The dinner menu on Jan. 26 at Ayat, a restaurant in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, included challah, a staple of Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine and a traditional offering on a Shabbat table. The bread was served with a complete dinner to more than a thousand guests who responded to an invitation to a free Shabbat dinner posted on Ayat’s Instagram page. “It’s about breaking barriers, fostering dialogue, and connecting on a human level. This evening is more than a meal; it’s an opportunity to share stories, embrace diverse perspective es, and celebrate our shared humanity,” read the post that received more than 10,000 likes.

The idea came to Ayat’s co-owners, Abdul Elenani and Ayat Masoud, after they faced backlash for naming the seafood section of their latest restaurant’s menu ”From the River to the Sea,” a poke at the recently resurrected pro-Palestinian slogan. The slogan refers to the liberation of the region from the Jordan River west to the Mediterranean Sea. Critics see it as a call for violence against Jews and a denial of Israel’s right to exist. The menu sparked an outcry on the neighborhood’s Facebook page, where many accused the restaurant’s owners of being antisemitic.

For the owners, a Shabbat dinner was a way to set the record straight by reaffirming their respect for their Jewish neighbors.                                                      Photo by Religion News Service/Fiona André

Photographer Gillian Laub orchestrated a sweeping public art project in which her portraits of Holocaust survivors would be projected on the facades of buildings and landmark structures across Manhattan and Brooklyn. Here, Rabbi Aliza Erber, age 80, is projected against the Brooklyn Bridge on Jan. 27, the United Nations’ designated International Holocaust Remembrance Day, to draw attention to the Live2Tell project.

“The number of Holocaust survivors in the world is dwindling, but the story must be kept alive,” Rabbi Erber said.  “We are the last link in this horrible chain.”

Gillian Laub photo

About 1,400 Torahs that survived the Holocaust in Moravia and Bohemia, were first shipped to the Jewish Museum in Prague and are now part of the Memorial Scrolls Trust, the London organization that administers the collection. The scrolls are never sold or gifted, but are allocated on permanent loan to synagogues that request one, The New York Times reported.

Many of the scrolls had been burned, waterlogged, torn or scarred when synagogues were destroyed during WWII. In 1963, Eric Estorick, an art dealer who had a gallery in London, helped to arrange a sale of the Torahs to Ralph Yablon, a British philanthropist who bought the entire collection for $30,000 and established the trust. Over the next 20 years, the Torahs were repaired, and in 1964, the trust began sending them to synagogues in two dozen countries around the world. Institutions that seek a scroll are asked for a donation, now $5,000, for the trust, which operates with an all-volunteer staff.

One of the scrolls is on loan to Calvary Hospital in the Bronx, a Roman Catholic institution that cares for the terminally ill. The scroll is taken to the beds of patients of all religions, or none. The trust hopes that the scrolls are used to remind people of all faiths what we have in common rather than what divides us.

As reported in The Forward…

• Jewish teens are looking at a new factor in their college search — antisemitism. A recent survey of nearly 2,000 B’Nai Brith Youth Organization participants across North America found that 64% said antisemitism on campus was an important factor in the decision regarding where to attend college. In fact, some students said they would withdraw applications to certain Ivy League schools.
• Harvard University said on Feb. 19 that it is investigating an antisemitic social media post shared over the previous weekend by two pro-Palestinian student groups and then reshared by faculty and staff.
• StandWithUs, a pro-Israel advocacy group, filed a lawsuit against Middlebury College in Vermont over alleged antisemitism on campus.
• Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, now a professor at Columbia University, said in a speech she delivered recently in Munich that young people in America are “woefully uninformed” about antisemitism and the Holocaust.

Empty chairs at a Shabbat table outside Tel Aviv’s Museum of Art…one for each of the Israeli citizens held hostage in Gaza by Hamas.

Giant pandas from China could be arriving in the United States again soon. According to The New York Times, Beijing is planning to continue its panda diplomacy with Western countries, a statement from the Chinese Embassy to the United States said.

The China Wildlife Conservation Association has reached agreement with the San Diego Zoo in California “on a new round of international giant panda conservation cooperation,” according to the statement. The agreement keeps alive a more than five-decade tradition of China lending pandas to American zoos in a gesture of friendly diplomacy between the two countries. China is also negotiating with the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.

The San Diego Zoo is “taking important steps to ensure we are prepared for a potential return,” a statement by Dr. Megan Owen said. Dr. Owen is vice president of conservation science at the zoo.

Pandas in the wild live in forests in the mountains of southwest China, where they subsist on bamboo, of which they need between 26 and 84 pounds daily.