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🇮🇱 Hostage advocates reunite in Central Park one last time
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Over the course of Israel’s war in Gaza, Jewish New Yorkers and allies would gather every Sunday in Central Park advocating for the release of the Israelis held hostage in Gaza.
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Yesterday, hundreds came together in Central Park for one last gathering as they dedicated a park bench to “the hostages kidnapped on and before Oct. 7.” Speakers included a number of hostages’ family members, plus Jewish Comptroller Mark Levine. The event was held a day before Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s memorial day for fallen soldiers and terrorism victims, which begins at sunset.
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“We fought for you relentlessly,” the bench’s placard reads. “You are finally home now.”
- The bench was a joint initiative between the Hostages and Missing Families Forum and the UJA-Federation of New York, which funded the bench at $20,000.
🗣️ Parents call for suburban school board president to resign over anti-Israel incident
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Hundreds are calling for the resignation of the school board president in Scarsdale, a heavily Jewish NYC suburb, after his 17-year-old daughter applauded images that circulated of an anti-Israel incident at a high school.
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Posters for an upcoming “Israelfest” hosted by an Israeli culture club had been ripped off the walls and dumped into urinals. James Dugan’s daughter shared an image and wrote “Keep up the good work” on Instagram. She later apologized and Dugan wrote a letter to parents, calling the incident “a profound teaching moment for me as a parent.”
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A petition calling for Dugan’s resignation has more than 500 signatures, according to News 12, while a new petition supporting Dugan and calling for a “fair, principled and lawful response” has around 70.
💯 days of Menin
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City & State recaps the first 100 days of Julie Menin’s tenure as City Council speaker, including the first Jewish Council Speaker’s package of bills introduced in response to pro-Palestinian protests outside synagogues.
📢 Protesters harass diners at Israeli restaurant
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On Friday, anti-Israel protesters, who were marking Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, marched in Manhattan chanting “Bomb Israel now” and yelled at customers seated on the outdoor patio of Motek, an Israeli restaurant.
🔁 A Warsaw Ghetto Uprising sculpture gets its second act
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After gathering dust in storage for 15 years, a sculpture commemorating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was unveiled at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County on Long Island yesterday, marking the anniversary of the revolt’s outbreak.
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The sculpture, made by Polish Holocaust survivor Natan Rapaport, was commissioned by the Workers Circle in 1976 and adorned its NYC headquarters until 2011, when the group moved to a new office and the sculpture was put in storage. It is now on a 50-year loan to the Nassau County Holocaust museum.
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