Results tagged “jews”

Well, the New York Post earned its fifty cents today. Let's start with the cover, which at first glance seems like a work of fantasy but actually documents a real-life, tough-talking rabbi and his plastic pistol-packing "God Squad." Jewish security forces are hardly new to New York (Hasidic communities like the Satmar Jews in Williamsburg have their own private patrols, for instance), but none have produced a training video as uplifting as this one. A mix of Wes Anderson, Adam Sandler, and the "Sabotage" video, it depicts Rabbi Gary Moscowitz, who was an NYPD cop for nine years and holds a black belt in karate, training his fellow Jews to defend their synagogues. Enjoy!

Yesterday, tens of thousands of Jews visited the gravesite of Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, who led the Lubavitch movement until his death in 1994. While Schneerson died on June 12, 1994, NY1 explains that last night "marked the 15th anniversary of his death on the Jewish calendar." According to WCBS 2, "The wait times lasted up to four hours as groups of 80 filed in to a small space to feel close to the late Schneerson"; a visitor from Miami Beach said, "It's inspirational. It's dynamic. You feel the energy of the rebbe there and it just feels amazing." Another person traveled from Paris with his 13-year-old son; Levy Daniel told the Daily News that they "spent the night there in his rental car. 'I said to my family, I don't need a place to stay,' Daniel, 43, said. 'I just need to be near the grave.'"

A small but well-publicized group of homophobic, anti-Semitic Baptist zealots from Kansas brought their dumb message of hate to Manhattan this weekend, standing around with inflammatory signs like "The Jews Killed Jesus" outside a West Village synagogue that caters to gays and lesbians. But instead of straightening out the gays and bringing the Jews to Jesus, these hateful hayseeds actually succeeded in helping out one of their targets, the Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, which turned the demonstration into a fundraiser!

Mayor Bloomberg has dipped his oar into the hubbub over whether a Holocaust memorial in Brooklyn should honor non-Jewish victims of Nazi atrocities. Yesterday Assemblyman Dov Hikind held a protest at the memorial in Sheepshead Bay to protest the Parks Department's plans to commemorate all Nazi victims, including the disabled, homosexuals, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses and political prisoners. Hikind deems the Holocaust "a uniquely Jewish event" and says "these people are not in the same category as Jewish people with regards to the Holocaust." But yesterday Bloomberg backed the expanded memorial, calling it appropriate because "we don't value one group more than any other." (He also noted that the memorial is outside Hikind's district and that the local Assemblyman, Steve Cymbrowitz, approved the changes.) When informed of Bloomberg's comment, Hikind promptly turned the debate into a Holocaust pissing contest, telling the Post, "I don't know how many people in his family died in the gas chambers. My grandparents, my uncles, my aunts [did]." Your move, Bloomberg!

    

As we announced on Monday, a group of cycling clowns rode along Kent Avenue in Williamsburg today to protest what they call a growing "anti-bike sentiment in Brooklyn." Organized by Times Up, the ride was a response of sorts to vocal community opposition to the bike lane, which some residents and business owners blame for a sudden dearth of parking. Last month Hasidic Jews in the largely Satmar section of South Williamsburg vowed to protest the bike lane by blocking traffic on Kent.

An overflow crowd packed an auditorium at Yeshiva University Tuesday night to debate whether it's acceptable to call something "kosher certified" if it's produced under unethical conditions. The panel discussion was prompted in part by the high profile prosecution of the Rubashkin family, who operate a major kosher-meat-processing plant in Iowa. Federal agents raided the plant in May, arresting 389 illegal immigrants, who, according to this damning cover story in the Village Voice, were paid some of the lowest wages in the nation, and were allegedly forced to work up to 17-hour days with 10-minute lunch breaks "in a freezing-cold, dirty hallway."

We continue to receive emails about the controversial Kent Avenue bike lane in Brooklyn, which has become the front line in the battle over bike lanes. On one side are business owners and residents who insist that the new "No Stopping" signs on Kent, installed to accommodate the bike lane, are onerous; on the other side are cyclists who enjoy the sense of a safer commute between north and south Brooklyn, and cherish the hope for a Brooklyn Greenway completely separate from traffic. Here's an email in response to yesterday's story about a cyclist who says Hasidim in South Williamsburg are making good on their promise to obstruct traffic in protest:

Things have gotten pretty terrible in the saga of the Kent Ave. bike lane, at least for the people who live or work on this block. Today I had to drive home my 5 year old daughter from hospital, after she went through surgery last week, it was 6 p.m. when we arrived in front our home at 450 Kent Avenue and it was freezing cold outside, after driving around for 15 minutes, I finally found a halfway illegal parking spot 4 blocks away from my home, I had to walk with my cranky just out of hospital daughter in my hands, all while she was complaining why I had to park so far.

Continue reading "Bike Lane Brouhaha: Officials Backpedal on Kent Ave"

The battle over bike lanes is heating up, with members of the Hasidic community in South Williamsburg vowing to block traffic in protest against a new bike lane on Kent Avenue. You'll recall that some of the opposition has to do with the increasing number of female cyclists riding through the neighborhood wearing immodest clothing. The Hasidim are also fuming over a parking ticket blitz last October when, to make way for the bike lane, traffic cops enforced a new change in parking rules on Shabbos, when Orthodox Jews don't operate machinery.

Saturday, DOT, is Shabbos, the Jewish day of rest. That means Orthodox Jews don't work, don't handle money, don't drive a car, and sure don't roll their wheels to the opposite side of the street to obey city parking regulations. Nevertheless, traffic cops went ahead and enforced a new change in parking rules in the predominantly Orthodox enclave of South Williamsburg, writing tickets for over 90 vehicles that hadn't been moved by 6:30 a.m. Saturday. The new parking rules have been implemented so the DOT can begin installing more bike lanes through the neighborhood, a move that's already prompted opposition from community members who object to the surge in cyclists—most of whom are immodestly dressed. DOT spokesman Scott Gastel tells the Post that the "DOT gave advance notification to community leaders and ... officials that signage would change." But because of the outcry, Gastel said all the $110 tickets would be dismissed.

The NYPD is stepping into a long-running feud between two rival Orthodox Jewish patrol groups in Crown Heights in order to unite them into a single police-supervised unit. Shmira and Shomrim are two bitterly-divided private crime-patrol organizations that split in the late '90s. (Here's one explanation of their complicated rivalry.) In an exclusive titled, "Jew Guys Need to Talk," the Post reports that Shmira has agreed to the merger, but Shomrim refuses to sit down with Shmira, who they accuse of slashing patrol-car tires, making prank emergency calls and falsely informing on Shomrim to the police. Yossi Stern, director of Shmira, denies the allegations: "It's all a bunch of rhetoric. Show me a police report. We're not out to harass anybody. We're out to do a service for the community." You'll recall that members of Shmira were suspected of beating a 20-year-old black man, Andrew Charles, in Crown Heights last April.

Orthodox Jewish fitness buffs are outraged that the Kosher Gym in Flatbush, Brooklyn was sold earlier this month to non-Jewish owners who plan to open the gym on Shabbos and make other non-Kosher changes to the facilities. According to the Jewish Press, gym members recently received a letter announcing the sale, for $2 million, to a "national fitness group that focuses on gender specific clubs."

Mayor Bloomberg was in the Sunshine State yesterday, attending a breakfast hosted by the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County, and took the opportunity to slam the "whisper campaign" smears against Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama. Bloomberg said, "Let's make sure that we, as Jews and as voters, keep the conversation focused on the facts and not let it descend into false rumor and innuendo."

The police have increased their presence in Crown Heights after two incidents that have upset the black and Jewish communities and caused unrest between them. And many are recalling the summer of 1991, when the Crown Heights riots shook the city.