Anne Neuberger, an Orthodox Jewish woman, has been picked to lead the National Security Agency’s new cybersecurity Directorate, effective Oct. 1. She will be one of the highest-ranking women at the NSA, the Wall Street Journal said. She will report directly to NSA director general Paul Nakasone.

Neuberger is a 10-year NSA veteran, who helped found the U.S. Cyber Command, where she was chief risk officer and headed the agency’s security initiative during the 2018 midterm elections. She is from the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, where she went to Bais Yaakov Jewish day school for girls.

Jeffrey Epstein, 66, a billionaire financier, philanthropist and registered sex offender, who eluded lengthy prison time in the past, was charged with sex-trafficking girls as young as 14 in a federal indictment unsealed on July 8. Epstein “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes” in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida, along with other locations, the indictment says. Epstein also paid some of his victims to recruit more underage victims, according to the indictment.

The charges — one count of sex trafficking and one count of sex-trafficking conspiracy — stem from accusations dating to 2002-2005.Epstein was arrested on July 6 and jailed after his private jet arrived from France. Convictions could result in up to 45 years in jail. He entered a plea of not guilty in federal court on July 8.

The new charges come 11 years after Epstein avoided what could have been a lengthy prison sentence when he pleaded guilty to state charges of soliciting and procuring a person under 18 for prostitution. Under a non-prosecution agreement overseen by federal authorities in Florida, Epstein served a 13-month jail sentence, but was allowed to spend much of it in work release at his Palm Beach office. He also settled with dozens of victims and was required to register as a sex offender.

U.S. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta resigned amid fresh scrutiny of his handling of the Epstein sex abuse case when he was U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg announced last month that she is giving $9,000 to Israeli schools teaching Hebrew and Arabic. The grant will go to schools run by Hand in Hand, which seeks to enable “integration and equality in Israel through a growing network of Jewish-Arab public schools and shared communities,” according to the organization’s website.

The Stockholm-based group Jewish Culture in Sweden awarded Ginsburg, 86, with its 2019 Gitel Storch Award, worth around $27,000, which Ginsburg said she’ll divide between Hand and Hand and several other organizations that also strive to encourage tolerance.

“From the earliest grades, the children are taught to speak, read and write in Hebrew and Arabic. They learn the shared values of Jews, Muslims and Christians, among them, welcoming guests, opposing oppression, and caring for the earth,” Ginsburg said in her acceptance speech.

 Rabbi Leana Moritt, a daughter of former shul member R. Skye Moritt of Magliaso, Switzerland, and the late Fred G. Moritt, was married July 7 at Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield, NJ, to Rabbi Steven Carter Kushner. Rabbi Moritt is the spiritual leader at Temple Beth-El of Jersey City, and vice president of the New Jersey-West Hudson Valley Association of Reform Rabbis. Rabbi Kushner is the emeritus rabbi at Temple Ner Tamid.

According to an announcement in The New York Times, the couple met in 2009 over Torah study at a diner in Little Falls, NJ, when a mutual friend invited Rabbi Moritt to join an ongoing Torah study group in which Rabbi Kushner was, and still is, a member.

Many Congregation Tifereth Israel members will remember Rabbi Moritt who, thanks to her mother’s encouragement, often substituted for vacationing rabbis at our shul, offering thoughtful interpretations of scripture and applications to Jewish life.

New York City police arrested Matthew Karelefsky, 41, of McKeesport, PA, on June 15 and charged him with two counts of attempted murder and one count of arson. He is accused of setting fire to Rabbi Jonathan Max’s multifamily home in Midwood early Thursday morning, June 13, a blaze that hospitalized at least 13 people, according to The New York Times.

On social media and other websites, Mr. Karelefsky accused Rabbi Max of abusing him when he was a child. On his forearm, he had a tattoo that read, “Never let go of the HATRED — KILL Rabbi Max.

Rabbi Max denied the accusation. “I didn’t know him as a child,” the rabbi said. “I met him as an adult with children.”

The fire on Thursday broke out around 4 a.m. at the rabbi’s house, injuring at least 13 people, including three firefighters. It took more than three hours to get the blaze under control, a spokesman said.

Hello friends. The Shofar got wind of the Israel connection via email, courtesy of Barbara Glassner, daughter of Peri and the late Bill Sausmer. Seems that Barbara was having lunch in a Bedouin tent after a camel ride (yup, that’s what she said), and a woman at the next table mentioned “Greenport.”  So, Barbara, playing a little Jewish geography, asked, “Are you Jewish?” With an answer in the affirmative, Barbara asked, “What synagogue?” And there you have it, another Israel connection: former shul members and dear friends of CTI Marian Friedmann and David Judlowitz meet Peri and Bill Sausmer’s daughter Barbara in a Bedouin tent. What are the chances of that happening? Apparently, pretty good.

BGlassner photo