(NEWS) Vicious Teens Cried 'Jew, Jew' As They Punched & Beat Rabbi Unconscious During Thanksgiving Attack

Video below: "The victim of a Thanksgiving hate crime testified Friday his attackers screamed 'Jew, Jew!' as they beat him unconscious on a Brooklyn street.

'They ripped off my clothes, my hat and my yarmulke. They were punching my face,' said Joel Weinberger, 26, a Hasidic rabbi and father of four.



Weinberger ended up with numerous fractures and a broken eye socket. He had three steel implants in his cheek, he told the Daily News outside the courtroom.

'I was hit from the back; I lost consciousness,' Weinberger testified at an evidence hearing.

He came to, tried to run away, but was hit repeatedly until he blacked out again, he said.

Two 15-year-old boys were charged with assault as a hate crime for the attack on Harrison St. in Williamsburg.

Two NYPD detectives testified that the teens said they attacked 'the Jew' because 'it was something fun to do.'



Detective Nicole Carter said the boys claimed they 'were bored,' went to a park, bought a '$5 bag of weed, got high' and then decided to go to what they called 'Jew town.'

One of the teens is accused of later beating two other Orthodox Jews - one last Saturday and another on Monday as he left a Chanukah party.

Because the suspects were charged as juveniles, The News is not publishing their names.

Both are chronic truants and drug users who cannot be controlled by their parents, probation reports say.

One of the teens was laughing during the proceedings, prompting a warning from the judge to 'treat the process with dignity.'

The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Dec. 17." (source)

(NEWS) San Francisco May Propose To Ban Circumcision Next Year

San Francisco residents could get a chance to vote on banning brit milah, or Jewish ritual circumcision, if a proposed measure gets on next November's ballot.

'Mark down foreskin removal next to Happy Meals on the growing list of things San Franciscans want to ban.



A man in San Francisco is proposing a measure that would make it illegal for parents to circumcise their baby boys.

The initiative would make it a misdemeanor to circumcise, excise, cut or mutilate the genitals of a minor under 18, punishable with a fine of up to $1,000 or up to one year in jail, California's KGPE-TV reported.

The proposal's author, Lloyd Shofield, said that a man should decide whether or not he wants to be circumcised and that the decision should not be made by anyone else.

'It's genital mutilation,' Schofield told KCBS-TV. 'It's a man's body and...his body doesn't belong to his culture, his government, his religion or even his parents. It's his decision.'

Supporters of male circumcision say it leads to better hygiene. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not come out for or against the practice, but statistics show that the practice has become less popular among parents.

The CDC reported that 32% of boys underwent circumcision in 2009, down from 56% in 2006, according to The New York Times.

Voters in San Francisco aren't certain to get an opportunity to cut out circumcision; Schofield needs to round up more than seven thousand signatures for the initiative to make it onto the ballot next November." (source)



Related Article:

• Jewish groups condemn effort to ban circumcision

(NEWS) Daughters Keep Up Terror Fight For Leon Klinghoffer 25 Years After Attack On Achille Lauro

"For the daughters of Leon Klinghoffer, all it takes is the smell of a cigar to erase the 25 years since Palestinian pirates murdered him and dumped him over the side of the Achille Lauro.

Because Klinghoffer - a tough New York Jew who defied the terrorists despite being in a wheelchair - loved a good cigar.



'I pass a smoke shop in the street and I say, 'Oh my God, he could have spent hours in here,'' Ilsa Klinghoffer said.

Friday, exactly a quarter-century after the gunmen shot Klinghoffer in the head, he lives on in memories like these - and in the anti-terrorism work his daughters do in his name.

'People say, 'Girls, why don't you get on with life?'' Lisa Klinghoffer said. 'My answer to them is this is part of my life and I feel honored to be doing the work that I do.'

Still, the ache returns with every anniversary of their dad's death.

'What's so disappointing is that he never got to see our children, never got to be a grandfather,' said Ilsa, 53, who has one son.

'You have to remember, until that happened we were a normal family,' added Lisa, who is 59 and also the mother of a son. 'We were very close.'

Klinghoffer, 69, of E. 10th St., ran a hardware store on Avenue A with his brother and put in long hours even after he was hobbled by two strokes.

He had no interest in vacations, let alone a Mediterranean cruise, but he went because he loved his wife, Marilyn.

A few days into the vacation, the Palestinians crashed the party, and for 44 tense hours they held the passengers hostage and made outrageous demands while the world watched helplessly on TV.



'Do your crying now'

It was only after the pirates were captured that Klinghoffer's body washed up on a Syrian beach.

'My mother, when she called us from the boat, told us, 'Do your crying now. We have a lot of work when I come home,'' Lisa recalled. 'She didn't want our father's murder to be in vain.'

Lisa Klinghoffer said they were suddenly thrust into a situation for which they were ill-prepared. And when colon cancer claimed their mother a few months after losing their father, they were devastated.

'You read these things, see them in the movies, never think this can happen to you,' she said. 'All of a sudden, we became involved in world politics.'

With the help of the Anti-Defamation League, the Klinghoffer women pressured the U.S. government to go after Abu Abbas, the ringleader of the hijacking.

They also began working on programs to educate local law enforcement about the threat of terrorism - and the toll it takes on the victims' families. Those programs continue through their ADL-affiliated Leon and Marilyn Klinghoffer Memorial Foundation.

'I feel very positive that we were able to take a personal tragedy and turn it into something good,' Ilsa Klinghoffer said. 'Through education and lobbying for anti-terrorism legislation, we've heightened peoples' awareness.'

The Klinghoffers, both of whom live in Manhattan, said they were disappointed when Abbas, who was captured by U.S. forces in Iraq, died six years ago of a heart attack.

They did get to see Monzer al-Kassar, the Syrian gun dealer long suspected of supplying the weapons to the hijackers, go to jail for arming Colombian guerrillas against American drug agents.

'We were able to look him in the face when he got his 35-year sentence,' Lisa said. 'We stared and stared at him and he stared back. I will never forget that.'" (source)

(NEWS) New Torah & Synagogue Revitalize Young Israel Congregation In Sunnyside

"When resurrecting a withering congregation, even divine intervention can get a little boost from some entrepreneurial spirit.

The once-thriving Young Israel synagogue in Sunnyside was on the verge of disappearing several years ago - a casualty of shifting demographics.



It had no rabbi, a crumbling building on 45th St. and Torahs that were falling apart. In the years after World War II, the neighborhood was a vibrant community for Orthodox Jews, but as congregants moved and aged, the membership dwindled.

Betty Ann Weiner, 55, and her husband joined eight years ago when the congregation was going through perhaps its roughest patch.

'It was a total nightmare,' she said. 'There was no heat, windows were broken, we had stray cats coming in and living in the building. There were maybe eight people total in regular attendance. The Torah needs to be a perfect scroll, and ours were falling apart. They were unusable.'

The turning point was in 2005.

The National Council of Young Israel, which has about 200 member synagogues around the country, stepped in and persuaded the Sunnyside congregation to move to a smaller, more manageable location on 46th St.

It also found them a new rabbi and commissioned a new Torah, painstakingly handwritten.

Now, membership is growing and young Jewish families are moving to Sunnyside to be a part of the revitalized community, synagogue officials said.

Last month, congregants put the finishing touches on the Torah scroll as part of a celebration that culminated in a procession down 46th St.

It was emblematic of the new life breathed into a synagogue on the verge of collapse - both literally and figuratively.

The roof partially caved in on Rosh Hashanah in 2006, just after the congregation moved out.

'We had another place already. It was meant to be that we should open by the [Jewish] new year,' Weiner said.



Congregants also knew that a new Torah scroll would provide confidence to members that the synagogue was becoming a vibrant place to worship.

They were right.

Membership has steadily increased in the past five years, now with 25 families that regularly attend services.

When the new scroll was brought into the synagogue, 'there was not a dry eye in the house,' said Rabbi Pesach Lerner, vice president of the National Council of Young Israel.

'For the older Jews in the community, it was special for them to see their synagogue return. For the younger Jews, it was a symbol of rebirth.'

The scroll is handwritten and a number of people must inspect every letter to make sure it is perfect. It can cost $50,000 to produce.

'The new Torah has a very special significance for us,' said the new rabbi, Nesanel Lerman, 37.

'It's a real symbol of where we want to be and every time we take it out, it fills us with joy.'

The members of Young Israel hope Sunnyside will continue to attract Orthodox Jews. Neighborhoods like Forest Hills and Kew Gardens, which have bustling Orthodox communities, are appealing, but the commute to Manhattan can be cumbersome.

Zach Berman, 22, and his wife moved to Sunnyside a year ago. He was drawn to the easy commute into the city.

But more than that, the young couple said they were delighted by the idea of helping start a Jewish community rather than moving into an established one.

'We feel like we are pioneers out here,' he said. 'The new Torah scroll represented the start of a new life. It was the start of a new life for us, and a new life for the synagogue.'" (source)

(NEWS) Video: Man Ignites Quran Near Ground Zero

NOTE: Video is below the article

"A man ripped pages from a Koran and lit them aflame at a protest near the proposed site of a community center and mosque near Ground Zero on Saturday.

'If they can burn American flags, I can burn the Koran,' shouted the unidentified man. 'America should never be afraid to give their opinion.'

The man was led away by police but did not appear to be arrested.

The display - apparently prompted by Florida Pastor Terry Jones' plan to burn the holy books - occurred as families who lost loved ones during the attacks commemorated the ninth anniversary at Ground Zero."

(NEWS) Israel Obeyed International Law: Legally, The Gaza Flotilla Conflict Is An Open-And-Shut Case

Although the wisdom of Israel's actions in stopping the Gaza flotilla is open to question, the legality of its actions is not. What Israel did was entirely consistent with both international and domestic law. In order to understand why, the complex events at sea must be deconstructed.

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