CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

'One of Europe's biggest money launderers' in court

Yesterday 





An Irishman accused of being "one of Europe's biggest money launderers" and a member of the Kinahan crime cartel has been remanded in custody in Spain.

The suspect is understood to be Johnny Morrissey, a 62-year-old Irish passport holder, who was arrested in Malaga on Monday.

He was in court in Spain on Wednesday in relation to money laundering.

But the hearing was held in private as is usual for Spanish pre-trial cases, according to Irish broadcaster RTÉ.

It reported that six international law enforcement agencies were involved in the investigation that led to Mr Morrissey's arrest this week.

Those included Spain's Guardia Civil, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (US DEA) and An Garda Síochána (the Irish police force).

The Kinahan crime cartel was originally based in the Republic of Ireland, where some members were involved in a high-profile feud with a rival crime gang which has claimed several lives since 2015.

Kinahan cartel suspects operate in several countries and some alleged members have recently been hit with international financial sanctions from law enforcement agencies in the US, the UK and Ireland.

'Laundered €200m'

Europol - the European Union's police agency - released a statement after the arrest operation on Monday.

It did not name any suspect but it hailed the arrest of a man it described as "one of Europe's biggest money launderers".

"Linked to the Kinahan clan, the suspect is believed to have laundered €200m (£173m) in just over one year," said Europol.

"Two of his associates were also arrested in Spain, and one in the United Kingdom, with 11 property searches being carried out in both countries."

Selling vodka

Europol claimed that an 18-month international investigation had led to the discovery that €200m had been laundered through the Hawala underground banking system, which it described as "an informal method of transferring money without any physical money actually moving".

It revealed that some suspects had laundered money by creating a brand of vodka that was being sold in nightclubs and restaurants in Spain's Costa del Sol "to disguise the source of their earnings".

Europol also said that companies had been founded in the UK and Gibraltar to help launder illegal profits.

Two other suspects - a man and a woman - were also in court in Spain on Wednesday.

The man was also remanded in custody while the woman was released on bail.

Nakate: Leaders are missing the human face of climate change

Yesterday 

NEW YORK (AP) — Vanessa Nakate's climate activism over the past three years has propelled her to the world stage.

Climate activist Vanessa Nakate of Uganda poses for a portrait in New York outside the United Nations headquarters, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022. Nakate was appointed to serve as this year's UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. (AP Photo/Robert Bumsted)© 

Since 2019, Nakate has worked to amplify the voices of African climate activists through a platform she created called Rise Up Movement, spearheaded an initiative to stop the deforestation of African rainforests and launched the Vash Greens Schools Project, which aims to install solar panels in remote areas of her home country, Uganda.

These endeavors led UNICEF to announce her as their new goodwill ambassador this week, with UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell saying Nakate's appointment to the role "will help ensure that the voices of children and young people are never cut out of the conversation on climate change — and always included in decisions that affect their lives.”

Despite the global recognition, Nakate says it’s not enough — not enough to save the planet or to save the people in the global south she says are suffering significantly from the effects of climate disasters.

“For so long the world has ignored what happens in the global south," the 25-year-old Ugandan native told the Associated Press on Wednesday.

Fresh off a week-long trip to Turkana County, Kenya with UNICEF, Nakate saw the effects of food and water insecurity caused by the worst drought in eastern Africa in four decades.

“To go back to the horn of Africa — where I was in Turkana — there was a time people talked about it, but now people have forgotten,” she said. “It’s no longer being talked about, but does that mean that situation has come to an end? No. The drought situation is much worse and many people are suffering right now.”

Earlier this year, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development warned that higher temperatures and less than normal rainfall were recorded across the African continent by weather agencies, and rains were further expected to fail — indicating that countries in East Africa, as well as the Horn of Africa, could be facing the most severe drought in 40 years. Over the years, droughts have led to crop failure, livestock deaths and millions of cases of malnutrition.

Countries like Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya could see current famine conditions intensify.

“When it comes to the climate crisis, it has different, horrible realities. One of them is that those being impacted the most right now, they are the ones the least responsible,” she said.

According to the Global Carbon Project, a team of scientists that monitor countries’ carbon dioxide emissions, Africa — which accounts for about 16% of the world’s population — is responsible for only 3.2% of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere since 1959.

Carbon dioxide is the primary contributor to climate change. As a natural greenhouse gas, it traps heat in the atmosphere, which in turn causes global temperatures to rise. Where the African continent is a minor contributor to global carbon dioxide emissions, more industrialized countries such as the United States, Russia and China are greater contributors.


Climate activist Vanessa Nakate of Uganda speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in New York on Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022. Nakate was appointed to serve as this year's UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. (AP Photo/Robert Bumsted)© Provided by Associated Press

For activists like Nakate, tackling the climate crisis isn't just about raising awareness or urging global leaders to make swift policy changes addressing climate change that is devastating countries like Pakistan and Kenya — it also requires amplifying the voices of nonwestern climate activists, who she said are largely ignored in international conversations about climate change.

Looking ahead to COP27 — the United Nations' annual climate summit — which is being held in Egypt this November, Nakate said she notices a significant deficit during these global discussions: the lack of real human experience.

“I think what really misses in these conversations is the human face of the climate crisis and I think its really the human face that tells the story that, tells the experiences of what communities are going through,” she said. “It’s what also tells the solutions that communities need because many times there’s a disconnect between what is being discussed and between what communities are saying.”

To Nakate, that is a failure of global leadership. She believes that leaders, specifically western leaders, would take immediate action if they understood and saw the hardships people experienced as a result of the climate crisis.

Ultimately, she said, the responsibility and burden of tackling climate change and ensuring the numerous, nameless faces of the climate crisis are not ignored needs to fall on global leaders — not solely the youth that have built a global movement.

“The question should be like, what should the leaders do? What should governments do? Because this whole time I’ve done activism, I have realized the youth have done everything,” Nakate said.

Still, she tries to look for hope in the situation.

"In all this, you try to look for the hope because it's in that hope that you find the strength to keep saying we want this or we don't want this," she said.

Biden will soon meet with Brittney Griner's wife, but experts say Russia has already 'embarrassed' the US by waiting so long to free her

esnodgrass@insider.com (Erin Snodgrass) -

Brittney Griner.

 Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool/AP Photo

President Joe Biden is set to meet with Brittney Griner's wife on Friday, the White House said.

Griner is being detained in a Russian prison after pleading guilty to drug charges.

The White House in July announced a proposed prisoner exchange, but few details have emerged since.

President Joe Biden will meet with Brittney Griner's wife on Friday as the WNBA player marks her seventh month detained in Russia, the White House said Thursday, with the president set to demonstrate his "continuing commitment" to secure Griner's release after weeks with few public updates on the progress.

The planned meeting will be Biden's first in-person visit with the athlete's wife, Cherelle Griner, since Brittney Griner was arrested in February when officials alleged they discovered vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage at the Moscow airport.

Griner, in July, pleaded guilty to drug smuggling charges and was sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison in early August. Legal experts told Insider at the time that Griner's guilty plea was a strategic move in order to try and speed up the process of her return.

The State Department moved her case to the Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs in May, reclassifying her detention as "wrongful."

The basketball player's wife, friends, and teammates have been increasingly vocal in trying to secure Griner's release, calling upon the White House to do more in their efforts to bring her home.

The administration in July said it made a proposal to swap Griner and Paul Whelan, a former Marine who has also been wrongfully detained in Russia for nearly four years, in exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who is serving a 25-year sentence in the US.

Recent reporting, however, suggests a deal still may be a ways away after a White House official said in August that Russia was trying to tack on an additional convict to the proposed prisoner exchange. The Biden administration hasn't provided any official updates since its July statements.

"We have followed up on that offer repeatedly and will continue to pursue every avenue to bring them home safely," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday.

But whether or not the White House has privately made any headway in securing Griner's release, public perception of the situation doesn't look particularly good for the US.

Dani Gilbert, a Fellow in US Foreign Policy and International Security at Dartmouth, told The New Yorker this month that the Russians "have already won."

Russia's initial control of relevant information related to Griner's case allowed the country to take charge of the narrative, leaving the US looking weak, experts told the outlet.

"They have embarrassed the US government. They have put the White House in a particularly difficult position because of a political prisoner, and they're tapping into cultural conflict," Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post writer who was wrongfully detained in Iran for more than five hundred days, told The New Yorker. "The fallout here in America — Russia loves it."

Biden is also set to meet with Whelan's sister in a separate meeting, Jean-Pierre announced this week.

How St. Louis churches are revealing the disparities in the air we breathe

Congregations in St. Louis are working with local scientists to monitor the air quality in communities affected by industrial pollution.

DeAndress Green, left, debriefs with leaders of Metro Congregations United after a meeting of the Missouri Air Conservation Commission in St. Louis. 

Photo by Britny Cordera

September 15, 2022
By  Britny Cordera


(RNS) — A few weeks before speaking at a rally pushing for solutions to improve air quality in St. Louis, DeAndress Green was in the hospital, feeling like she was unable to breathe.

Green had suddenly begun feeling short of breath after spending some time in an industrialized north St. Louis neighborhood, where she was delivering food through DoorDash to families who lack transportation to grocery stores. When Green went to the hospital, doctors found blood clots in her lungs.

“I was in the hospital for a few days before the doctors figured out what was wrong,” she said at the July 23 rally, organized by Metropolitan Congregations United, a coalition of about 60 religious communities around St. Louis. Green works with MCU in its ongoing activism around local environmental crises. “That whole week, I lived in fear, planning for the worst.”

But for Green, a Black urban farmer and small business owner who had grown up in north St. Louis, this was but the latest in a lifetime of chronic respiratory problems — for her and for her family. All her family members suffer from asthma. She says she’s always known the cause: her neighborhood’s poor air quality.

Green grew up in the College Hill neighborhood, in government housing that was less than a mile from Procter & Gamble’s factory along the north St. Louis riverfront and other industrial facilities that burn metals or chemicals producing pollutants in the air. Trees were few and far between. The apartments in which she lived were plagued with bl Photo by Britny Cordera

Earlier this year, the multifaith coalition launched a new online air quality monitoring tool, tracking pollutants in the city in partnership with scientists at The Nature Conservancy; the Jay Turner Group, part of Washington University’s Department of Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering; and the university’s environmental studies program.

The community-based air quality monitoring initiative, AirWatch St. Louis, has been keeping track of what’s in the city’s air since December 2021. Low-cost sensors are placed on the roofs of Matter, a mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets found in the air. Through the new digital map, the data collected by these sensors is publicly viewable.

MCU organizers say they see their efforts to collect and publish data on air quality as part of their spiritual commitment to racial and environmental justice. Since many religions believe that the Earth is sacred, created by a divine being, the effort to protect the environment brings congregations of varying backgrounds together to fight against climate change, according to Kentaro Kumanomido, an environmental justice organizer with United Congregations of the Metro East, another faith-based organization that worked closely with MCU on the air quality rally.


Beth Gutzler. Photo by Britny Cordera

Beth Gutzler, who has lived in houses with lead paint and currently lives near West Lake Landfill, where locals are concerned that trash smoldering underground is dangerously close to buried nuclear waste, leads MCU’s environmental justice team. She believes this project is critical to empower people in faith-based communities who are affected by industrial pollution, giving them the tools to take control of the fate of their neighborhoods through legislative action.

>“Our goal is to bring people of multiple faiths together to work towards a common goal of changing policy for social and environmental justice,” she says.

According to Tyler Cargill, a doctoral student with the Turner Group, the spatial variety and community connection MCU churches offer have been central to this project. Some of the churches are in downtown St. Louis, while others are in Webster Groves, a suburb. Some churches are in areas with a high density of roads. Some are near parks. And others are near industries that release particulate matter into the air.

“By having a variety of placements of these sensors, we do get to see if the urban planning of St. Louis makes any difference for what we’re seeing with our air pollution,” Cargill said.

A 2019 report on environmental racism in the city, published by the Washington University School of Law, found that most St. Louis’ air pollution sources are in predominantly Black neighborhoods.

According to the report, Black children in the city of St. Louis are 2.4 times more likely than white children to test positive for lead in their blood. They also account for more than 70% of children suffering from lead poisoning, researchers found, and make about 10 times more emergency room visits for asthma each year than white children. Majority-Black neighborhoods are more likely to be near highways and to see more building demolitions, which creates dust that may contain asbestos and lead.

“There are too few air pollution monitoring stations in St. Louis to allow for comparisons of air pollution in different neighborhoods,” the report noted. “However, the locations of air pollution sources, vehicle emissions, and demolitions all indicate that minority communities in St. Louis are being disproportionately exposed to harmful air pollution.”

From left, David Yeom, intern with Washington University; Tyler Cargill, Washington University doctoral student with the Jay Turner Lab; and Li Zhiyao, also a doctoral student with the Jay Turner Lab, work with the Rev. Nick Winker to set up an air pollution monitor at St. Ann Catholic Church in St. Louis. 

Photo by Beth Gutzler

A national study published in 2019 found that people of color bear a disproportionate “pollution burden,” with Black Americans being exposed to 56% more pollutants in the air than they themselves create. This has deadly consequences: A study of nine deadly health conditions, including lung cancer, kidney disease and hypertension, linked with such exposure concluded that pollution kills about 200,000 Americans a year.

For MCU, working to improve air quality for vulnerable communities is a matter of faith.

The Rev. Kevin Anthony, who serves at Pilgrim Congregational United Church of Christ and as a member of MCU’s interfaith environmental justice task force, points to the biblical narrative of creation, in which God breathed “the breath of life” into man’s nostrils.

“I want us to imagine … each and every one of us having that same posture, leaning over one of our neighbors to breathe life into them,” he said during the rally. “In order for us to have life, we need to have good quality air to breathe.”

On Broadway, only a few blocks away from Green’s childhood home, neighborhoods are filled with abandoned buildings and illegal dumping. A sweet smell fills the air.

DeAndress Green. Photo by Britny Cordera

“I just assumed it was Hostess baking Twinkies, but the adults knew better,” she recalls. Her mother later told her the smell was an indication of industrial pollutants. “Broadway to the water is prime real estate for pollution industries.”

Whenever the sweet air filled the inside of the home, Green’s mother would take her and her siblings south to Tower Grove Park to get fresh air. “The difference in the environment in north St. Louis and south in St. Louis is unmistakable,” Green says. “There are trees, green spaces, businesses, and communities who want to be outside in south St. Louis.”

When Green moved out of government housing at 18, she was struck by how she could immediately breathe better.

Today, Green uses urban farming to heal her lungs and reconnect with the outdoors. But for many people of color in St. Louis and beyond, simply stepping outside is a potential health risk for environmental reasons. Families who live in so-called sacrifice zones, areas around the country where rates of cancer caused by air pollution exceed the U.S. definition of acceptable risk, are not being informed of the risks of industrial or Superfund sites — federally recognized hazardous waste sites — near their homes and are not given the resources to change their neighborhoods.

Community air quality monitoring programs, AirWatch St. Louis coordinators say, can arm those most affected with the knowledge to make informed decisions.

For Cargill, the project’s goal is to increase transparency. His lab gives periodic updates to the congregations and to the public. At these meetings, information is shared about air quality problems in general, what the Turner Group is doing with that research and what initiatives the community can take to advocate on its own behalf.

Action is even more urgent now that the White House’s Inflation Reduction Act gives $315.5 million for air monitoring so at-risk communities can be properly informed of what is in the air they breathe, offering an avenue toward legislation and reparations.

The particulate matter sensors on the church roofs, manufactured by QuantAQ, are a low-cost version of the EPA’s sensors, which cost tens of thousands of dollars. But even the monitors MCU is using cost $1,500.

RELATED: Evangelical group releases climate change report, urges a biblical mandate for action

Someday, Green would like to have her own air monitoring device. But even an at-home outdoor monitor from Purple Air costs nearly $300. She believes AirWatchSTL is helpful, but not everyone in her community has access to a smartphone or computer or has time to check the website to assess their risk.

“One of the things that I’d love to see happen is that maybe smaller devices are made available to communities,” says Green. “So we are allowed to see for ourselves how to navigate that environment.”

Organizers say solutions need to go beyond just making these sensors widely available. For Green, who was uninsured during her hospitalization and has been left with a pile of medical bills, real solutions must take the form of reparations.

That would look like Black families being allowed to dictate what will happen in their own communities, instead of nonprofits or think tanks coming in and implementing what they think will work, she says.

Green envisions a north St. Louis filled with trees, orchards, community gardens and native plants growing everywhere, cleaning the air she breathes.

“I want my community to feel like they can escape to north St. Louis and feel safe, not run from it because of racism and hate embedded in the land,” she says. “Solutions look like Black families being able to build their dreams in their front yards and provide food for their family from their own yard. Solutions look like families being able to breathe.”

RELATED: Presbyterians to divest from 5 oil companies, including Exxon Mobil, after years of debate

This story was published in partnership with Next City, a nonprofit news organization covering solutions for just and equitable cities, as part of an ongoing series on how faith drives communities to work against urban injustices.

In ad blitz, watchdog group projects political heft of nonreligious Americans

The campaign includes billboards featuring portraits of residents of the swing states of Michigan, Louisiana, Missouri and others, and the legend 'I’m an atheist and I vote' along highways in their respective regions

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A variety of the new billboards featuring nonreligious Americans created by Freedom From Religion Foundation. Images courtesy of FFRF

September 16, 2022
By Alejandra Molina

(RNS) — The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a nonprofit watchdog on separation of church and state issues, has launched a campaign aimed at calling attention to the growing political voice of nonreligious Americans.

This effort, which will launch officially on Saturday (Sept. 17) to honor the 235th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution, is a continuation of the organization’s “independence from religion” campaign that began on the Fourth of July.

The campaign will include billboards featuring portraits of residents of the swing states of Michigan, Louisiana, Missouri and others, and the legend “I’m an atheist and I vote” along highways in their respective regions.

The faces on the billboards belong to Jamie Hamel, an ICU nurse in Oklahoma; Jim Haught, a 90-year-old retired newspaper editor; Charis Hoard, a student who recently received a master’s degree in Ohio; and Charles L. Townsend, a former member of the state Legislature in New Hampshire.

Full-page ads will follow beginning Sunday in The Washington Post and 44 other newspapers declaring, “The ‘Nones’ (those of us unaffiliated with religion) are now 29 percent of the U.S. population. We are the largest ‘denomination’ by religious identification.”

RELATED: Poll: America growing more secular by the year

A recent poll from the Pew Research Center found that unaffiliated Americans make up 29% of the U.S. population, up from 19% in 2011.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation said the campaign is calling attention to the “growing and increasingly overt calls to Christian nationalism” as well as the actions of the U.S. Supreme Court that “privilege religion and eviscerate individual rights for religious reasons.”

“That’s why our secular voices must be heard,” the organization’s co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor said in a statement, adding that secular voters are “the true ‘values voters.'”

RELATED: New report finds nonreligious people face stigma and discrimination

The Freedom From Religion Foundation said it has more than 38,000 members throughout North America and in 2020 released data that showed 98% of its members support the abortion rights granted by the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.

In 2020, American Atheists released “Reality Check: Being Nonreligious in America,” a report that found that nonreligious people care about maintaining secular public schools, oppose religious exemptions that permit discrimination and support access to abortion and contraception.

The report was based on a survey of nearly 34,000 nonreligious people living in the United States.

SCOTUS

Yeshiva University is forced to accept an LGBTQ club
But it’s unclear for how long.
David H. Zysman Hall at Yeshiva University in New York City, 

taken on Oct. 25, 2014. Photo by Gigi Altarejos/Creative Commons

September 15, 2022

(RNS) — The U.S. Supreme Court surprised some observers Wednesday (Sept. 14) by deciding by a 5-4 vote against issuing an injunction against a New York state judge’s ruling that Yeshiva University, an Orthodox Jewish school in Manhattan, must recognize an LGBTQ club on campus.

With conservative Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh joining the court’s three liberals, does this signal that there’s now a majority on the court for allowing anti-discrimination laws to trump religious liberty in certain cases?

Probably not.

In all likelihood, the decision reflected concern — expressed publicly by Roberts and Elena Kagan of late — about the court’s so-called shadow docket, an increasingly frequent mode of ruling, in which cases are dealt with outside normal procedure. Here, an unsigned majority opinion told the university to go back and seek injunctive relief from New York’s own appellate courts, and made clear that the review should be “expedited.”

RELATED: SCOTUS says Yeshiva University must recognize LGBTQ club as legal battle continues

If the state courts decline to intervene, Yeshiva would then be able to appeal to the Supremes, who could issue an injunction — if they agree to take the case. That they would do so is the safest of bets, since four justices wanted to issue an injunction right now, and to take a case four is all you need.

Writing for the four dissenters, Justice Samuel Alito claimed that being made to recognize the club, the YU Pride Alliance, would require Yeshiva to accept an interpretation of Torah that the university finds unacceptable, and that it would consequently be deprived of its free exercise of religion. “The loss of First Amendment rights for even a short period constitutes irreparable harm,” he wrote, a necessary standard that justifies injunctive relief.

Whether that’s the case is debatable. New York Judge Lynn Kotler wrote in her June decision at trial, “By following the law and granting the YU Pride Alliance formal recognition and equal access, Yeshiva need not make a statement endorsing a particular viewpoint.”

Moreover, Kotler pointed out, LGBTQ clubs have existed in a number of Yeshiva graduate schools for more than 30 years, quoting an explanation contained in a 1995 letter by the university’s public relations director:

Yeshiva University is subject to the human rights ordinance of the City of New York, which provides protected status to homosexuals. Under this law, YU cannot ban gay student clubs. It must make facilities available to them in the same manner as it does for other student groups.

The YU Pride Alliance may be seeking more in the way of recognized status than these other clubs. Nevertheless, it seems a stretch to judge the university to be suffering irreparable harm while it seeks judicial redress, denying all the while that it accepts the Pride Alliance’s interpretation of Torah.

Be that as it may, Yeshiva’s central legal hurdle is the result of its choosing, back in the 1960s, to redefine itself legally as a purely educational rather than a religious organization. It thus made itself ineligible for an exemption from the anti-discrimination rules of New York City’s Human Rights Law.

If and when the justices get the case back, there’s nothing that says they couldn’t decide that the university’s religious claims outweigh its official status in New York law. Indeed, Kotler herself acknowledged Yeshiva’s “proud and rich Jewish heritage and a self-described mission to combine ‘the spirit of Torah’ with strong secular studies.”

Should that be sufficient reason to ignore its actual legal status as a college and not a religious institution? And, if so, are there any grounds for rejecting any institution’s sincerely held religious claims to exemptions from anti-discrimination laws? If there are, the Supreme Court as currently configured has yet to articulate them.

Poll: Jewish voters are highly motivated and concerned about American democracy

Religion News Service - Yesterday

(RNS) — A national survey by the Jewish Electorate Institute finds that Jewish voters are highly motivated to go to the polls in November, with concerns over the future of democracy and abortion as the top issues driving their choices.

In keeping with decades-long patterns, the poll, based on online interviews with 800 Jewish registered voters conducted Aug. 25 to Sept. 1 by GBAO Strategies, shows that Jewish voters lean overwhelmingly toward the Democratic Party. The poll found 70% of Jewish voters said they planned to vote for Democratic candidates and 24% plan to vote for Republican candidates. (Five percent were undecided.)

The Jewish Electorate Institute describes itself as independent and nonpartisan.

Disapproval of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the right to abortion, was resounding: 82% of Jewish registered voters disapproved, and 56% said the decision adds to their motivation to vote.

Jim Gerstein, founding partner of GBAO Strategies, said Democrats have increased their strength among Jewish voters by 10% since its last poll in April, largely driven by the abortion issue. (The court issued the ruling in June.)

“Abortion has completely transformed the 2022 midterm elections,” he said in a press briefing. “The Jewish vote is not immune to that.”



Poll: Jewish voters are highly motivated and concerned about American democracy© Provided by Religion News Service

RELATED: Blowing shofars, Jewish lawmakers, rabbis hold abortion rights ‘sho-test’

American Jews have become especially vocal on abortion. On Wednesday (Sept. 14), activists, rabbis and members of Congress stood outside the U.S. Capitol and blew the shofar or ram’s horn to proclaim their support for abortion rights. On Tuesday, Jewish abortion rights activists met with second gentleman Douglas Emhoff, who is Jewish, to argue that various state-level abortion bans violate the religious freedom of many U.S. Jews.

Related video: Rise of political extremism ‘overshadows’ political party agendas ahead of midterms

Duration 2:50  View on Watch

Judaism broadly teaches that abortion is not only permitted, but sometimes required when the life of the pregnant person is at risk.

But while abortion is a driving issue, especially among younger Jews, the threat to democracy appeared to be an even larger impetus to vote. The poll found 74% of Jewish voters watched the Jan. 6 committee hearings on TV, with 39% saying they watched them “very closely.” The hearings motivated 57% of them to vote, the poll said.

The threat to democracy was not as big an issue among voters of all faiths and none, according to an NBC News poll from August, which showed only 29% of registered voters calling threats to democracy the most important issue facing the nation.

“The Jan. 6 issue is driving Jewish voters much more so than the general population,” Gerstein agreed.



Poll: Jewish voters are highly motivated and concerned about American democracy© Provided by Religion News Service

Perhaps not surprisingly, 79% of Jews had an unfavorable opinion of former President Donald Trump, with 19% approving of him.

“As long as you see these levels of unfavorability among Jewish voters toward the Republican Party and its leadership,” Gerstein said, “they are not going to make inroads with the Jewish vote. In order for that to change, there would need to be significant changes in the Republican Party’s positions, brand and image.”

In other findings, the poll showed near-unanimous support for gun safety measures, with 96% of Jewish voters supporting comprehensive background checks for gun purchases and 91% supporting raising the minimum age to purchase a gun from 18 to 21.

It also showed that 92% of Jewish voters are concerned about antisemitism and by a 50%-20% margin, they trust Democrats more than Republicans to fight it.

Some 68% of Jewish voters also favor reentering the Iran nuclear deal.

The survey’s margin of error rate was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

RELATED: Second gentleman meets with Jewish abortion rights activists at White House

Polish pop star's blasphemy conviction quashed

Yesterday

A Polish pop star who said the writers of the Bible had been intoxicated on wine and cannabis has had her conviction for blasphemy overturned.



Dorota Rabczewska, known professionally as Doda, was fined by a Warsaw court a decade ago for making the comments in an interview.

But the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg said her statements were protected by her right to free speech.

It ordered the Polish authorities to pay her €10,000 (£8,680) in damages.

The damages amount to more than nine times the fine she was ordered to pay by the Warsaw court.

The original charges stemmed from a TV interview with the 38-year-old singer that was broadcast in 2009.

During the transmission, she said that although she believed in a "higher power", she was more convinced by dinosaurs than by the Bible.

She added: "It is hard to believe in something written by people who drank too much wine and smoked weed."

She was charged the following year and found guilty in 2012 by the Warsaw District Court, which imposed a fine of 5,000 zloty (£915; €1,060).

The court in Strasbourg ruled that although her statements could shock believers, it had not been established they would stir up violence or hatred and were therefore protected by her right to free speech.

As well as being one of Poland's most successful pop singers, Doda is also known as a songwriter, actress, music producer and television personality.

She rose to fame as lead singer with the rock band Virgin before going solo.

Defying warnings, Jews embark on Ukraine pilgrimage

AFP - Yesterday 4:33 AM

Thousands of Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jews have vowed to brave the dangers of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and make a pilgrimage there during the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashana.


A picture by the Ukrainian Emergency Service on August 8, 2022 shows a fire after a missile was shot down and hit civilian infrastucture in Uman district, Cherkasy region, amid Russia's invasion© -

Among those who said they would not be deterred by the war or by government travel warnings and head to the Ukrainian city of Uman was Avraham Burstein, 51, a musician and actor.


"It is like being in love, I simply have to go," he said as he tuned his accordion at his Yiddish music school in Jerusalem.

Burstein has travelled to Uman, some 200 kilometres (125 miles) south of Kyiv, every year since 1989, only missing the pilgrimage once, in 2020, when the Covid pandemic shut down international travel.

That year he still attempted to enter Ukraine and "tried from eight different countries", he chuckled, insisting that this year he would make it to Uman for the holiday which begins on September 25.

Most of those travelling are, like Burstein, members of the Breslov branch of haredi Judaism, loyal followers of Rabbi Nachman, from Bratslav in modern-day Ukraine, who died in 1810.

Nachman was the founder of an ultra-Orthodox movement that settled in Uman in the early 1800s. Before his death, he asked that his followers visit his tomb to celebrate Jewish holidays.

"For us, it would be nice if he was buried in London, or in Amsterdam, even in Berlin," said Burstein. "But he chose to be there, and he asked us to come every year for Rosh Hashana, so we have to go."

- 'Let me go' -

The pilgrimage was greatly suppressed during the era of the Soviet Union, and it was only after its collapse in 1991 that the annual visits began to balloon into the tens of thousands.

"All my life growing up, I prayed to God: please one time let me go to Rabbi Nachman's grave, just one time," said Burstein.

"It was so difficult" because of the stringent Soviet restrictions on entry, he said. "North Korea was easier to go to. It was like the moon."


A file picture from September 13, 2015 shows ultra-Orthodox Jews pray in the Ukrainian city of Uman

© VASILY MAXIMOV

Though he said he had not yet booked his ticket, Burstein planned to travel later this week with his two sons.

Related video: Top Ukranian Rabbi advises against Jewish pilgrimage to Uman

Duration 4:48  View on Watch

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid this month urged citizens to avoid Uman, warning of a "life-threatening danger", and the Ukranian embassy in Israel last week issued a similar warning.

Uman was badly hit by Russian missiles in the early weeks of the war, and just last month a civilian was killed by a Russian missile in the district, according to a statement from a regional official, Ihor Taburets, posted on messaging service Telegram.


A file picture from September 13, 2015, when thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews flocked to Uman to pay homage to their spiritual leader and celebrate the start of the Jewish new year

© VASILY MAXIMOV

Burstein said he could "understand the prime minister and president asking us not to go -- they are responsible for the security of the people".

But he argued that, given the frequent security incidents in his home country, "if you are coming from Israel, you don't worry about the danger".

- Sold-out flights -

Direct flights to Kyiv have been cancelled since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, yet thousands of pilgrims have already set out on their journeys.

One haredi travel agent in Jerusalem, who asked not to be named for fear of rebuke in the community, said flights to countries bordering Ukraine had largely sold out for the rest of the month.

At Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport last week, flights to Moldova and Romania were packed with Breslov haredim heading for Uman.

"Why should we be worried? If you believe in God you're not afraid of anything," Avraham Elbaz told AFP as he checked in for his flight to the Moldovan capital Chisinau.

In September 2020, thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews were trapped for days between the borders of Belarus and Ukraine after Kyiv refused to allow them entry due to the Covid pandemic.

Before the pandemic, more than 50,000 pilgrims travelled annually during Rosh Hashana, said Gilad Malach, director of the Ultra-Orthodox in Israel programme at the Israel Democracy Institute think-tank.

He estimated that anywhere between 5,000 and 10,000 pilgrims would attempt the journey this year.

"The majority, when there are restrictions, understand the reasons not to go, whether that is Covid-19 or the war," Malach told AFP.

"But for the hardcore hasidim, it's one of the basic commitments that they have," he added, saying their belief is that "you should do anything to get there".

"The more it is forbidden or hard, the more you are appreciated as a follower if you succeed in overcoming the obstacles and visiting the grave."

For Burstein, the war has only heightened the journey's importance.

"We hope that because of our prayer there, we can bring peace to the world," he said.

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Russian teachers have been asked to give up a part of their salaries and donate it to Russian soldiers invading Ukraine

rcohen@insider.com (Rebecca Cohen) - Yesterday

Russian soldiers, meanwhile, have been fleeing villages disguised as locals amid Ukraine's surprise counteroffensive in the Eastern European country's Kharkiv region. In some towns, Russian troops left behind so much ammo that Ukraine is struggling to handle it all.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that Ukraine has retaken around 1,500 square miles of Ukraine back from Russia.

According to Important Stories, the teachers are unsure what their money will be spent on, with no guidance as to what the "Cultural Development of the Youth of Podolsk" supports.

A journalist at Important Stories wrote to one of the reported founders of the foundation asking specifically where the money will go.

"At the moment, the city administration is negotiating with the competent state authorities about how, where and to whom [to transfer the money]," Dmitry Nikolaev responded. "Once this has been decided, the purchase and shipment/delivery will take place."

Nikolaev added, according to Important Stories, that once the goods are shipped, the city will notify everyone who donated.

Thirty-three Russian regions have already pledged 4.8 billion rubles, Important Stories reported, but according to military expert Pavel Luzin, it still won't be enough.

"Now the practice will expand," he told Important Stories, "because there isn't much money in the budget."