Your First Read For Oct 2

50 dead in bloody Las Vegas shooting

The death toll in the deadliest mass shooting in US history exceeded 50 this morning, and more than 400 people were injured at a Las Vegas performance last night by country music star Jason Aldean.

According to Las Vegas police, the shooter, identified as Stephen Paddock, 64, opened fire on the concert from a window on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

Police said SWAT teams used explosives to get into the hotel room where Paddock had already killed himself.

Increases security at Museum of Jewish Heritage

Security at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park has been increased after it received “threatening audio recordings from Islamic State,” the Jerusalem Post reports. NYPD officers and police dogs could be seen outside the museum yesterday.

The recordings received by the instiutution state that it “would make a good target for a terror attack because of its new Kurdish exhibit,” ccording to the Post. Kurdish Peshmerga forces have played an integral role in the fight against ISIS in Iraq.

There is no known terror plot against the museum and the threats heard on the audio recording remain unsubstantiated, the Post reports.

 

Net gain for Yom Kippur observance

Dudi Sela, Israel’s top-ranked men’s singles tennis player, quit his match in the Wuhan Open in China on Friday as sundown, and the start of Yom Kippur approached. Sela, ranked 77^th in the world, was tied a set apiece and down 1-0 in the third set of his quarter-final match against Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine when he forfeited and was knocked out of the tournament.

Sela also forfeited $34,000 in prize money and the chance to win 90 ranking points.

Meanwhile, Omri Casspi, the first Israeli to play in the National Basketball Association, missed his preseason opener with the Golden State Warriors because it took place on Yom Kippur. The Warriors, with whom Casspi signed a one-year deal in July, played faced off Saturday against the Denver Nuggets.

Torah disappears from Miami shul on eve of Yom Kippur

Miami police are searching for a Torah scroll that was taken from a synagogue in Miami Beach before the start of Yom Kippur on Friday, according to Miami TV station WSVN. The family of Mordy Sohn, a long-time member of the synagogue, had donated the seder Torah.

The missing Torah, which has the name “Sohn” engraved on the side, was kept under lock and key in a gate. However, right before Hurricane Irma blew through South Florida, Torahs from nearby synagogues were also placed in the gate, and for a period of time, it was left unlocked.

No government ministers attend Yom Kippur War memorial

The Israeli government was criticized yesterday after it failed to send a single minister to the annual Mount Herzl memorial ceremony for the soldiers who fell in the Yom Kippur War, according to the Times of Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized for the  “unfortunate mistake,” and vowed it would not happen again.

The only government disgnitaries at the event were Knesset speaker Hilik Bar and President Reuven Rivlin.

50 neo-Nazis arrested at Yom Kippur rally in Sweden

At least 50 people were detained on Saturday, Yom Kippur, during a right-wing demonstration in Sweden’s second-largest city that left one police officer and several others injured, The Times Of Israel reports. The rally by the Nordic Resistance Movement in Gothenburg featured an estimated 600 people marching in formation in all-black outfits.

Police had posted flyers before the event warning people not to act in a way reminiscent of German Nazis demonstrations in the 1930s and 1940s. NMR, which promotes an openly anti-Semitic doctrine, originally sought to pass near a downtown synagogue during the march, but Swedish courts intervened and shortened the route.

Israel  announces 11-day closure of West Bank

In a departure from recent custom, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has ordered an 11-day closure of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, from the start of the Sukkot holiday through the following Shabbat, Haaretz reports. Temporary closures for Jewish holidays are common, but for week-long religious festivals such as Sukkot they are usually imposed only for the holidays that surround the week.

During these closures, Palestinians are prohibited from entering Israel except for medical or other emergencies, and only with permission from the office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. Lieberman cited the last week’s incident in which three Israelis were shot and killed at the entrance to the Har Adar settlement by a Palestinian who had a permit to work in settlements.

Israeli Paralympic rower wins silver at world championship

Israeli athlete Moran Samuel won a silver medal yesterday at the World Rowing Championships in Sarasota, Florida on Sunday, the Times of Israel reports. She had won bronze in women’s 1000-meter single sculls at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

Samuel took up rowing in 2010; in 2012, she came in fifth at the London Paralympics. In 2015, she won gold at the World Cup event in Lake Varese, Italy.

She had been a member of Israel’s national basketball team until 2006, when she suffered a spinal stroke and became paralyzed in her lower body.

 

Monty Hall of ‘Let’s Make a Deal’-fame dies at 96

Monty Hall, the original host and co-creator of the “Let’s Make a Deal” TV game show, has died in Los Angeles at 96, the Los Angeles Times reports. Born Monte Halparin in Winnipeg to Jewish immigrants from Russia, he was a mult-millionaire who donated to a wide variety of Jewish and civic causes.

Mr. Hall, who moved to Los Angeles from New York in 1961, supported Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Israel Tennis Centers. Additionally, he, emceed events benefiting Hadassah, The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, American Committee for Shaare Zedek Medical Center and Jewish Home for the Aging.