by
Thomas Breen and Jake Dressler |
Dec 11, 2023 1:09 pm
|
Comments
(20)
Thomas Breen / Jake Dressler photos
Rabbi Gershon Borenstein on Monday: "One act of positivity will far outpace ... what one negative act can do"; a protester on Saturday, climbing the menorah with a Palestinian flag.
Elected officials and faith leaders gathered at the spot where a protester climbed a public menorah and planted a Palestinian flag — and warned that such acts, if not called out, can escalate into violent antisemitic action.
A protester climbing the menorah on the Green on Saturday.
About 300 people marched in the streets and rallied on the Green on Saturday in the latest local effort to get elected officials to support Palestinians and a ceasefire amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
During the event, one protester climbed the menorah on the Green and lodged a Palestinian flag between the candle holders — prompting criticism from fellow protesters, and a planned press conference by elected leaders and the Jewish Federation on Monday morning to denounce the act as antisemitic.
Pro-Palestine protesters gather at Thursday's tree-lighting.
As close to a thousand people gathered for New Haven’s annual tree-lighting celebration on the Green, hundreds protested mere feet away in support of Gaza and Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem, where there will be no Christmas celebrations due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.
Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services (IRIS) has selected Maggie Mitchell Salem to serve as its new executive director, nearly six months after Chris George announced that he was retiring after 18 years of leading the local nonprofit and making New Haven a national leader in refugee resettlement.
by
Thomas Breen |
Nov 1, 2023 3:31 pm
|
Comments
(3)
Ben Silvert and Andrea Weinstein with a photo of Andrea's sister and brother-in-law, Judih and Gad.
Andrea Weinstein’s sister Judih is a person of peace. She’s vegan and loves teaching English and making puppets for the children on the southern Israel kibbutz where she has lived with her husband Gad Haggai, a musician and chef. She cherishes the collectivist living the kibbutz afforded her family, writes haikus to calm herself and others, and is critical of the right-wing Netanyahu government.
That life collapsed on Oct. 7, when Judih and Gad were two of hundreds of Israelis either kidnapped or gone missing in a cross-border terrorist attack waged by Hamas.
Andrea showed up in downtown New Haven Wednesday calling attention to her sister’s and brother-in-law’s plight as she desperately seeks information.
Nour Ebid at Monday's vigil: "This is a global catastrophe."
With microphone in hand, Nour Ebid transported a crowd of 100 mourning Yalies to a hospital floor in Gaza where a 9‑year-old Palestianian boy saw his injured leg amputated in “a nonsterile field, without anesthesia, without appropriate sedation.”
The Yale New Haven Hospital physician associate then moved the crowd to a medical setting much closer to home, where “every single surgical procedure requires utmost care and absolute sterility.”
“We swear a sacred oath to do no harm,” Ebid said about her work as a local healthcare professional. “And it is our duty to call on this university and demand a ceasefire now.”
by
Allan Appel |
Oct 30, 2023 9:38 am
|
Comments
(1)
Filmmaker Rushdi Sarraj.
Roughly 130 people from around the world tuned in to a virtual movie screening to get an on-the-ground view of the human suffering caused by bombs dropped on Gaza, past and present — and to vent their frustrations and fears of still more bloodshed to come amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
by
Allan Appel and Thomas Breen |
Oct 18, 2023 4:53 pm
|
Comments
(65)
Thomas Breen photos
At Wednesday's rally on Elm Street ...
... outside of U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro's office.
Roughly 250 Jewish New Haveners and their allies rallied on the steps of City Hall and then outside of U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s office downtown calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
They also demanded that their elected officials speak out to end America’s military support of what speaker after speaker termed a “genocidal” war against Palestinians in Gaza — in the latest example of how New Haveners are trying to interpret and reckon with the ongoing bloodshed in the Middle East.
Pro-Israel protester Shmully Hecht praying in the face of pro-Palestine protesters Chris Garaffa and Kevin Menescardi.
Police bring out the barricades to separate the two sides.
Lynn Rabinovici Park and Karen Rabinovici: "All we want to do is live, and live in peace;" Faisal Saleh: "I've seen a lot of bodies" in images and videos coming out of Gaza.
Half an hour into a tense and loud and flag-filled standoff between pro-Palestine and pro-Israel protesters on the front steps of City Hall, city police brought in barricades to physically separate the two sides.
Those barriers successfully kept the peace — even as they kept apart Lynn Rabinovici Park and Karen Rabinovici, two sisters worried sick about the safety of their father’s relatives in Jerusalem, and Faisal Saleh, a Palestinian museum director worried sick about the safety of artists he works with across Gaza.
Freetown Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, with New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker: Two-year terms for mayor are "crazy!"
The mayor of Freetown, Sierra Leone, traveled across an ocean to her home’s “sister city” in New Haven to promote cross-continent comity, a shared history of liberation, green energy consciousness, and — unexpectedly — longer mayoral terms.
New Havener makes good: Award-winning NYT mag writer Jazmine Hughes.
WSJ
WSJ's Evan Gershkovich.
In the space of half a day, Jazmine Hughes went from celebrating reaching a milestone in her dream career — to learning that a friend who had realized his dreams, too, was now locked in a Russian prison.
by
Allan Appel |
Feb 27, 2023 10:45 am
|
Comments
(0)
Paul Zalonski and Jayne Ryzewski on Sunday.
Even if the war in Ukraine ends tomorrow, which it will not, there will remain an urgent need to rebuild the Eastern European country’s Russian-destroyed economy and infrastructure and to repatriate its citizens.
by
Nora Grace-Flood |
Feb 10, 2023 4:33 pm
|
Comments
(1)
Hulya Elevli: “I’m not changing my clothes because I’m thinking, 'They can’t change theirs over there.'”
Some of the donations ready to be boxed and shipped to Turkey.
Hulya Elevli has spent every day this week sorting through donations at the Diyanet Mosque in Quinnipiac Meadows while coordinating with earthquake refugees to help them find shelter in a house she owns in northern Turkey.
by
Allan Appel |
Nov 11, 2022 9:55 am
|
Comments
(1)
Allan Appel photo
Carl Harvey with one of the three vehicles the group hopes to ship next month.
As a young nurse training at Walter Reed Medical Center during the Vietnam War, Jane Ryzewski knows firsthand how much care and how many supplies are needed to help injured soldiers.
Which is why she joined three dozen fellow volunteers at the Ukrainian Catholic Church on George Street to organize and prepare to ship out an ever-growing assemblage of medical supplies and winter clothing to the front lines of another international conflict that is now in its ninth month.
President Zelenskyy on Friday: "We need you all to come back."
One of many standing ovations for Ukraine's leader.
Amidst active Russian bombings of Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Zoomed into New Haven — to virtually address the next generation of Yale-educated leaders, and to encourage Ukrainian-born students like Tania Tsunik to return home after graduating to help rebuild their war-torn country.
by
Thomas Breen |
Aug 24, 2022 4:50 pm
|
Comments
(3)
Thomas Breen photo
Ann Salemme with Mayor Elicker on Wednesday for Ukrainian independence day celebration and flag raising...
The Ukrainian Weekly image
... Local Ukrainian Americans meet with then-New Haven Mayor Richard Lee for Ukrainian independence day celebration and flag raising in 1955.
As Ann Salemme watched the Ukrainian national flag lifted high above the Green, she couldn’t help but think back to another time — nearly seven decades ago — when New Haven elected officials and local Ukrainian Americans celebrated another independence day for the embattled Eastern European nation by raising its flag and declaring support for Ukrainian self-rule.
