Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By simmons on August 6, 2017

Just one day after Australian security forces foiled a major terror plot to bring down a passenger jet, an Australian court handed a resounding victory to other would-be terrorists who seek to destroy Australias open way of life.

The scene of this triumph for terror is unlikely: Bondi Beach, the Sydney suburb that is known the world over for its beautiful beaches and fun lifestyle. Bondi is also home to a vibrant Jewish community. About 50,000 Jews call New South Wales, which includes Sydney, home. Several synagogues exist in the area, and local leaders have expressed hopes to build a new Jewish community center in the area.

Many Jews in the Sydney area hail from the former Soviet Union. To better serve this population, Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, who works in a local Chabad synagogue, applied for permission build a new synagogue, to be called The Friends of Refugees from Eastern Europe, or the FREE Synagogue, in Bondi Beach.

An artists impression of the synagogue development in Wellington Street, Bondi.

The local planning group, Waverley Council, objected to the planned synagogue on a number of grounds. One concern was that the new synagogue would be a target of terrorist threats. The Council theorized that the planned synagogue would pose a threat to nearby residents, motorists and pedestrians.

Seeking to assuage the Council, Rabbi Ulman commissioned a risk assessment from a terrorism expert. The results were concerning but not insurmountable, the report concluded. The proposed synagogue would hardly be a major security threat; it does not raise concerns as to the safety and security of future users of the synagogue, nearby residents, motorists, or pedestrians in Wellington Street where the building was to be built.

Following the report, Rabbi Ulman had architects modify plans for the synagogue to take the terrorism experts recommendations into account. But these were blocked by Waverley Council. No synagogue design seemed to satisfy the Council and the planning dispute went to Court.

As part of its case, Waverley Council warned the Court that strong anti-Semitic undertones pervade much of ISISs online presence and literature. Instead of taking a strong stand against this sort of racist intimidation, the Council seemed to argue that attacks on Jews are inevitable, telling the court that ISISs Jew-hatred has manifested itself in both attacks and prevented attacks that have been aimed at Jewish communities in various parts of the world.

Waverley Councils promulgation of ISIS propaganda seems to have worked. On Wednesday, August 2, 2017, the Land and Environment Court decided that the proposed synagogue, which it called a potential terrorist threat, was too dangerous to be built. Without lifting a finger, would-be terrorists the world over scored a resounding victory, stifling Jewish expression and marginalizing Australias Jews.

Rabbi Yehoram Ulman with local MP and now Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in 2006.

The decision is unprecedented, Rabbi Ulman warned after the Courts decision. Its implications are enormous. It basically implies that no Jewish organization should be allowed to exist in residential areas. It stands to stifle Jewish existence and activity in Sydney and indeed, by creating a precedent, the whole of Australia, and by extension rewarding terrorism.

The word terrorism comes from a Latin term meaning to frighten. Terrorists not only aim and kill, they also sow fear, dividing societies and eroding our sense of solidarity. Terrorism must be defeated on multiple fronts: by security services, militarily, and also in the public sphere. We each score a victory over terrorists when we refuse to be cowed.

Australias Land and Environment Court is correct in one observation: tragically, Jews have been a particular target of ISIS and other terrorist groups. The way that Bondi Beach and other institutions treat Jews is thus a litmus test: will they stand up to terrorism and proudly uphold the principles of liberalism and freedom, defending their Jewish communities? Or will they effectively cooperate with terrorists, doing ISISs and other terror groups work for them, and abandon the Jews in their midst?

After a terror attack in London that left five people dead, Australias Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull tweeted We will never ever let the terrorists win. We will defeat & destroy them on the battlefield, we will defeat & defy them at home.

Its time to take Prime Minister Trumbulls words to heart. Its time to stand up to terrorism, time to defend our values that terrorists seek to destroy, time to start speaking up for the rights of Jews and others to live in peace. Only that will bring true security to Australia and beyond.

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Australia's Refusal to Build Synagogue Victory for Terror - Aish

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Posted By simmons on August 6, 2017

A Sydney suburb has banned the construction of a synagogue because it could be a terrorist target, a decision that has infuriated religious leaders.

The temple was to be built in Bondi, a short walk from Australia's famous Bondi Beach. But locals worried that the space would pose a security risk to nearby residents, motorists and pedestrians. As evidence of that threat, the council pointed to the synagogue's own design, which included setback buildings and blast walls.They also said the design would have an unacceptable impact on the street and neighborhood.

A number of residents agreed with the contentions and provided additional evidence against the development of the site," the council said in a statement.

Friends of Refugees From Eastern Europe, aJewish group,immediately appealed that decision to theLand and Environment Court. The protective design, thegroup said, was not a commentary on the risk the temple faced, but rather a best practice used at lots of synagogues. It also offered to do a redesign.

But the court sided with the council. In its decision, the court explained that western countries areunder threat from the Islamic State and that the potential of an attack in Australia is considered probable by government officials. Thecourt also noted that the designs would serve only to protect those inside the building, not those outside.

The announcement comes just days after Australian authorities foiled a major terror plot to blow up an airplane using a homemade explosive device and to release poison gas. But it may reflect something uglier too.

Although there are about 120,000 Jews in Australia, including 50,000 in the Sydney area,an undercurrent of anti-Semitism runs through the country. Attacks on Jews and Jewish property jumped 10 percent in 2016; Jewish community groups logged a total of 210 incidents. That included physical assaults and harassment, along with vandalism and graffiti. In one instance, a 22-year-old was punched in the neck and called an expletive as he walked home from synagogue. In another, onlookers threw eggs at Jews as they walked home from Friday night services.

Holocaust-denial pamphlets were distributed at several universities, along with neo-Nazi brochures calling for the killing of all Jews. Two vehicles were firebombed, the glass door of a synagogue was broken, and graffiti artists covered the walls of a synagogue with messages likef---ing Jew" and "die Jeue."

As the Executive Council of Australian Jewry explained:

Although Australia remains a stable, vibrant and tolerant democracy, where Jews face no official discrimination and are free to observe their faith and traditions, anti-Semitism persists. There are segments of Australian society which are not only hostile towards Jews, but actively and publicly express that hatred with words and threatened or actual violent acts. As a result, and by necessity, physical security remains a prime concern for the Jewish community.

Jewish leaders have protested the synagogue decision vociferously, arguing that itstifles their freedom of speech and rewards terrorism.

The decision is unprecedented, Rabbi Yehoram Ulmantold news.com.au. Its implications are enormous. It basically implies that no Jewish organization should be allowed to exist in residential areas. It stands to stifle Jewish existence and activity in Sydney and indeed, by creating a precedent, the whole of Australia, and by extension rewarding terrorism.

They have effectively placed in jeopardy the future of Jewish life in Australia, he said.

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A Sydney suburb bans construction of a synagogue because of terrorism fears - Washington Post

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Posted By admin on August 6, 2017

I have been out of the country for a little while, doing my bit to support the Greek economy. I return to find a most surprising subject for the latest two minutes of hate.

Lest anyone think Im just carrying water for a friend I suppose I should say at the outset that I dont know Kevin Myers, and dont believe Ive ever met him. But like many other people I have admired his writing over the years, and think that his book Watching the Door: cheating death in 1970s Belfast is one of the best memoirs of the Troubles that I know. Brave, funny, moving and profound, it is as Andrew Marr said a book that stinks of the truth.

That work (published almost a decade ago) confirmed what anyone who had followed Myerss journalism over the years already knew which was that you couldnt find a braver or more consistent opponent of the sectarian violence which tore apart Northern Irelands society. His often unpredictable work (which is also variable in quality, as whose is not?) has certain consistent strands. One is that his hatred of the behaviour of paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland extends to him taking the position (uncommon in Ireland) of looking at the Israel-Palestinian dispute and not taking it as read that there are certain justifications for murdering Israeli families in their beds.

Now I return from my holidays to find that Kevin Myers has been written off not only as an anti-Semite, but also as a Holocaust-denier. I have read his column from the Irish edition of last weekends Sunday Times and think it a pretty poor effort. Had I read it that morning I would not have read past the first few lines. But the worldwide news headlines, including as one of the lead items on the BBC? The widespread calls for him never to be allowed to publish again? And then the insistence, followed by the apparently widespread assumption, of the claim that he is a Holocaust denier? These are ugly, ugly habits to indulge in and the people who have done so for their own short-term gain should feel thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

The column in question made what looks to me like an attempt a failed attempt as Myers himself has since concededto make a joke along the lines of Theyre no fools, these Jews. The point I imagine Myers was trying to make would appear, if anything, to have been somewhat philo-Semitic. But like a lot of philo-Semitism, it can sound uncannily close to its opposite number. And on this occasion it clearly did and the Sunday Times were right to apologise and un-publish the piece.

But once Myers was down and wounded a whole shiver of sharks closed in. There were, for instance, all the people who had been enraged by Myerss support for Israel over the years and no philo-Semites they seized the opportunity to look like they werent the nasty bigots that so many of them are. For them it must have felt like a twofer offer. Then there are the other media outlets like the BBC who cannot conceal their glee when a rival (especially a Murdoch-owned rival) appears to have slipped up. It is useless, I suppose, to quote John Donne at them.And who are these people who now come out of the woodwork whenever someone errs to declare as various groups did on this occasion not only that the condemned man should never write in one venue again but that they should never be published again anywhere, ever? What is this sinister piffle? Are we to make people utter non-persons now? Can we have a banned list of people who can never be allowed to speak in public too? What happened to allowing editors to make their own decisions about who they publish and who they dont, rather than a group of self-appointed censors demanding that certain journalists become homeless in their chosen profession?

Most disgraceful is the now widely-spread claim that Myers is not just an anti-Semite but a Holocaust denier. How did we reach the stage in our public discussion where a defence of the right to free speech including the right to free speech of actual Holocaust deniers can have all its detail swiftly glossed over and then turned over so that the person opposing Holocaust denial laws can themselves be dismissed without any attention to detail as a Holocaust denier? Only, as Myers himself memorably wrote in Watching the Door, because we appear to have reached the stage where In the absence of an agreed reality, truth is whatever youre having yourself.

Many of the public wont have the chance to evaluate this for themselves, because since the outcry over last Sundays column and the claim (swiftly Googled, and swiftly skimmed, I would guess) that a 2009 column from the Belfast Telegraph proves that Myers is also a Holocaust denier, the paper which published that column (and which made it freely available for eight years) has now removed it from the internet. Fortunately somebody has kept the text which can be read here(beneath a bit of editorialising). Any reading of that 2009 piece would make it clear that Myers is not denying that the Holocaust occurred he is making a point which has been made by many other people (including the late Christopher Hitchens) that the Holocaust-denial laws which have been instituted across our continent in recent years are poorly conceived pieces of legislation which among other things risk precisely the thing they seek to avoid in making our societies strangers to historical discussion and truth. I dont think the 2009 column is Myers best piece of journalism or argument. But its a variation of a point many others of us have made. And what should be clear even to a child reading the column is that Myers is emphatically not saying I dont think the Holocaust happened. He is saying that the genocide of European Jewry obviously did occur but that making historical events into dogma is a dangerous and in the end self-defeating pursuit.

So how do we get from there to Kevin Myers is a self-professed Holocaust denier? Only by allowing public debate to become so enfeebled that once someone cries upset were not even allowed to read for ourselves what might lead them to make such a claim or judge for ourselves whether their claims have any validity or not. No, it appears that for now were just meant to allow a culture of hysterical offence-taking to decide such things for us.

Well I hope such people dont win. Myers would appear to be a slightly difficult bugger, which is probably one reason why not many people have come to his defence. But I highlight this not just because I think we should try to retain some care for the truth, but because personally I would rather live in a country where difficult buggers who sometimes get things wrong dont get their lives and careers destroyed by mobs of offence-takers who consistently demonstrate not only that they know nothing, but that they have not the slightest interest in rectifying that error.

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Kevin Myers' eager critics should feel ashamed of themselves - Spectator.co.uk (blog)

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Posted By admin on August 6, 2017

NEW YORK (JTA) The story of Americas oldest synagogue, as told by retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter, is the story of American Jewish history.

Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, Souter wrote, was built in the 1700s by Sephardic merchants whose community then declined. In the late 1800s, Eastern European Jews arrived in the area, occupied the building and have used it to this day. Since then, heirs of the older Sephardic community have tried to maintain a foothold in the historic synagogue that they consider theirs.

On Wednesday, Souter awarded a victory to the Sephardim.

Writing an appeals court ruling on a lawsuit over who owns Touro Synagogue, Souter who has regularly sat on the court following his 2009 retirement wrote that the building and its centuries-old ritual objects all belong to Congregation Shearith Israel, a historic Sephardic synagogue in Lower Manhattan.

The decision reversed an earlier district court decision that gave ownership of the building and the multimillion-dollar artifacts to the group that worships there: the Ashkenazi Congregation Jeshuat Israel.

Its an odd and oddly enduring dispute being played out in an American courtroom. Souters ruling is a primer on nearly 400 years of American Jewish history, and a dispute that touches on historical tensions between Sephardic Jews with roots in Spain, Portugal, North Africa and the Middle East, and Ashkenazi Jews with roots in Eastern Europe.

Touro, built in 1763, has loomed large in American Jewish history. Along with its claim to being the first Jewish building in the country, it also received George Washingtons 1790 letter guaranteeing that the United States gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.

Shearith Israel, hundreds of miles away, has held title to Touro since the early 1800s, when the shrinking Newport community asked the New York City shul to steward the building and its ritual objects.

Visitors stand outside the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, July 30, 2009. (AP/Eric J. Shelton)

Its a fitting relationship: Shearith Israel also known as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue has a sense of its history as well. Founded in 1654, it bills itself as Americas First Jewish Congregation. (Its current building is its fifth home.) Old-time members still wear top hats, and it still worships in the distinctive Sephardic style passed down from its founders, complete with a cantor in robes and choir. Some Shearith Israel members are descended from the original families that started the congregation four centuries ago.

Jeshuat Israel, founded in 1881 as Ashkenazi immigrants began flooding America from Eastern Europe, has worshipped at Touro for more than a century. For a time, according to Souters ruling, its members occupied the synagogue illegally, praying there even as Shearith Israel sought to keep it closed. Only in 1903, following a court battle, did the two groups sign a contract establishing Shearith Israel as the owner and giving Jeshuat Israel a lease on the building.

According to the terms of the contract, Jeshuat Israel must pray in the Sephardic style its own identity be damned.

Seeking to form an endowment, Jeshuat Israel arranged in 2011 to sell a pair of handcrafted, 18th-century silver bulbs, used to adorn Torah scrolls, to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where they were on loan. But Shearith Israel objected to the $7 million sale and sued Jeshuat Israel both because Shearith Israel said it owned the ornaments and claimed the sale violated Jewish law.

Because the bulbs are meant to rest upon a Torah scroll, Shearith Israel asserted, selling them to a secular institution constitutes an unacceptable decline in holiness.

The district court had ruled in Jeshuat Israels favor on the grounds that it occupies the building and that Shearith Israel had failed in its trustee obligations. But Souter reversed the ruling, partially based on the 1903 contract, writing that Shearith Israel is fee owner of the Touro Synagogue building, appurtenances, fixtures, and associated land.

A view inside the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island (Wikimedia Commons via JTA)

Now, says Gary Naftalis, Jeshuat Israels lawyer, the congregation is reviewing our legal options going forward. Jeshuat Israel could ask the appeals courts full panel of judges to review the ruling, and may petition to have the case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Shearith Israel did not respond to JTA calls and emails for comment.

But even as Shearith Israel has retained ownership of Americas oldest synagogue, it no longer reflects the community that American Jews have become. The families who founded Americas first Jewish congregations exiles from Spain and Portugal via Amsterdam, London, Brazil and the Caribbean likely would not identify with the largely Ashkenazi, largely non-Orthodox American Jewish community of 350 years later.

Even Shearith Israel has gone with the flow, hiring a rabbi from a renowned Ashkenazi rabbinical dynasty, Meir Soloveichik, in 2013.

Still, part of the New York congregations appeal is its anachronism led by a cantor and choir in an era of lay leadership, formal in an era of casual dress, Sephardic in an Ashkenazi-led community. And now, even if it no longer owns the American Jewish present, it can say that it still holds title to the American Jewish past.

Touro Synagogue, nestled in historic Newport, Rhode Island, is the oldest extant synagogue in the United States, on September 2, 2004. (Photo by John Nordell/The Christian Science Monitor via Getty Images)

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Who owns America's oldest synagogue? It's a 350-year-old argument - The Times of Israel

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Posted By richards on August 6, 2017

The courtroom fight over Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island is a primer on nearly 400 years of American Jewish history

The story of Americas oldest synagogue, as told by retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter, is the story of American Jewish history.

Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, Souter wrote, was built in the 1700s by Sephardic merchants whose community then declined. In the late 1800s, Eastern European Jews arrived in the area, occupied the building and have used it to this day. Since then, heirs of the older Sephardic community have tried to maintain a foothold in the historic synagogue that they consider theirs.

On Wednesday, Souter awarded a victory to the Sephardim.

Writing an appeals court ruling on a lawsuit over who owns Touro Synagogue, Souter who has regularly sat on the court following his 2009 retirement wrote that the building and its centuries-old ritual objects all belong to Congregation Shearith Israel, a historic Sephardic synagogue in Lower Manhattan.

The decision reversed an earlier district court decision that gave ownership of the building and the multimillion-dollar artifacts to the group that worships there: the Ashkenazi Congregation Jeshuat Israel.

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Its an odd and oddly enduring dispute being played out in an American courtroom. Souters ruling is a primer on nearly 400 years of American Jewish history, and a dispute that touches on historical tensions between Sephardic Jews with roots in Spain, Portugal, North Africa and the Middle East, and Ashkenazi Jews with roots in Eastern Europe.

Touro, built in 1763, has loomed large in American Jewish history. Along with its claim to being the first Jewish building in the country, it also received George Washingtons 1790 letter guaranteeing that the United States gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.

Shearith Israel, hundreds of miles away, has held title to Touro since the early 1800s, when the shrinking Newport community asked the New York City shul to steward the building and its ritual objects.

Its a fitting relationship: Shearith Israel also known as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue has a sense of its history as well. Founded in 1654, it bills itself as Americas First Jewish Congregation. (Its current building is its fifth home.) Old-time members still wear top hats, and it still worships in the distinctive Sephardic style passed down from its founders, complete with a cantor in robes and choir. Some Shearith Israel members are descended from the original families that started the congregation four centuries ago.

Jeshuat Israel, founded in 1881 as Ashkenazi immigrants began flooding America from Eastern Europe, has worshipped at Touro for more than a century. For a time, according to Souters ruling, its members occupied the synagogue illegally, praying there even as Shearith Israel sought to keep it closed. Only in 1903, following a court battle, did the two groups sign a contract establishing Shearith Israel as the owner and giving Jeshuat Israel a lease on the building.

According to the terms of the contract, Jeshuat Israel must pray in the Sephardic style its own identity be damned.

Seeking to form an endowment, Jeshuat Israel arranged in 2011 to sell a pair of handcrafted, 18th-century silver bulbs, used to adorn Torah scrolls, to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where they were on loan. But Shearith Israel objected to the $7 million sale and sued Jeshuat Israel both because Shearith Israel said it owned the ornaments and claimed the sale violated Jewish law.

Because the bulbs are meant to rest upon a Torah scroll, Shearith Israel asserted, selling them to a secular institution constitutes an unacceptable decline in holiness.

The district court had ruled in Jeshuat Israels favor on the grounds that it occupies the building and that Shearith Israel had failed in its trustee obligations. But Souter reversed the ruling, partially based on the 1903 contract, writing that Shearith Israel is fee owner of the Touro Synagogue building, appurtenances, fixtures, and associated land.

Now, says Gary Naftalis, Jeshuat Israels lawyer, the congregation is reviewing our legal options going forward. Jeshuat Israel could ask the appeals courts full panel of judges to review the ruling, and may petition to have the case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Shearith Israel did not respond to JTA calls and emails for comment.

But even as Shearith Israel has retained ownership of Americas oldest synagogue, it no longer reflects the community that American Jews have become. The families who founded Americas first Jewish congregations exiles from Spain and Portugal via Amsterdam, London, Brazil and the Caribbean likely would not identify with the largely Ashkenazi, largely non-Orthodox American Jewish community of 350 years later.

Even Shearith Israel has gone with the flow, hiring a rabbi from a renowned Ashkenazi rabbinical dynasty, Meir Soloveichik, in 2013.

Still, part of the New York congregations appeal is its anachronism led by a cantor and choir in an era of lay leadership, formal in an era of casual dress, Sephardic in an Ashkenazi-led community. And now, even if it no longer owns the American Jewish present, it can say that it still holds title to the American Jewish past.

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Who owns America's oldest synagogue? Two historic congregations ... - Haaretz

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Posted By richards on August 6, 2017

Whereas most Ashkenazi surnames are of relatively recent origin, Spanish Jews have used family names since medieval times and are used by their descendants to this very day. Although Sephardi and Ashkenazi names are distinctly different, many times they mean the same thing. For instance, the Italian surname of Montefiore is identical in meaning to the German surname Bloomberg, both of which mean mountain of flowers.

Prior to the 1492 expulsion Spain was a golden era for Jews. However, in 1492 King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella issued the Alhambra Decree ordering all Jews living in Spain to leave the country by July 31 the day of Tisha BAv. Many fled to Portugal as refugees but were forcibly converted only five years later. Those that left Spain or escaped from Portugal were widely dispersed throughout the Ottoman Empire, Italy and South-Eastern Europe where they either joined existing Jewish communities or established new ones. Salonica, Morocco, Izmir, Istanbul, Holland and The Island of Rhodes are only some of the places where thriving Sephardic communities were established. Many also fled to Gibraltar and North Africa because of its proximity to the Iberian Peninsula while others were able to flee to Israel or the New World.

Most of the names listed below can be found among Inquisitional manuscripts, Church registrars, notarial archives and other ancestral records that go back for centuries in both the Spanish and Portuguese kingdoms.

Sephardic surnames often denote places of origin and were directly related to geographical locations either before or after the expulsion in 1492 or were acquired during the forced wanderings caused by the exile. Toledano (Toledo), Soriano (Soria) and Romano (Rome) are just a few examples. Other Sephardic names such as Benzaquen, Ben-Ezra and Ohana were of Hebrew or Arabic derivation.

Many family names were related to one's profession such as Melamed, Cabrera and Alhadeff. Like their Ashkenazi brethren, surnames such as Cohen and Levy are also found among Sephardic communities and denoted Cohanic or Levitic descent. Some Jews that chose to convert and stay in Spain after the edict of expulsion took upon the names of the their Christian godparents but practiced their Judaism in secret until they were able to escape to nearby countries such as the Netherlands, England and France where they reconverted back to Judaism. Italian, Spanish, French and Latin words are commonly found among most Sephardic surnames as many of the provinces and cities in the Iberian Peninsula derived their names from these languages.

Plaque commemorating families murdered by Nazis in Rhodes.

Heres a list of some of the most famous names of the Sephardic community.

Abarbanel: From the Hebrew word 'Av' meaning 'father' , 'Rabban' meaning 'priest' and 'El' meaning 'God'. One of the oldest Spanish family names which traces its origin from King David.

Abecassis: From the word 'Av' meaning Father and Arabic 'kassas' meaning storyteller. In Algeria, community leaders and rabbis were given the title 'Kassis'. Many Jews from Gibraltar, Portugal and Morocco share this name.

Adatto: From the Italian word meaning 'suitable' or 'appropriate'. Jews that left Spain for Turkey via Italy took on this name.

Alhadeff: The name means "weaver" and is of Spanish/Moorish origin found most often among Jews who left Spain after the expulsion for the Greek Island of Rhodes.

Alkana: Meaning 'God bought' in Hebrew.

Almo/Almosimo: From Spanish meaning 'One who gives to the poor'.

Amiel: From the Hebrew words 'Am' (nation) and 'El' (God) meaning 'God's people' or 'the people of God'.

Angel: The surname comes from the Hebrew word of 'malach' meaning 'angel'. The Angel family traces back to medieval Spain and migrated to Greece and the Island of Rhodes.

Ashkenazi/Eshkenazi: Ashkenazi meaning 'German'. The Sephardic carriers of the surname would have some Ashkenazi ancestors who moved to Sephardi countries and joined and were adopted by those communities.

Azose: Anglicized version of the surname 'Azuz'. The root of the name comes from the Hebrew word for strength 'Oz'.

Behar: Many origins of the Behar surname. From the Hebrew 'behor' meaning 'eldest' and the Turkish word, 'Bahar', meaning Spring. Also from Spanish 'abeja' meaning bee. Behar is of pre-roman origin and is also the name of a town in the Spanish province of Salamanca and was probably a habitational name for many Jews of that province. Many Sephardic Jews from Bulgaria and Greece carry this surname.

Benarouch: A patronymic name meaning 'son of the head (leader)' in Hebrew.

BenPorat: A patronymic name meaning 'son of the prosperous' in Hebrew.

Benezra: A patronymic name meaning 'son of the helper' in Hebrew and a popular name among Spanish Jews. There is a tradition that this family name is of priestly (Cohen) lineage.

Benaroya: From "Ben" meaning son and "Arroyo"meaning rivulet or river in Spanish. Banaroya is a variant of BenArroyo or BenArollia.

Benveniste: From the Latin 'veniste' meaning 'you came' and 'ben' meaning 'son' in Hebrew. This was a widespread Sephardic family originating in Spain that dispersed throughout the Ottoman Empire following the expulsion.

Benzaquen: Patronymic name meaning 'son of the elder' in Hebrew.

Cabrera: From the Catalan-Spanish meaning 'goat herd'.

Calvo: The name Calvo comes from the Latin 'calvus' meaning 'bald-headed man' and has its own coat-of-arms. The Calvo family originated from Galicia Spain.

Carvalho: common Sephardic surname from the Portuguese word meaning 'oak'.

Cardoza: Habitational name from Cordoza, Spain.

Coronel: From the Portuguese word meaning 'colonel' or 'officer' and also possibly from the Portuguese 'caro' meaning 'dear''. The family name originally comes from Galicia, Spain and has its own coat-of-arms.

Franco: A variant of the Latin 'Francis' meaning 'free one' or 'Frenchman'. A common surname in the Iberian Peninsula adopted by Jewish families and a reference to the Germanic Franks who invaded modern day France during the first millennium AD.

Gabay: From the Hebrew word meaning 'warden' (of a synagogue). This title referred to a variety of roles, but most were related to the collection of taxes, fees and other payments from Jews.

Galante: From the French word 'galant' meaning chivalrous or noble. The Galante family was of Portuguese/Italian descent which flourished in Rome during the 16th century.

Halfon: Hebrew word for moneychanger.

Harari: Hebrew for 'mountaineer'. The Harari family originated from the city of Montpellier in Southern France.

Hassan: From the Hebrew word meaning 'cantor', also possibly from the Arabic hassan meaning 'handsome'. A rabbinical family that originated from Spain and settled in Morocco and Italy following the expulsion from Spain.

Laniado: Meaning 'hairy' in medieval Spanish.

Leon: From the region of Leon which was part of the ancient Spanish Kingdom of Castile-Leon.

Luzatto: An Italian family descended from a Jew who immigrated to Italy from the province of Lusatia, Germany.

Maimon: From Arabic/Hebrew meaning 'fortunate' or 'lucky'. A prominent rabbinical family from Spain. Maimonides was known as 'Moses ben Maimon'.

Mansour: From Arabic meaning 'Winner' or 'victorious one'. Also from the Egyptian city of Mansura in the Nile Delta.

Marcus/Marciano: From the Latin 'Marculus' meaning 'hammer'. An Italian name picked up by Sephardic Jews after the expulsion.

Melamed: Meaning 'teacher' in Hebrew.

Mitrani: Habitational name from Hebrew meaning from Trani. From the seaport town of Trani in Southern Italy.

Mizrachi: Meaning 'Oriental' or 'Easterner' in Hebrew.

Montefiore: From Italian 'monte' meaning 'mountain', and 'fiore' meaning 'flower'. This surname belonged to Sephardic Jews who originated from Italy.

Naor: Meaning 'enlightened' in Hebrew.

Nissim: From the Hebrew word meaning 'miracles'.

Ohana: A derivative of the Hebrew name 'Hannah' meaning 'gracious' or 'favor'. Jews with this name established themselves in Morocco and Northern Africa following the expulsion.

Ovadia: Meaning 'God's servant' in Hebrew.

Pinto: From the Spanish word meaning 'chick'. Pinto is also a province in Spain near Madrid and was most likely a name derived from the Jews that lived in this province.

Russo: From the Latin 'russos' meaning 'red'. Most people with this surname and its variants have their roots in either Spain or Italy.

(Ben)Quaknine: A patronymic name meaning 'son of Jacob'. In Berber, the diminutive name of Jacob is 'Aqnin'. The name and variants are recorded in 13th century Spain and Morocco.

Sasson: Meaning 'joy' or 'merriment'. Found among Jews that trace their ancestry to Toledo, Spain that moved to Turkey after the expulsion.

Serfaty: Means 'Frenchman' in Hebrew. An Oriental family that traces its line to France and are likely descendant from Rashi.

Serrano: From the French word 'serre' meaning ridge or Spanish 'serra' meaning 'mountain range' in Portuguese and Catalan.

Silvera: Habitational family name from the Spanish town of Silva in Galicia, Spain. The name is derived from the Latin 'silver' meaning 'wood' or 'forest'. Members of this family migrated to Italy after the expulsion.

Soriano: Habitational name from Soria (Castile/Leon) in northern Spain. Jews with this name established themselves in both Italy and Rhodes following the expulsion.

Souissa: From Suesa, a province of Santander, Spain

Spinoza: From the Italian 'spinoso' meaning 'thorny' and the Spanish 'espinoso', also 'thorny'. The family name came be found among Jews that came from Portugal and Galicia, Spain.

Toledano: From Toledo, a province of Spain. Many families of Sephardic rabbis originated in Toledo. After the expulsion from Spain they were immigrated to Safed, Greece, Morocco, and later in Holland, England, and Turkey.

Varon: from the Latin word for man. In Spanish, 'Varon' means 'man' or 'male'. Also possibly a habitational name for several places in Castille and Galicia with this name.

Vidal: Meaning 'alive' or 'life' in Latin (vita).

Click here to read the meaning of some common Ashkenazi Jewish last names.

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Posted By admin on August 6, 2017

August 5, 2017 3:28 PM

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (CBS4) Police in Colorado Springs are looking for someone who sprayed Nazi graffiti on a sign outside a Jewish synagogue.

(credit: KKTV)

It happened sometime late Thursday night at the Temple Beit Torah north of downtown Colorado Springs.

Neighbors spotted it Friday morning and called police.

The synagogue was still working to get it completely cleaned up on Friday evening.

In this day and age, you have to hark back to the Nazi era for that kind of thing. In the grand scheme of things, it may not seem big but its big to us, Temple Beit Torah administrator Laura Gross told CBS4 partner KKTV.

The Anti-Defamation League released a statement saying in part, we encourage the police department to investigate the vandalism as a potential bias-motivated hate crime.

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Posted By admin on August 5, 2017

Over the past 12 months, the London Bureau has been working closely with Londons diplomatic community in an effort to advocate for Jewish, Israeli and minority interests. The Bureau has been invited to many embassies in the capital, usually meeting with ambassadors and other consular officials. The Bureau has highlighted a number of areas of concern, including the ongoing Palestinian stabbing intifada against Israelis, the intransigence of Fatah in the peace process, anti-Israeli UN resolutions, the repercussions of the Syrian civil war and the threat of jihadist terrorism.

Turning towards Europe, the Bureau has also discussed concerns about rising nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment on the Continent. There have been discussions about growing anti-Semitism, with the Bureau keen to ascertain each countrys mechanisms for confronting hatred. The Bureau works closely with our colleagues in Washington and Brussels, and liaises with the Board of Deputies, to ensure that our embassy visits are as fruitful as possible.

The Bureau continues to attend meetings of the Foreign Office roundtable and there was a visit to the Department for International Development (DFID) highlighting Palestinian incitement. The Bureau organised two successful breakfast meetings in 2016, inviting the ambassadors of Austria and Israel to address Bnai Brith members.

The Bureaus research arm has also been busy this year. A research paper was produced, called Spreading the Hate, dealing with how UK funded NGOs and charities were pursuing a hostile anti-Israel agenda. A summary appeared in an Israeli paper. The Director has published a number of articles in the Jewish Press, both in the UK and abroad, on issues of importance to the Bureau. Further research and collaborative projects are planned for the forthcoming year.

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Posted By admin on August 5, 2017

Australia's Jewish community has expressed dismayafter a local council's decision to prevent the construction of a new synagogue because of the possibility of it becomingthe target of a radicalIslamist attack.

The New South WalesLand and Environment Courtsupported the decision of the local council to prevent the building of the place of worship in the Sydney suburb of Bondi, near the country's most famous beach. It said the risk assessment at the site was "inadequate" and that a "more sophisticated risk assessment process" may be required for the extremist threat that would face the site.

Radical Islamist groups and their supporters have called for attacks against symbols and sites of the Jewish community worldwide, and European jihadis have carried out several attacks against the Jewish communityin recent years.

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Religious leaders saidthe decision represents a blow to religious freedom and a victory for radical Islamists.

The decision is unprecedented, Rabbi Yehoram Ulman told news.com.au. Its implications are enormous. It basically implies that no Jewish organization should be allowed to exist in residential areas. It stands to stifle Jewish existence and activity in Sydney and indeed, by creating a precedent, the whole of Australia, and by extension rewarding terrorism.

Police officers at Parramatta Court in Sydney on August 4. Two men were arrested by counterterrorism police during raids across Sydney on Saturday over an alleged plot that involved blowing up an aircraft. Mark Metcalfe/Getty

The court upheld the decisionshortly after Australian security services foiled a plot to bring down a domestic flight by gassing the entire aircraft, a plot authoritieshave since said was directed by the Islamic State militant group (ISIS).

The jihadigroup has continued to target Australia, which is a member of the U.S.-led coalition to defeat the group in Iraq and Syria.

The country has suffered several attacksby individuals whoauthorities believewere radicalized. In 2014, a man besieged a cafin Sydney, killing one person before police shot him dead. Another person died when a police bullet ricocheted during the raid on the caf.

In September, an Australian courtsentenced teenager Sevdet Ramadan Besimto 10 years in prison for plotting to attack an Anzac Day parade, a commemoration of the First World War landings at Gallipoli, in Melbourne. British security services had intercepted conversations between Besim and a British teenager regarding a plot to run over and behead a police officer.

Turkey has agreed to extradite Neil Prakash,one of the top Australian militants in ISIS's ranks, said Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbullin May. Canberra suspects him of involvement in the directing of plots on Australian soil and the recruitment of Australian citizens to join the jihadigroup.

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Posted By richards on August 5, 2017

Posted: Aug. 2, 2017 8:00 am Updated: Aug. 2, 2017 11:32 pm

BOSTON (AP) A federal appeals court in Boston has decided the fate of the nation's oldest synagogue, overturning a lower court's decision that put control of the building and a set of bells worth millions of dollars in the hands of the congregation that worships there.

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals announced its decision Wednesday.

That means control of the nation's oldest synagogue, Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, will no longer be in the hands of the local congregation but rather under the control of the nation's oldest Jewish congregation, Shearith Israel in New York.

The decision also gives Shearith Israel ownership of a set of silver Colonial-era bells, called rimonim, valued at $7.4 million.

Shearith Israel had appealed last year's lower court ruling removing it as trustee of the 250-year-old Touro Synagogue. The judge at the time rejected the New York congregation's arguments that it was the rightful owner of the bells and the synagogue.

"Congregation Shearith Israel is gratified by the First Circuit's unanimous decision reaffirming our lawful, outright ownership of Newport's Touro Synagogue and the precious rimonim at issue here," said attorney Louis Solomon.

An attorney for the Newport congregation said he was disappointed with the panel's ruling.

"We are reviewing our legal options on behalf of the Touro Synagogue and Jeshuat Israel, the Congregation that has prayed there for over a century," attorney Gary Naftalis said.

Touro Synagogue holds an important place in the history of the nation's commitment to religious liberty. In 1790, George Washington visited Touro, and then sent a letter to the congregation pledging America's commitment to religious liberty.

The synagogue, dedicated in 1763, is a national historic site that draws thousands of visitors each year.

By 1820, all of the Jews had left Newport, and Congregation Shearith Israel became trustee of Touro. It was reopened later that century as Jews began to move back to the city.

The dispute over ownership began when the Newport congregation, which was struggling with money, formed a plan to establish an endowment by selling the bells to the Museum of Fine Arts. The New York congregation objected, arguing that the sale would violate religious law and would be akin to selling a "birthright."

___

This story has been corrected throughout to clarify that Shearith Israel in New York is the nation's oldest Jewish congregation and Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island is the nation's oldest synagogue building.

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