Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on December 20, 2014

OPORTO, Portugal, December 21, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

The Jewish Community of Oporto is already evaluating the applications of people claiming to be descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews and for this reason wish to obtain Portuguese nationality.

According to the Regulation of the Nationality Law, which will be approved in the coming weeks, the applicant for Portuguese Nationality must first obtain a Certificate from the Portuguese Jewish Community which attests to his/her ties to a Sephardic Jewish Community of Portuguese origin. A request for this Certificate must be addressed to the Jewish Community of Oporto or to the Jewish Community of Lisbon.

From 15th December 2014, the Jewish Community of Oporto is ready to receive requests from descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews who wish to obtain a certificate issued by the Portuguese Jewish Community attesting this status. The requests should be addressed by digital means to the following email address: portuguesenationality@comunidade-israelita-porto.org, together with the all of the supporting documentary evidence as may required for a proper evaluation of the matter and decision. Evidence of the applicant's family history of connection to a Sephardic Community of Portuguese origin may be direct and circumstantial. For more information please visit the official website of the Jewish Community of Oporto.

On July 3, 2013, the Portuguese Parliament approved the bill, amending the Nationality Law that allows descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews to apply for Portuguese nationality. The bill was introduced by Maria de Belem Roseira (President of the Socialist Party) and was approved unanimously in the Portuguese Parliament.

Now the Regulation of the Nationality Law is finished. It may take days or weeks to get published but the candidates certification needs to start now, for the majority of cases will take a long time.

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Portuguese Sephardic descendants - The Jewish Community of Oporto has already started evaluating the candidates ...

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Posted By richards on December 20, 2014

Hasidic hipsters #39; wordless tunes shaking up music industry Fox News Video
Please subscribe us for following the last news. We are the fastest news channel! December-2014.

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Hasidic hipsters' wordless tunes shaking up music industry Fox News Video - Video

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Posted By richards on December 20, 2014

Hasidic Rockland Legislator Aaron Weider Shocked By Hate Mail Referencing ISIS
An unknown person tapped into ISIS terror imagery to intimidate a Rockland County politician, in a delivery with criminal implications. As CBS2 #39;s Lou Young reported exclusively Thursday...

By: JewsOnTelevision

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Hasidic Rockland Legislator Aaron Weider Shocked By Hate Mail Referencing ISIS - Video

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Posted By richards on December 20, 2014

Thought-provoking outcome: Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun.

Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's wife Eva Braun may have been of Jewish descent according to DNA analysis carried out for a British television documentary.

The anti-Semitic German leader responsible for the Holocaust married his long-term lover Braun shortly before they committed suicide in a Berlin bunker in 1945.

But the program to be screened by Britain's independent Channel 4 on Wednesday says hair samples show Braun may have had Jewish ancestry herself.

Hair samples indicate possible Jewish ancestry: Eva Braun.

Scientists commissioned by the Dead Famous DNA program tested hair said to have come from a brush used by Braun and found at Hitler's mountain retreat.

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In DNA from the hair, they found a sequence passed down through the maternal line - haplogroup N1b1 - which was "strongly associated" with Ashkenazi Jews.

Ashkenazi Jews dispersed into central and eastern Europe in the early Middle Ages, and some converted to Catholicism in Germany in the 19th century.

"This is a thought-provoking outcome - I never dreamt that I would find such a potentially extraordinary and profound result," presenter Mark Evans said.

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Hitler's wife Eva Braun may have been Jewish

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Posted By richards on December 20, 2014

Lily Padula

Published December 20, 2014.

The Seesaw is a new kind of advice column in which a broad range of columnists will address the real life issues faced by interfaith couples and families. Read the discussion and vote below for what you think is the best response to this particular quandary. You can email your own questions, which will remain anonymous, to: seesaw@forward.com

This year will be the first official Chrismukkah at my house. Until last year, we always celebrated Christmas at my husbands parents house, but then my mother-in-law sadly passed away this spring and the family decided it will be too much for my father-in-law to do on his own. (For the record, he is Jewish and my mother-in-law was not.) Because we are the most centrally located and organized household in the family, everyone agreed, including me, that our place made the most sense. Seesaw, I feel a guilty about bringing Christmas into our Jewish home, and yet I know it is the right thing for to do for our family all things considered. The question I have is, how bad or confusing is this for my kids? Conflicted in Cleveland

SCOTT PERLO: When I was a teenager, I was a voracious reader. I consumed everything: Faulkner and OConner and novels of the South, primly English Austen and Eliot, the broody Russians too. My parents, in their wisdom, let my mind wander as freely as it chose. To this day, my heart lives in many cultures that are not my own.

But my family life was Jewish on that they insisted. I grew up knowing, very firmly, who I was. And though a trip to see Christmas lights wasnt out of the question, nor was my mothers appreciation for carols, they helped me develop a sense of what was ours and what was theirs.

That distinction has helped me enormously in my life. The world, to me, is not soup, all blended together; rather, its a tapestry each thread is beautiful because it is just different enough from its neighbor. Vive la diffrence. Truly.

I cant get behind Chrismukkah. I understand that many people celebrate a deracinated version of both holidays, but it feels to me like a smooshing of two unlike things together. What emerges is the Winter Festival of American Liberalism. I love the Liberal tradition, and America, and Christians, but Hannukah exists largely because a group of people fought so that they could be free of the influence of a more dominant religion and culture.

Youre in a tough spot. My guess is that Christmas is important to your Jewish father-in-law because of his love for his wife. To insist at this point would be an insult to his grief as much as a statement of identity. But I wouldnt advise Chrismukkah going forward, and I would help your kids distinguish, as best as you can, between ours and theirs.

Rabbi Scott Perlo is a rabbi at Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington D.C, a unique institution that reaches out to Jewish and Jewish adjacent young professionals of all denominations and backgrounds.

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Will Chrismukkah Ruin My Nice Jewish Kids?

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Posted By admin on December 20, 2014

Israel Launches Airstrikes in Gaza Israel has carried out airstrikes against targets in the Gaza Strip for the first time since an August truce. Confirming the early Saturday strikes, the Israeli military said they were launched...

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Posted By admin on December 20, 2014

VLOG SERS #1 GAZA GELDM LA MERHABALAR ARKADALAR BUGN SZLERLE LK VLOUMUZU EKTK OK ELENCEL BR VLOG OLDU (EVET BRAZ IMARDIM)... By: OYUN AVCISI

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Posted By simmons on December 20, 2014

June 25, 2014 Oldman defended fellow actor Mel Gibson and claimed Hollywood is "run by Jews" Gary Oldman has apologised to the Jewish community after comments made in a controversial interview appeared to show him condemning anti-semitism. Oldman said that he believes Mel Gibson was treated unfairly after making anti-semitic remarks in 2006 and that Hollywood is a "town run by Jews." He was subsequently criticised by the Anti-Defamation League, who accused the actor of "irresponsibly feeding into a classic anti-semitic canard about supposed Jewish control of Hollywood and the film industry." Issuing his apology to the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Weisenthal Centre, Oldman wrote: "I am deeply remorseful that comments I recently made in the Playboy interview were offensive to many Jewish people.

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Gary Oldman issues apology to Jewish community following controversial interview

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Posted By richards on December 20, 2014

Where Shmaltz and Soul Food Meet

courtesy of michael twitty

Published December 20, 2014.

(Haaretz) Only as a Jew [wearing a skullcap], white women offer me rides wherever I am going. Im like, White woman, you know I am black, right? With that sarcasm-laced remark, Michael Twitty won the hearts of the dozens of students who had gathered on a cold Thursday afternoon in November to hear the historian of Southern food talk about his unusual life. The host was the Jewish studies program of Harlem-based City College, a campus of the City University of New York.

Twitty, 37, grew up in Washington, D.C. A cook and culinary historian, he is African-American, openly gay and a skullcap-wearing Jew. At present he is in Israel where he will be giving a master class in cooking on Sunday as part of the annual Jewish Film Festival at the Jerusalem Cinematheque (one of its themes this year is culinary theater).

Twitty is currently at work on a book he has titled The Cooking Gene, a historical survey of the cuisine of the American South. Hes been teaching in Hebrew schools for 12 years, preparing boys and girls for their bar or bat mitzvah in Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist synagogues. (He switches skullcaps to meet the head-covering style of each stream of Judaism.) Twitty also takes part as an actor in historical reenactments at Southern plantations, dressed in slaves clothing and cooking like his ancestors did.

Confused about his identity? He will do little to put you at ease, because this is who he is; if you cant handle it, you dont interest him. Recently, when I was in the process of selling my book HarperCollins bought it another publisher, who shall remain nameless, they loved the idea of me talking about food and cultural roots and introducing my family tree and culinary justice, Twitty tells the City College students. (In the colleges Jewish studies program there are many Arabs, blacks and Latinos in fact, 95 percent of the students are not Jewish.)

But the editor who made the final decision on whether the book will be published or not she basically said, Okay, what about this Jewish part? Can we just get rid of that? And she basically told my agent: We will give him a fabulous book deal if he just wont wear his kippah in public, or talk about it in any radio interviews. And I said, I hope you told them to And she said: Yes, I told them you wont go for that. I said youre damn right.

He adds, without a trace of rancor: Black guy, heritage, food justice, ghetto people, eat broccoli that was cool, but me being complicated and Jewish and all that other stuff was not cool, not marketable, I was, quote, muddying the waters. This is America, the water has been done muddy. And [the publisher] said something on the phone, with a nervous laugh: I dont think America is ready for someone like you. Fk you, I am America. It infuriated me, because this woman was Jewish and she said, Jews dont read our books. Jews dont buy our books. Its this box again, I will put you in this box if you complicate it I dont know what to do with you.

I have a struggle with people who are trying to put me in a box, with people who are trying to break me down according to what makes sense to them. Are you Ethiopian? From black people: Are you a Hebrew Israelite brother? No, Im Jewish. How are you Jewish? You know, three men took me into a little room, and I got dipped in the water, this is how Im Jewish.

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Michael Twitty, Black Jewish Foodie, Talks 'Culinary Justice'

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Posted By richards on December 20, 2014

What Lures Ex-Soviets to Most American Branch of Faith?

david bachar/haaretz

Published December 20, 2014.

(Haaretz) When worshippers arrive for Friday-night services at Israels newest Reform congregation, they dont greet one another in Hebrew. Not in English either, as they would in some of the more established Reform congregations founded by Anglophone immigrants around the country.

At this brand-new congregation in Tel Aviv suburb Ramat Gan, Russian rules. Not only is it the mother tongue of every single worshipper showing up for services, its the language in which many of the prayers are recited and the rabbis sermon is delivered.

Set up specifically to serve Russian speakers, the congregation doesnt yet have a name, but it already has a core of 35 members who attend the traditional Kabbalat Shabbat prayer service every other Friday night.

And its not the first to target this particular audience. Four years ago, Shirat Hayam-Carmel in Haifa paved the way, and plans are on tap to set up similar congregations in two other cities with large Russian-speaking enclaves: Beer Sheva and Ashdod.

Reaching out to this community is a key strategy for us in the coming years, says Rabbi Gilad Kariv, executive director of the Reform movement in Israel.

To be sure, its not a mass movement. Gregory Kotler, the rabbi of both congregations, estimates that several hundred members of this community at some level or another have been brought into the fold in recent years. But like Kariv, he believes the potential goes way beyond that.

To outsiders, it would appear to be an anomaly. After all, how does a Jewish religious movement that made its way to Israel via America end up appealing to immigrants with roots in the atheistic Soviet Union?

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How Russian Jews Fell in Love With Reform Movement in Israel

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