Israel

May their memories be a blessing.

The calamity in Surfside will live on as one of the worst building collapses in US history. Surfside, Florida, is home to a bustling Jewish community of roughly 5,000, more than one third of the North Beach population to be exact, and largely Orthodox in practice. North Beach, a top portion of narrow land on the Atlantic Ocean, also includes Bal Harbour, Bay Harbor Islands, and Indian Creek. The area, once the scene of rampant anti-Semitism, including lodging slogans like, “Always a view, never a Jew,” now boasts large religious observance, with much stemming from the Shul of Bal Harbour under the leadership of Rabbi Sholom D. and Rebbetzin Chani Lipskar, and Rabbi Yair Massri, who leads the Sephardic minyan on the premises. Just blocks from the Towers site is the Surfside Minyan Synagogue, under the helm of Rabbi Aryeh Citron, where six families have been affected by the unfolding events. While the Jewish communities of South Florida are known to house retirees over 65, Surfside’s Jewish community has a median age of only 43.

(This article originally appeared at www.timesofisrael.com.)

 Naftali Bennett’s first visit to Washington as prime minister was a fairly low-stakes affair.

Unique collaboration seeks to expand sales and customers for Israeli products

Israel’s Ministry of Economy and Industry, in cooperation with the Ministry’s attachés in New York, has unveiled a unique collaboration with the American Communities Helping Israel (ACHI) organization to expand the circle of customers and sales of Israeli manufacturers with a “Made in Israel” label in the US and Canadian markets.

 Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Monday warned the United Nations General Assembly that Iran’s nuclear weapon program is at a “critical point,” while touting an approach to the COVID-19 pandemic that does not rely on lockdown measures.

The British Empire played a crucial role in the creation of the State of Israel. There is no condoning the British government’s appalling 1939 “White Paper” whose draconian restrictions severely reduced Jewish immigration to Palestine until 1948, and had tragic consequences for European Jews seeking refuge from the Nazis in World War II. However, 22 years prior, the British gave a wonderful – I would call it miraculous – gift to the Zionist cause called the Balfour Declaration.

Hesped For Rabbi Moshe David Tendler

We are here today to mourn the loss and reflect on the life and legacy of Rabbi Moshe David Tendler, a senior rosh yeshivah at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, Professor of Biology and former chair of the Biology Department in Yeshiva College, and the Rabbi Isaac and Bella Tendler Professor of Jewish Medical Ethics.