by | Jun 8, 2018 12:34 pm | Comments (8)
Christoper Peak Photo
Feray Gokcek, with statue of his hero, Ataturk.
Feray Gokcek has enough signatures to legally ask the government to name the corner of Scarboro Street and Middletown Avenue “Ataturk Corner” in honor of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the father of modern-day Turkey. But he is missing one key piece — a letter of support from an alder in favor of the change.
by | Jun 5, 2018 10:56 pm | Comments (23)
Lucy Gellman Photo
Dobro master Stacy Phillips, who died Tuesday at 73.
Watching Stacy Phillips contemplatively smoke his cigars in baggy pants and a T-shirt outside his Alden Avenue apartment or pass the hat between sets with his “bluegrass characters” at the Outer Space, you might not guess he won a Grammy.
by | May 29, 2018 2:01 pm | Comments (0)
Aaminah Bhat.
Three years ago, on Feb. 10, Deah Shaddy Barakat, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha were killed by Craig Stephen Hicks in their North Carolina home. This horrific evening came to be known as the Chapel Hill Shooting, and is one of many hate crimes against Muslims. These acts of prejudicial aggression in our country have spiked following our most recent election year. An online piece called “The Islamic Administration” reports a “67 percent increase in hate crimes against Muslims in 2016” and that “from the end of Jan. 27 through the end of March, there were approximately 32 anti-Muslim and anti-Arab incidents, or an average of one every other day,” (Brennan Center). The phenomenon is nothing new, we’ve seen it in the years following 9/11, but it has been fuelled more recently under the rhetoric of our new Presidential Administration.
Still, we try to understand: Where does this prejudice stem from?
by | Apr 2, 2018 12:23 pm | Comments (0)
Courtesy Marycare
Clinic construction.stage.
From groundbreaking to the laying of its foundation, to seeing cinderblock walls rise to support a pitched frame and the steel roof that would cover it, Westville and some New Haven supporters have cheered every stage of construction of a new health clinic located more than 5,000 miles away — one which they helped make happen.
Now there’s more work to do.
Continue reading ‘Fundraiser Will Challenge “Ovarian Lottery”’
by | Mar 30, 2018 8:10 am | Comments (0)
Musya Kudryavtseva Andreeva
Illustration from a haggadah Farbman created with other rabbis for Jews from the former Soviet Union.
When Rabbi Michael Farbman prepares for Passover each year, his mind flashes on the seder he’ll never forget — one that helped set him on the path to join a modern exodus of Soviet Jewry.
by | Mar 28, 2018 1:10 pm | Comments (6)
Allan Appel Photo
Parent Suzan Ali and daughter Khloe receive the news.
Dessara Bryant came to a parents meeting at St. Aedan-St. Brendan School to learn how a new STREAM (Science, Technology, Religion, Engineering, Arts & Math) teaching framework will affect her kids’ learning.
She left with a more existential concern: whether the school she loves will survive.
Continue reading ‘Seeking Students, St. Aedan Tries “STREAM”’
by | Mar 28, 2018 7:52 am | Comments (5)
Markeshia Ricks Photo
Barber at Yale: Guns kill. So does policy.
During a week when Christians will contemplate the death and resurrection of a savior, the Rev. William J. Barber II, the leader of a revived national Poor People’s Campaign, stopped by Yale University’s Battell Chapel Tuesday night to point the way for how the United States of America might resurrect its moral compass.
Continue reading ‘Poor People’s Quest Eyes “Policy Violence”’
by | Mar 23, 2018 12:14 pm | Comments (1)
CT Mirror photo
John Santa (at right in photo) on a 2016 visit to the Osborn prison facility in Somers.
John Santa first went to prison in 1997. He wasn’t there because of any crime he had committed. He went to visit a friend who was serving a four-year sentence for embezzlement, and came away from that brief encounter a passionate advocate for criminal justice reform.
Continue reading ‘Ex-CEO Serves Justice Reform “Life Sentence”’
by | Mar 19, 2018 7:54 am | Comments (0)
Thomas Breen photo
Ricardo Harris watches from the sidelines as his son plays baskeball at the JCC.
The entrance to the main building of the recently renovated and reopened JCC at 360 Amity Rd. in Woodbridge.
In between practicing free throws and lay ups, Ricardo Harris watched his 7‑year old son play in a pick-up basketball game on the Jewish Community Center (JCC) of Greater New Haven’s renovated court — a resumption of a tradition that took a year-plus break after a fire wrecked the place.
by | Mar 6, 2018 8:39 am | Comments (2)
Cumbicos (second from right) with (from left) husband Ramon, organizer Kica Matos, sister Elizabeth.
Last week a fourth undocumented immigrant facing deportation sought sanctuary at a New Haven church. Monday she regained her freedom.
by | Feb 27, 2018 1:11 pm | Comments (4)
John Cirello.
This past Sunday at church we heard the story of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, to show his devotion and belief in God.
As Bible stories go, this is one that really stretches the bounds of our imagination. To understand the story of Abraham and Isaac, you must believe several things: First, that God spoke to Abraham; second, that Abraham understood it was God who was speaking to him, and; third, that Abraham was such a devout believer in God that he would not question an order to kill his son.
Continue reading ‘After Parkland: Abraham And Child Sacrifice In The 21st Century’
by | Jan 16, 2018 8:35 am | Comments (2)
Allan Appel Photo
The Love March.
President Donald Trump’s policies and especially his recent “shithole” statements about Africa and Haiti inspired the 150 people who prayed and hit the streets for New Haven’s 48th annual Martin Luther King Day “Love March.”
No, they didn’t agree with Trump’s statements. They statements gave them renewed energy to carry on King’s fight for racial and social justice.
by | Jan 9, 2018 2:27 pm | Comments (0)
Aneurin Canham-Clyne Photo
Deymar was excited to get his hands on Trouble at school Tuesday. A classmate, who got a remote control helicopter, wasn’t as sure he would get to enjoy his gift.
by | Jan 7, 2018 11:58 am | Comments (1)
Micaela Valentin Photo
The kings with Ezekiel Rodriguez, 4.
Children whose families fled the aftermath of Hurricane Maria were welcomed as part of a new family Saturday — the New Haven family.
by | Dec 20, 2017 8:52 am | Comments (0)
Allan Appel Photo
James Rugerman, 2, of the JCC pre-school, with mom Kate Cooney at Monday night’s party.
On the seventh night of the Festival of Lights, while kids from Krypton as well as Planet Earth did the Hanukkah limbo, 30 Schwinn indoor cycles were being checked out for dramatically expanded indoor cycling and spin class activities.
Also on the horizon: New facilities for roller hockey and pickle ball, a makers’ space, three more ADA-compliant shower facilities, a high end cafe with a kosher marketplace, and a climbing wall for all ages. Plus a quiet room for rest, spirituality, and mindfulness.
Continue reading ‘Year After Fire, Jews Reclaim JCC For Hanukkah’
by | Dec 18, 2017 1:24 pm | Comments (1)
Allan Appel Photo
Seniors called to the Torah Sunday at a group bnai mitzvah cermeony at Tower One/Tower East.
Several of the women who stood before the Torah Sunday at the Tower One/Tower East elderly complex had always dreamed of having a bat mitzvah ceremony, but the Orthodox Jewish world in which they grew up simply did not permit this rite of passage for girls.
One participant wanted to declare her love not only for Judaism but also for feminism. A third had indeed been become a bat mitzvah before; she wanted to do it again just so so her children could see it this time.
And the one man in the group? He was a recent convert to Judaism.
by | Dec 13, 2017 2:14 pm | Comments (0)
Paul Bass Photo
The menorah on the Green fully lit for a test Tuesday evening before it was extinguished and the first candle lit.
Stacey Battat is spreading the light of Hanukkah in our community — which isn’t as simple a proposition as it sounds.
by | Nov 2, 2017 1:35 pm | Comments (0)
Paul Bass
Malachi Kanfer, to whom fellow cantors from throughout the region will pay tribute this month.
Malachi Kanfer discovered in his teens that, while he sometimes had trouble speaking, he had no trouble singing. In fact he could belt it out, and move people in the process.
by | Oct 20, 2017 12:00 pm | Comments (1)
When neo-Nazis staged a deadly rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and called for ridding America of Jews, their slogans and the carnage hit particularly home for New Haven activists Jennifer Klein and James Berger: They met each other at Charlottesville, at the University of Virginia campus Hillel, 25 years ago.
by | Oct 10, 2017 1:37 pm | Comments (0)
So a Jew, a Christian, and a Muslim walk into a synagogue ...
by | Oct 6, 2017 12:12 pm | Comments (2)
Christopher Peak Photo
Feray Gokcek, with statue of his hero, Ataturk.
A Turkish dissident who fled his homeland in 1991 is now fighting a political battle in New Haven’s Quinnipiac Meadows neighborhood: to name a streetcorner after an icon of secularism.
by | Sep 29, 2017 7:43 am | Comments (1)
Joan Marcus Photo
Gabe Gibbs as Elder Price and Oge Agulue’ as the general
I knew that a comedy about Mormonism could also shed thoughtful light on the basics of the religion — in a novel. But what about onstage?
by | Sep 25, 2017 7:58 am | Comments (16)
Juda leads the kaddish at Sunday’s ceremony.
Allan Appel Photos
Detail of the memorial.
Isidor Juda was on a train bound for Nazi death camps when miraculously it slowed down. He leapt off and escaped. Three uncles, three aunts and two cousins weren’t as lucky. Sunday, decades later, he said the prayer for the dead for them at a memorial gravesite in New Haven.
by | Sep 22, 2017 1:45 pm | Comments (0)
Zoe Matthiessen
In my 12 years writing stories for the Independent, I’ve covered, no surprise, many issues dealing with parking, and parking lots. Too many. Throw in a few more stories over the years about parakeets, and specifically little monk parrots, nesting in United Illuminating transformers at City Point and other locales that occasionally erupt into flames.
Add a note or two floating in via the remembered fictional voice of Bernard Malamud, a pinch of cranky musings about the Jewish High Holidays, upcoming, mix it all up, hope you’re lucky — and that’s how the following fiction story, “High Holiday Parrot,” emerged.
I hope you enjoy; if not, I repent.
by | Aug 29, 2017 1:56 pm | Comments (7)
Christopher Peak Photo
Greer outside the courthouse Tuesday.
Rabbi Daniel Greer Tuesday pleaded not guilty to sexual assault and child endangerment charges.