Suffolk County Legislator Catherine Stark, First Legislative District of New York, has named Rabbi Gadi Capela of our shul the Jewish-American Person of Distinction for 2025. Rabbi Gadi is being cited for his leadership at Congregation Tifereth Israel and in the Greenport community, his tenure as president of the East End Jewish Community Council, and for his interfaith work on Long Island. The event will be held on Wednesday, May 7, at the H. Lee [...]

Shul member Roberta Garris was the subject of a half-page article in the March 27 issue of The Suffolk Times. Reporter Julie Lane wrote about Roberta’s passion for quilting, and how she has turned that pastime into statements to promote peace. During the AIDS epidemic, she created a quilt to represent those losing their lives to the disease. More recently, she developed a theme based on the killing of 1,200 Israelis and the kidnapping of [...]

Mike Huckabee is not Jewish, but he makes the Jews In The News column this month because of the new position he now occupies. The former Arkansas governor was confirmed recently by the U.S. Senate as the Trump administration’s ambassador to Israel. The 53-46 vote installed a staunch supporter of Israel in a key Mideast post. However, Huckabee, an evangelical Christian, told lawmakers during a hearing last month that he would “carry out the president’s [...]

President Donald Trump has nominated Yehuda Kaploun, a Miami businessman, to serve as the administration’s new special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism. The announcement was celebrated by leaders of the Orthodox Union, but criticized by Jewish lawmakers, citing “inaccurate and disqualifying” remarks by Kaploun in connection with the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, having accused Democrats of refusing to recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization. Kaploun holds a rabbinical degree and is part of [...]

When Alan Garber, the Jewish physician and economist who now leads Harvard, wrote a letter to the community about why the country’s oldest university would not agree to the Trump administration’s demands, he spoke not just about academic freedom, but also about moral boundaries and identity. “Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard,” he wrote. The [...]

Just hours after Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family began Passover with a Seder in his official residence, an arsonist torched the room where they had celebrated. Arrested was 38-year-old Cody Balmer, who allegedly scaled a security fence and set fire to the Harrisburg, PA. home, where Shapiro, his wife and four children had celebrated the holiday earlier that night. At a news conference, the Jewish governor said that the attacker would not deter [...]

Jared Isaacman is Donald Trump’s nominee to be administrator of NASA. Isaacman, 44, is the billionaire CEO of Shift4, a payment processing company he started at age 16 in his parents’ basement in New Jersey. He is also a pilot and a commercial astronaut with Elon Musk’s SpaceX. In 2021, Isaacman self-funded a three-day SpaceX mission to space called Inspiration4, marking the first space flight manned by civilians rather than government astronauts, and the first [...]

Danielle Sassoon, serving as the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, met with Emil Bove, the Justice Department official who ordered her to drop the case against New York City mayor Eric Adams, the center of a quid pro quo scheme in which for dropping corruption charges against him, he would enforce the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Sassoon refused and resigned her position. In her letter of resignation, she said the [...]

Alex Bregman, the third-baseman who wore a Star of David on his cap following the Oct. 7 attacks, reportedly signed with the Boston Red Sox in a $100 million deal. It makes him the top-earning Jewish player in baseball history.

Scarlett Johansson condemned a viral AI-generated video that used her likeness and those of other Jewish celebrities to depict them giving the middle finger to Kanye West. “I am a Jewish woman who has no tolerance for antisemitism,” she said, but warned, “We must call out the misuse of A.I., no matter the messaging, or we risk losing a hold on reality.” (People Magazine)