by | Mar 28, 2025 12:13 pm | Comments (1)
The Meister himself, sage of simplicity.
The sage advice of a medieval mystic came to New Haven Thursday night — in the form of a reminder that being still is hard work, and, when done well, can bring one closer to God.
by | Mar 26, 2025 10:01 am | Comments (13)
contributed photo
Prophet's Mosque in Medina.
“Faith Matters” is a column that features pieces written by local religious figures.
(Opinion) The Qur’an, which was revealed during Ramadan in the sixth century to Prophet Muhammad, is read daily to remind Muslims not only of their commitment to God and His commands but also their commitment to the lives of all living beings.
Since he is mentioned more than any other prophet throughout the Qur’an, Prophet Moses’ life is described in detail throughout the holy text.
by | Mar 19, 2025 9:23 am | Comments (6)
Chris Aguero.
As a seventh-grader, Chris Aguero had acquired enough Hebrew to use a personally coded script to express his 12-year-old angst — aka kvetching — in his daily diary.
Aguero, now 42, has grown up to become neither spy nor cryptologist but rather the new Head of School of Ezra Academy, the New Haven area’s anchoring progressive Jewish day school.
by | Mar 14, 2025 9:31 am | Comments (30)
Paul Bass Photos
Rabbi Brockman Thursday at WNHH FM.
Kica Matos and Rabbi Herb Brockman (at left) with Nury Chavarria in 2017 at Fair Haven's Iglesia de Dios Pentecostal, where she was being housed to prevent federal agents from arresting and deporting her.
Donald Trump is back at raiding immigrant communities and deporting people. So Herb Brockman is back at working with other religious leaders to step in to help targeted immigrants and their families.
Continue reading ‘With Raids Looming, Rabbi Returns To Resistance Trenches’
by | Mar 11, 2025 2:00 pm | Comments (3)
Note: This is the first installment in a “Faith Matters” column that will include pieces written by local clergy.
(Opinion) – I’ve been contributing to the New Haven Register’s Faith Matters column for over a decade. I have to admit that it came as a great disappointment to me that a decision had been made to discontinue the column.
I have always viewed Faith Matters as a pleasant light in a world filled with far too much bad, sad, and mad news. I was honored to be among its contributors. The decision to snuff that light happened to occur just as it was my turn to submit another column. Twice in the dozen or so years I’ve been contributing, the due date snuck up on me and I found myself having to produce a column in a matter of hours. The first time I got a friendly “where’s your column?” phone call, I was driving. I pulled over, said a prayer and began to write. It was a very decent piece if I do say so myself. No one can tell me that faith doesn’t matter. God helped me get it done!
by | Mar 10, 2025 12:15 pm | Comments (3)
Allan Appel photo
Chief organizer Jill Snyder at Trinity's columbarium.
On March 8, 1825, Lucy and Lois Tritton were paraded through the streets of New Haven, led by a drummer shouting “slaves for sale.”
The mother and daughter were then marched, likely with potential buyers following, the few blocks to the Green. There, by the old sign post near Chapel and Church streets, they were auctioned off for $10 — marking the last slave sale recorded in New Haven, and in the state of Connecticut.
That doleful and spirit-crushing 200th anniversary was marked Sunday afternoon at Trinity Church on the Green by a somber “service of lamentation and healing.”
Continue reading ‘New Haven's Final Slave Auction Remembered’
by | Feb 24, 2025 4:42 pm | Comments (21)
Lisa Reisman photo
Anna Salemme and Lyudmyla Kobylyanska at Sunday's mass.
Three years after Russia invaded Ukraine — and began a war that President Trump now falsely claims Ukraine started — 75 people gathered on George Street for a somber Sunday mass to try to figure out how best to support the country they love in such tumultuous times.
by | Jan 27, 2025 9:37 am | Comments (5)
Allan Appel photo
At Friday's ceremony at Chapel Haven.
Roughly 100 people across the generations gathered — with memorial candles, prayers, and hopes — at Chapel Haven Schleifer Center (CHSC), the residential campus for people with disabilities, in order to “Flick the Switch.”
Continue reading ‘Switch Flicked For Holocaust Remembrance’
by | Jan 6, 2025 10:50 am | Comments (4)
Thomas Breen photo
Varick Church, to stay at 242 Dixwell.
A historic Black church won’t be leaving Dixwell Avenue after all — now that congregants have voted against moving forward with a plan to sell the building and relocate.
by | Dec 23, 2024 12:56 pm | Comments (1)
Allan Appel Photo
Ian Wollman with his finds, especially excited for The Jewish Guide to the Internet.
The People of the Book are getting rid of a few — and for one day you could get them wholesale, as many as you could stuff into a bag.
Continue reading ‘Jewish Historical Society Downsizes To Digitize’
by | Dec 23, 2024 12:28 pm | Comments (19)
Laura Glesby Photo
What about Mary? The gravestone of 3-year-old Mary Hillhouse Oswald preserved in Center Church on the Green's crypt.
When the city unveiled a proposal to build a fountain and a “children’s garden” on the upper half of the New Haven Green, Nicholas Mignanelli had a question: What about the eight to ten thousand people buried inches beneath the ground?
by | Dec 4, 2024 2:39 pm | Comments (1)
Allan Appel photo
Panelists Rev. Dr. Dan Heischman, Valerie Mara, and Salman Hamid.
Here’s a hypothetical: You’re a teacher thrown into a class mid-semester and you have to choose in those first high-anxiety days between prioritizing learning a curriculum utterly new to you or learning the (yipes!) 27 students’ names.
What to do?
by | Nov 15, 2024 11:12 am | Comments (6)
Nathaniel Rosenberg photo
Church Trustee Lee and Pastor Hardy talk up elevator benefits.
A second-floor meeting room at City Hall was temporarily transformed into a standing-room-only celebration of a religious community — as parishioners of St. Matthew’s Unison Free Will Baptist Church turned out in force to support adding an elevator to make their sanctuary more accessible for the elderly and disabled.
by | Nov 8, 2024 3:59 pm | Comments (18)
Thomas Breen photo
Varick Church: So long, 242 Dixwell?
A historic Black church that has spent the past century-plus in the heart of Dixwell is considering relocating — amid a broader building up of the neighborhood’s commercial corridor.
Continue reading ‘Dixwell's Varick Church Eyes Potential Move’
by | Oct 16, 2024 11:55 am | Comments (5)
Maya McFadden photos
Alder Furlow (right) prays with Eugenia Morris and her family, during Church at the Shack.
Maya McFadden Photo
At Sunday's service.
Live music, prayer, and reminders from two alders that change is possible uplifted dozens of West Hills neighbors during a gathering of “Church at the Shack.”
by | Aug 27, 2024 1:10 pm | Comments (12)
Thomas Breen photo
So long, 949 Whalley's western addition?
The Church of Scientology has paid local taxes for the first time in 14 years for a vacant former furniture store in Westville Village — and is now looking to demolish part of that neglected property as part of a long-delayed renovation.
Continue reading ‘Scientologists Pay Taxes, Ready Partial Demolition’
by | Aug 14, 2024 11:33 am | Comments (6)
Eleanor Polak photos
Statue of Bl. Michael McGivney outside St. Mary.
Father Joseph McNeill and altar boys at Tuesday's "feast day."
Outside the St. Mary Church at 5 Hillhouse Ave. stands a life-sized statue of the Blessed Michael McGivney, the founder of the Knights of Columbus and the patron of that parish. The sculpture has its arms outstretched, as if embracing everyone who enters the church, welcoming them in.
Continue reading ‘St. Mary Pays Tribute To Michael McGivney’
by | Jul 9, 2024 12:23 pm | Comments (21)
Thomas Breen photo
949 Whalley, meet the tax man.
(Updated) For the first time in 14 years, City Hall has sent a property tax bill to the Church of Scientology for a long-vacant former furniture store in Westville Village.
Continue reading ‘Scientology Building's Tax Bill Comes Due’
by | Apr 30, 2024 1:49 pm | Comments (14)
Laura Glesby Photo
Megan Fountain co-leads a seder, calls for a ceasefire.
It is not enough that God took the Jewish people out of slavery in Egypt, according to a group of pro-Palestine activists on Monday evening who turned a traditional Passover song on its head by singing “Lo dayeinu.”
by | Apr 19, 2024 6:32 pm | Comments (1)
Contributed photo
Rabbi Berl Levitin and Yisrael Stock outside City Hall with newly inked mayoral proclamation.
Several dozen members of New Haven’s growing Chabad Lubavitch Chasidic Orthodox Jewish community gathered outside City Hall to celebrate the anniversary of the birthday of the movement’s spiritual leader — and to receive an official mayoral proclamation honoring the day as one dedicated to learning and good deeds.
by | Mar 28, 2024 9:46 am | Comments (4)
Contributed Photo
Mending Minyan's Purim party.
This article was submitted by members of Mending Minyan.
(Opinion) The wicked prime minister Haman was hoisted by his own petard, or at least hung by his own gallows, for approximately the 2,500th straight year at Bregamos Community Theater last Friday.
Continue reading ‘Opinion: Purim Party Felt Different This Year’
by | Mar 27, 2024 4:57 pm | Comments (3)
Bridging generations, backgrounds: Rabbi Benjamin Scolnic, Council member Abdul Razak Osmanu.
One night the town erupted in chanting and screaming and accusation. Then a conversation started.
Continue reading ‘Rabbi, Pro-Ceasefire Council Member Seek Common Ground’
by | Mar 19, 2024 9:22 am | Comments (2)
Chris Volpe Photos
Junior Aedan Heffernan (pictured) led a gathering honoring the Stations of the Cross for Lent across the Albertus Magnus campus Monday in New Haven.
Continue reading ‘Lent March Message: "Be Peace, Live Peace"’
by | Mar 8, 2024 2:28 pm | Comments (42)
Paul Bass Photos
No sign of "religious" activity: Assessor Pullen (left); portions of the blighted Scientology building.
Scientologists will have to pay taxes after sitting on plans to resurrect Ron Hubbard’s spirit inside the deteriorating doors of a former furniture store — now that the city revoked the church’s tax-exempt status.
Continue reading ‘Blighted Scientology Building Returned To Tax Rolls’
by | Mar 5, 2024 2:14 pm | Comments (5)
Thomas Breen File Photo
Bishop Barber at NXTHVN: Poverty "preventable, avoidable, unnecessary."
How do you reconcile a moral crisis of loneliness with the economic toll of a stagnant minimum wage, and then reach “a more perfect union?”
Bishop William J. Barber II charted that path in a Dixwell sermon Tuesday that touched on biblical scripture, the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., the good deeds of his grandmother, the precariousness of swing-state voter turnout, and the fatal cruelty of poverty.
Continue reading ‘Barber's Loneliness RX: Start With Poverty’