-spanish-airline-gets-embroiled-in-antisemitism-row-after-free-palestine-message-is-scrawled-on-kosher-meal/