Russia’s Kosher Bar Serves Vodka and Torah & Other Orthodox Jews in the News

Yale, Al Sharpton and the Attacks on New York’s Jews
My entering class at Yale Law School in 2002 had one Jew who might be called “ultra-Orthodox.” He traveled some two hours to campus each Monday from Brooklyn, N.Y., and before the weekend, as far as I knew, he headed back.

Photos: Global Siyum HaShas celebration at MetLife Stadium
The 13th Global Siyum HaShas took place at MetLife Stadium, in East Rutherford, Wednesday, January 1, 2020. Tens of thousands of Jews attended.

Deranged Straphanger Yells at Orthodox Woman in Anti-Semitic Rant, Threatens to Throw Her Onto the Subway Tracks in Brooklyn
A hateful straphanger threatened to throw an Orthodox woman onto the subway tracks during a harrowing clash at a Brooklyn train station, police said. The 41-year-old victim told police that she was waiting for the No. 4 train on Dec. 2 around 6:30 a.m. when a woman in red approached and began yelling at her.

‘It’s Getting Very Scary’: Hasidic Jews Change Routines Amid Anti-Semitic Attacks
This is still one of the safest neighborhoods in New York City, but there have been more than a dozen anti-Semitic incidents reported statewide in the last month alone. They range from harassment and bullying to the full-blown violence of the machete attack in Monsey, N.Y., a suburb just north of the city.

From ‘Gotham’ to Tel Aviv – David Mazouz in Israel
Judaism is very close to Mazouz, who comes from a Sephardi family and grew up going to Modern Orthodox Jewish schools, and he balanced his career with an observance of Shabbat and kashrut on set. While this was a challenge, the producers of Gotham were very accommodating, always ensuring that any food he would eat himself or for a scene was kosher.

NAACP Suspends Official Who Said ‘The Hasidics Are Generally Not Too Friendly’
James Harris, a local NAACP official in Montclair New Jersey has been suspended from his position for six months after giving a speech castigating Orthodox Jews in Jersey City and the largely Jewish city of Lakewood. He has since apologized for his remarks.

The First Kosher Bar in the Former Soviet Union Serves Up Cocktails and Torah Lessons
Getting a kosher drink isn’t a problem in Odessa, a city home to about 40,000 Jews and which has six kosher restaurants. But a bar that is 100-percent certified kosher, with its own signature house drinks, had never existed anywhere in the former Soviet Union. On Wednesday nights, the bar is packed with members of an informal weekly Torah study group.

Everything’s Kosher With Manhattan College Hoops
Ethan Lasko transferred to Manhattan College from Indiana University to play basketball. “On a daily basis, it entails me praying three times a day — morning, evening and night,” Lasko said. “Not specific times, more like ballpark times. And I eat only kosher food, which in Riverdale is pretty easy to find.”

In Jerusalem, Haredi Women Venture Into Talmud
In a classroom in a building next to Jerusalem’s Great Synagogue, twenty women in headscarves and wigs study texts. In the back row, one is nursing an infant under a cover. In front, Rabbi Refoel Kreuzer leads a complex legal discussion on the punishment to “plotting witnesses.”

Facing Unprecedented Anti-Semitic Attacks, New York Jews Are Learning To Fight Back—Literally
The wave of anti-Semitic violence in the New York region is prompting some Jews to take matters into their own fists. Legion, a New York-based nonprofit that trains Jews in self-defense, is growing in popularity and planning to expand in the wake of recent attacks. “Jews are the people of the book—and the sword,” said Arielle Mogil, Legion’s vice president of operations.

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