News

Memorial Day highlights a time across the country when we honor our fallen heroes who sacrificed everything to protect our freedoms. The day is a time to reflect on those gone and honor the courage and service of our veterans and current servicemembers while taking into account the sacrifices of their families.

There were 16 hate crimes on May 24, 2021. Usually, Deborah Lauter, Executive Director of New York City’s Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes, gets one or two a day to review.

In response to an alarming spike in anti-Semitism, a broad and diverse coalition of New York City organizations and leaders denounced anti-Semitism in full page ads in The New York Times and New York Post on Sunday and in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

The Rabbinical Alliance of America – Igud HaRabbonim, representing over 950 American rabbis, applauds President Joe Biden’s stance against anti-Semitism and calls him to fill the role of Special Envoy for Anti-Semitism. In a May 28 statement, President Biden denounced the avalanche of anti-Semitic attacks on the American Jewish community and demanded that they stop.

The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), representing over 1,500 traditional, Orthodox rabbis in American public policy, commended four House Democrats – Reps. Josh Gottheimer (NJ), Kathy Manning (NC), Dean Phillips (MN), and Elaine Luria (VA) – for rejecting the silence of Democratic House leadership to call for action against anti-Semitism. In a letter sent last week to President Biden, the four signatories both stated the need for an “all-of-government effort to combat rising anti-Semitism,” and repudiated accusations of “apartheid” or “terrorism” leveled against Israel as “anti-Semitic at their core.”

In a year where nothing seems to be normal, Bnos Malka Academy’s annual dinner will be an extraordinary event. A typical dinner focuses on a couple of well-deserving honorees who have demonstrated their devotion to the school. During the pandemic and the remote learning of a year ago, the partnership between teachers and parents was strengthened.