When Temple B’Nai Israel in White Oak, PA, held its final Shabbat service in April after 113 years, it felt like the end of the line. But for Nik Jakobs, a 40-year-old rancher from rural Illinois, it was a call to action.

Jakobs offered to relocate as much of the synagogue’s sacred materials as he could — the Torah, and even the stained-glass windows — to Sterling, Ill., where he’s planning to build a new synagogue on a two-acre cornfield next to a Lutheran church.

Alongside the synagogue, Jakobs also plans to erect a Jewish museum to honor his grandparents, who survived the Holocaust.

“If we build it, they will come,” Jakobs said.

Nik Jacobs holds the Torah from a century-old synagogue in White Oak, PA, to be moved to a new

synagogue he will build in Sterling, Ill. A moving truck is in the background.

Benyamin Cohen photo

For moving, inspirational writing, The Shofar can recommend none batter than an article by Isabel Kershner in the Wednesday, June 11, issue of The New York Times. Check your local library for an archived copy.

The story centers on Omer Shem Tov, who was 20 years old when gunmen seized him during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel. He had grown up in a largely secular home, and was captured while fleeing the Nova music festival. A few days into his captivity, he began to speak to God. “You  are looking for something to lean on, something to hold onto,” Mr. Shem Tov said in a recent interview at his home in Herzliya. He had been released after 505 days in Gaza.

For 50 of those days, he sat in a small stifling cell with hardly and food or water. It was pitch dark most of the time. But like many of the hostages have recounted, he clung to his newfound faith that he had survived so far.

Now home and recovering, he said that he prays daily in his bedroom with tefillin.

The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) announced on June 23 it would allocate $10 million in emergency funding to meet the needs of Israeli Jews.

The JFNA, the umbrella group for 141 Jewish federations across the United States and Canada, said that the money comes from its Israel Emergency Fund set up in the days after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attach on Israel.

Since that attack, the JFNA has raised $897 million from American and Canadian Jews to help Israel recover and rebuild. About 90% of that money has already been spent, Religion News Service (RNS) said, adding that the organization is now funding the more immediate needs of food and housing.

“We want every Israeli to know that the North American Jewish community will continue to step up to support hospitals, upgrade conditions in public bomb shelters and help evacuees and victims of terror,” said Jeff Schoenfeld, vice chair of the JFNA board of trustees.

Federations are far and away the largest source of philanthropic support for Israel, JNS said.

On Monday, May 26, the annual Memorial Day Parade in Orient took place under clear skies and a spirit of reverence and remembrance. The parade began at the Orient Fire Department and wound its way through the surrounding roads, drawing a strong turnout of local residents and visitors.

The event featured proud participation by the ROTC cadets, local clergy, and community leaders. Rabbi Gadi Capela offered a moving reflection at the World War II Memorial, honoring the legacy and sacrifice of those who served. It was a beautiful day marked by unity, gratitude, and solemn respect for those who gave their lives in service to our country.

Opening Reception: Sunday, June 8, at noon

Celebrate 150 years of Jewish Communal Life in Nassau and Suffolk counties by visiting this illuminating exhibit of historic Torahs, books, documents, and artifacts collected from synagogues and private donors around Long Island.

The exhibit is presented by the Jewish Historical Society of Long Island, and featured at the Suffolk County Historical Society Museum’s Weathervane Gallery, 300West Main Street, Riverhead, from June 8 through November 2025.

 “Is This Heaven Or Is It New Jersey?”

By Alter Yisrael Shimon Feuerman

(A baseball story excerpted from The Forward)

We had wanted to go to the shore — 70 miles to the south — to watch the waves and the seagulls. Instead, my wife Ruchama and I drifted toward Brookdale Park, a leafy paradise in Montclair, NJ, just a few miles from the concrete and cobblestone of our gritty homebase of Jewish Passaic.

Here the ballfields and tracks are manicured and vivid. The foul lines and base paths are brightly painted and the ball skips around in the golden hue of the late summer afternoon.

At the park, Ruchama and I settled behind the backstop of a baseball field. Two young men in their 20s were playing pitcher and catcher. You could hear the satisfying snap of the hardball into the catcher’s mitt, the catcher calling out balls and strikes as though it were a real game. I watched with the loneliness of a 10-year-old wanting to be included.

Even though I was many decades older than they were, and I was wearing the uniform of an Orthodox Jewish male from Passaic — white shirt, dress pants, black yarmulke — I nevertheless asked, “Could I join you?”

“Sure,” they answered. “Grab a glove, and we’ll hit some out.”

Jake, the pitcher, picked up a bat and corked the ball to the outfield. I didn’t realize a ball could get up so high. I got under it and waited for it to obey the laws of gravity and fall plop into my glove. I threw it back in.

He hit the next one to his friend Brad. This one went ever farther and higher. Brad galloped like a gazelle, chased it down, relayed it to me, and I passed it back home. Jake drew from a bag full of hardballs, spilling out near the backstop. He was a human fountain of pop-ups, hitting them faster than we could shag them.

I am well past the age of playing baseball. I’m almost a pensioner, and I was never good at the game anyway. I should have kept strolling in the park with my wife, both hands clasped behind my back. What keeps calling me to the game, even now in the late innings of life?

I grew up as a backbencher in the bais medrash in Yeshiva Chaim Berlin. In the yeshiva’s bucolic Camp Morris in the Catskills, on Friday afternoons in summer, the big men of the bais medrash would lumber over to the ball fields — and they would hit the tar out of the ball. Too young to play with them, I would “announce” the game from behind the backstop with my friend Mayer Weinberger. Afterwards, we would play high-pops for hours.

Perhaps these Montclair men saw something in me. Could they have known how happy baseball makes me? Did they sense a bond between us, a bridge across the decades? Our parks in Passaic are not as fancy. We have good food, good friends, and a wonderful life. Why stray into the manicured gardens of Montclair? No one from Passaic does.

As the sun drifted down, another friend of theirs joined us. “Now let’s do fast-pitching practice,” Jake said.

I wore a batting helmet, but I knew nothing of Jake’s control. An errant fastball could do me in. I had played fast-pitch softball, got beaned once and escaped with a swollen arm. But this was hardball, and a lot more dangerous. I stood there, shaky bat in hand, swung and missed, but then poked one up the third base line, a bonafide hit. I braced for the impact of Jake’s two-seamers, but I stood fast and hit some more.

After the last ball, we parted in different directions. I saw them climbing the small hill in right field in the dying light of the day, while I headed for the parking lot on the north side. We waved to each other with all the good will upon which this country was built.

Later that night, in my Passaic bed, I fell into a young man’s sleep and stumbled into a dream: Jake had hit the ball high above the treetops. Then he hit another and another. They rose in arcs. I settled under one, waiting for it, twisting, turning, my gloved hand held out.