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Chicago Tribune
23-05-2025
- General
- Chicago Tribune
Potluck brings together different faiths for fellowship, talk of world events
It was an evening of faith, food and fellowship as some 100 folks from a variety of religious and ethnic backgrounds came together. Participants from throughout Northwest Indiana gathered on Thursday to dine together at a potluck dinner, to promote social justice and to build strong communities. The inaugural gathering of what is called Interfaith Potluck, Building Bridges Coalition was held at the Northwest Indiana Islamic Center in Merrillville. The purpose of the gathering was to bring about better understanding and to eliminate the divisiveness among people in the area no matter what their religious beliefs or backgrounds, event spokesman Ferass Safadi said. 'This is the first event with plans to hold it quarterly and possibly bring it back in October,' Safadi said. Jawad Nammari, a youth volunteer at Northwest Indiana Islamic Center, called it a joint effort between communities. 'We're a people of peace. We're a people of love and justice,' Nammari said. Those in attendance had been encouraged on the center's website to bring a dish to share. 'This special evening is more than just a meal — it's an opportunity to connect across faiths, build meaningful relationships, and work together toward greater social justice in our communities,' the website said. Religious leaders who spoke at the meeting included Rabbi Diane Tracht of the Temple Israel in Gary; Iman Mongy El-Quesny of the Northwest Indiana Islamic Center; Pastor Rameem Jackson of St. Timothy Community Church in Gary; and the Rev. Tom Bozeman of the First Unitarian Church of Hobart Calumet Region. The Rev. Leah Peksenak of the Hobart First United Methodist Church and Marquette Park United Methodist Church in Gary emceed and posed questions to the religious leaders. 'What we are hoping is that this is the first of many conversations,' Peksenak said. Attendees, including Sarita Villarreal of Hobart and Maryalice Larson of Valparaiso, were also given the chance to ask questions of the religious leaders and to voice their opinions. The thought-provoking questions Peksenak asked of the religious leaders included their feelings on social justice, what social justice tradition they were most proud of, their biggest challenge and in what areas were improvements still needed. Although responses from the religious leaders remained civil and thoughtful, talk included continuing unrest in the world including between Israel and Palestine and Ukraine and Russia. Rabbi Tracht said for her Gaza and Israel would be the 'elephant in the room.' 'The starvation of those living in Gaza is an abomination,' Tracht said. Iman Mongy El-Quesny, a native of Egypt, said he was living in the Middle East in 1979 when the Egypt-Israel peace treaty was signed by Anwar Sadat, the president of Egypt, and Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel. 'We cherish that peace accord. We lived together. We are cousins,' El-Quesny said. He said he blames politicians for creating problems between people. 'The issue is politicians. They are small in number but loud in voice,' he said. El-Quesny encouraged those in attendance not to be silent and to love themselves first. 'We are all the children of Adam. We are all the children of God. He wants us to cherish one another and to love one another. That's what God wants from us,' El-Quesny said.
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Hamilton,' 'Rent' producer Jeffrey Seller, a metro Detroit native, gets candid in memoir
About a year before his bar mitzvah in 1977, Jeffrey Seller was in Hebrew class at Temple Israel synagogue when the teacher, in the midst of talking about the history of the Warsaw Ghetto, asked whether anyone knew a place in America that had similarly poor conditions. Nobody spoke up, so the teacher gave the example of a nearby Oak Park neighborhood behind an A&P grocery story on 9 Mile, where the houses were small, not made of bricks and had no basements and garages. 'There's a colloquial name for it,' he said. 'They call it Cardboard Village.' As Seller describes in his new memoir, 'Theater Kids,' he was afraid that someone would find out he lived there. 'I stayed still and silent, holding my breath, trying to resist the formation of tears behind my eyes, hoping that this discussion would pass, hoping I would not be discovered,' he writes. Last week, speaking by phone, Seller says that this was one of the most difficult vignettes to put down on paper for the book, which officially debuts May 6. 'That story is so painful to me, I wish I made it up,' he says. At the same time, Seller has empathy for the teacher, who would be sad to know about Seller's reaction. "This is how poor we were and how it was. The idea that any of the students at Temple Israel could possibly have lived in that neighborhood was so far beyond his comprehension.' Seller is scheduled to kick off his book tour May 6 at the Berman Center for the Performing Arts in West Bloomfield as part of the Detroit Jewish Film Festival. He will be in conversation that evening with another Detroit native, Tony nominee Douglas Sills of HBO's "The Gilded Age." Seller says it is fitting for him to return to the suburbs of Detroit for the event because that is "the place in which the whole book starts." 'Theater Kid' (subtitled "A Broadway Memoir"), is the coming-of-age and career success story of Sellers, who grew up to become an icon of contemporary musical theater as a producer of the Tony Award-winning shows 'Rent,' 'Avenue Q,' 'In the Heights' and 'Hamilton.' The productions that Sellers has overseen have accumulated 22 Tony wins, earned a gross of $4.6 billion from the Broadway productions and subsequent tours and drawn more 43 million audience members. Seller is recognized as the only producer with two Pulitzer Prize-winning musicals to his credit, 'Rent' and 'Hamilton,' both of which were groundbreaking cultural achievements. With "Rent," he also helped create a discounted ticket lottery to make his musicals more affordable for a wider audience. As described by its publisher, Simon & Schuster," "Theater Kid" reveals Seller's early years as 'a kid coming to terms with his adoption, trying to understand his sexuality, and determined to escape his dysfunctional household in a poor neighborhood just outside Detroit.' What sets the memoir apart from other works about a difficult childhood that fuels a determination for better future is Seller's approach. He writes "Theater Kid" with the vividness of a graphic novel, the immediacy of a play, the intensity of a big-screen movie. Candid, sometimes explicit about his sexual awakening, fearless about revealing his family's chaos and conflicts and yet filled with love for even his volatile father, 'Theater Kid' reads like the autobiography of someone who has lived with hard truths and made peace with them through his artistry. 'I don't know that the world needed another memoir about being poor, gay, adopted, coming to New York, realizing the American dream. We've had a lot of those,' says Seller during a phone interview. 'What I thought the world needed at this moment was, if I was going to do this, the only way that I thought to justify it is to go all the way into the core of my insecurities, shame, and deepest feelings and expose me as nakedly as I could. Because I thought that would illuminate the story in a way that makes it, hopefully, pertinent and essential.' Seller, 60, an alumnus of Oak Park High School and the University of Michigan, divides the book into three acts, which is fitting given how many of the anecdotes seem like scenes from one of his Broadway hits. Act One is mostly about his family and his school years. Act Two covers his move to New York City and his experiences with 'Rent.' Act Three includes the journey of 'Hamilton' and Seller's search for his biological parents, a quest that 'wouldn't stop chasing me as I passed forty years old and became a parent of two beautiful adopted children.' Growing up, Seller was captivated by theater and absorbed everything he could about it, from the Tony Awards on TV to touring productions at the Fisher Theatre and cast albums of Broadway hits. He was a sponge for learning the process of creating and staging shows, whether he was acting with Royal Oak's Stagecrafters youth troupe, singing in the children's chorus of 'Carmen' with Michigan Opera Theatre or working as the drama director at Camp Tamarack in northern Oakland County during summer college breaks. An early chapter recalls his pivotal moment of winning a role in fourth grade as a sailor in the annual Purim play at Temple Israel (then located in Detroit, now in West Bloomfield), which was a mashup of the story of Queen Esther and the musical 'South Pacific." Recalling the magical process of rehearsing and performing, he writes: 'Being in a play for the first time makes me happy. Wait. That's not good enough. Being in a play changes my life; I am filled with purpose for the first time.' From then on, Seller was devoted to learning more about the basics of the craft that would make him famous. He recalls appearing in eighth grade in a Stagecrafters production of a children's play called 'Popcorn Pete' and noticing that 'one, the title was no good, two the play wasn't very good and three, the audiences were very small.' Seller asked who chose 'Popcorn Pete' and found out that there was a play-reading committee, 'I said, 'I want to be on the play-reading committee.' That was my first leap into producing," he notes. Seller is generous about thanking his various teachers and mentors for their support. (He titles one chapter 'Miss Shively' after a Frost Middle School teacher.) But while his world was opening up on the stage, he faced problems at home. His father, left with brain damage after a devastating motorcycle accident, occasionally served court papers and summonses and later took up a side gig performing as a clown. His mother worked steadily at a drugstore to support them. When his father lost his temper at their Cardboard Village house with no basement for tornado protection, Seller writes, "he is like another tornado from which we cannot hide." Seller looks back on his dad's bad choices with compassion. 'My father's presence was gigantic, both physically, vocally, emotionally and behaviorally. Here I was a twig, and he was a 6-foot-3, 250-pound man with a booming, sometimes scary, often times loving voice," he says. "My father was a man not in control of himself, a man out of control. The consequences of which resulted in two bankruptcies, one motorcycle accident, a family on welfare, and a tremendous amount of pain and suffering" He continues: "And yet, this was also the man who said the same four words to me over and over any time I asked if I could go to an audition or rehearsal or a new place, which was, 'Get in the car.' He drove me to every one of those auditions and every one of those rehearsals.' Asked how long it took to write the memoir, Seller says it was somewhere between five and 30 years. He elaborates by explaining that he struggled with putting his memories on the page. It took about five years to complete the book, but two of the childhood tales it includes are from a writing class he attended at New York City's New School in the 1990s. He says he followed one guide while writing the book and that was being truthful. "I was always guided first by the truth and I thought, we'll deal with everybody else's feelings later.' Such transparency 'was essential to the existence of the book,' according to Seller, because he wrote it "in so many ways for younger people, particularly for young gay men who don't know anything about what they're about to encounter.' He adds, 'I thought if I show how it went for me, it will affirm their feelings and show them that they're going to figure it out, too.' Seller's father died 10 years ago, long before there even was a memoir. He says he deeply wanted to share "Theater Kid" with his mother, who passed away about a year ago from pancreatic cancer. Because of her fast-moving illness, he never told her about the book. 'I really, really looked forward to sharing it with my mom, knowing that it would be painful for her, it would stir up a lot of painful memories for her and that it would stir up her own sense of shame and guilt, but it would also activate her pride and her love,' he says. 'In all the years I was writing it, I didn't talk about it because I didn't know if it would ever be published anyway. I wrote it for me without regard to its ultimate destiny.' Seller dedicates the book to the memory of his mother and father. These days, Seller, who calls southeast Michigan an essential part of American arts, is spending a lot of time in the Motor City with 'my new partner in life and love,' Yuval Sharon, the acclaimed artistic director of Detroit Opera. 'How lucky am I that my own hometown of Detroit helped me come together with the new love of my life,' he says, crediting Mary Kramer, a Detroit Opera board of directors vice chair and former publisher of Crain's Detroit Business, with introducing him to Sharon. He says he also has a standing date, for the fourth year in a row, to teach a course in politics and theater at the University of Michigan once a week during the fall semester. Speaking of politics, Seller is still immersed in the intersection between it and "Hamilton." Recounted in "Theater Kid" is the behind-the-scenes story of the time Vice President-elect Mike Pence attended the show in 2016. It was Seller who wrote the first draft of a short speech that actor Brandon Victor Dixon ended up reading from the stage to Pence at the end of the performance. It addressed concerns regarding the Trump administration's commitment to upholding "our inalienable rights" and shared the hope that "this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us." In March, plans for "Hamilton" to be performed at the Kennedy Center as part of the 250th anniversary commemoration of the Declaration of Independence were canceled as a result of President Donald Trump removing Democratic members from the center's formerly bipartisan board and making himself its chairman. Says Seller: "We were not going to let that now deeply politicized, right-wing organization use the profits from 'Hamilton' to further its agenda. … Making the decision was easy. Implementing it required care and thought.' Given the imprint that "Hamilton" and "Rent" have made on the evolution of theater, it's fair to ask: Does Seller have some sort of zeitgeist meter that can sense when musicals are going to be transformative? 'I am just following my heart and hoping that others are affected by my shows in the same way I am,' he insists 'I don't know what the zeitgeist will be tomorrow. I only know what thrills me, surprises me and pleases me. I just try to make the show that will please me the most and then am lucky when it pleases thousands, or tens of thousands, or in the case of 'Hamilton' or 'Rent,' millions of others as well.' Seller says his faith in the future of art is steadfast. 'I always have faith in the next generation to innovate and to bring forth, ingenuity and creativity and new ways of looking at the confusing world in which we live.' Being a producer seeps into everything that Seller does, he concedes, from planning an impromptu brunch to making decisions for the audio version of 'Theater Kid.' Although the custom for authors is to read their memoirs in their entiretly, he says he didn't want to just hear his own voice. Instead, he gathered a cast that includes Seller, "Hamilton" star and creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, and actors Darren Criss, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Renee Elise Goldsberry, among several others, to play different characters. Says Seller, 'The audiobook is kind of like a stage reading. … I couldn't resist." Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds at jhinds@ This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 'Hamilton' producer's memoir is candid about turbulent metro Detroit years
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
JCC observes Yom HaShoah
Apr. 25—"He believed he was saved for a reason," Ariele Klausner said describing how her father, Felix Zandman, survived the Holocaust as a teenager by hiding under floorboards for 17 months. "He had to make the most out of his life. And he was not vengeful. He wanted to do good," said Klauser, from the Philadelphia area, who spoke at the Friedman Jewish Community Center in Kingston on Thursday evening in commemoration of Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. The event was a solemn one, with remarks by Rabbi Larry Kaplan from Temple Israel, Rabbi David Kaplan from Ohav Zedek and Rabbi David Levin, interim spiritual leader at Temple B'nai B'rith, and prayers including a Mourner's Kaddish in honor of the 6 million Jewish people who were murdered by the Nazis before and during World War II. The Nazis would have been disappointed to learn that Felix Zandman survived, that he married and had three children and nine grandchildren. They likely would have been annoyed that his uncle, who shared his hiding place, insisted on teaching him algebra, trigonometry and physics — and those lessons eventually led to Zandman's ideas for improving electronic components. The company he founded, Vishay, is worth $1.5 billion today. In the made-for-Israeli-TV documentary "The Final Victory: The Story of Felix Zandman," the title character credits a Polish woman named Anna Puchalska for saving his life by sheltering him in her home. Puchalska had been grateful for a kindness Zandman's grandmother had shown her years earlier and, even though her own five children could have been killed if authorities discovered she was sheltering four, then five, Jewish people in a pit under the floor boards, she was determined to help, telling Zandman, "What happens to you, happens to us." Unfortunately, millions of other stories ended less happily. On display through April 30 in the JCC lobby is an exhibit of posters titled "Spots of Light: To Be a Woman in the Holocaust." "It's heart-wrenching," JCC president Jane Messinger said after reading stories about women who died with their children in death camps and other horrifying tales. One poignant vignette includes a letter from a woman named Genia Judzki. "Dear Miss Bronja," it begins, written in Polish, more than 80 years ago. "I beg you, look after my son." The note implores the addressee, a Polish woman, to make sure that Genia's little boy dresses warmly and has socks. It's a tender wish, reflecting motherly concern. But if you read further, you learn that Genia and her son, Michal, both died in Auschwitz. As for her letter, just before a final "May God watch over you both," Genia wrote: "I cannot write any further. My tears are all dried up."
Yahoo
13-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Observing first night of Passover in Kingston
KINGSTON, LUZERNE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — People of the Jewish faith have begun the celebration of Passover on Saturday. A local community center and Temple Israel came together for their annual Passover celebration this evening. The Friedman Jewish Community Center (JCC) in Kingston teamed up with Temple Israel to hold its community Seder on the first night of Passover. The celebration consists of songs, stories, and symbolic foods. Preparing for a sacred meal celebrating the first night of Passover, the washing of the hands is an important ritual. 'It's like we are together as a family, and we are leaving this slavery to be free people,' Susy Weiss from Dallas said. Susy Weiss was born in Peru and has lived in Dallas for the past decade. This JCC Passover celebration has become a tradition for her. And the first night of Passover is one of the most important of the eight-night celebration. It commemorates when God brought the 10th plague, killing all the firstborn in Egypt. April snow showers brought out over 200 volunteers to local ski resort The Israelites sacrificed a lamb, marked their doorsteps with blood, and ate unleavened bread known as matzah. The traditional Passover Seder marks the beginning of this holiday. Led by Temple Israel's Rabbi Larry Kaplan, the service is an interactive celebration and a time of reflection. 'It helps us to have a little introspection, even with our friends and family around,' Rabbi Kaplan explained. Following along with the Haggadah that reads in English and Hebrew, the Seder begins with a blessing of the wine that proclaims the holiness of the day. At the center of the table is the symbolic Seder plate representing different parts of the exodus story. It contains food items like an egg for new life, parsley for renewal, and a shank bone for sacrifice. Celebrating National Record Store Day in Wilkes-Barre 'It's the idea of getting together to commemorate some of these ancient things that tie us together to literally thousands of years ago,' Rabbi Kaplan stated. 'I don't know what any of that is, but it's a whole story, and I am blown away by that,' Zebulon Borges from Coatesville said. Zebulon Borges is a part of a small and non-Jewish group of people who celebrated the service at the JCC this year. He was invited by some friends, and the Old Testament happens to be his preferred part of the christian bible. 'Being here makes me feel like there's more serving I can do. I like to serve people and feel like I can do things for them,' Borges added. Whether this Passover marks a first celebration or another, it holds the same significance for those gathered at the JCC of giving back to the world. 'In a way, we don't like to destroy, we like to build things, we like to study and do good things as a contribution to the world,' Weiss said. This year, Passover will be celebrated until sundown on Sunday, April 20. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
USA Today
05-02-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
New York man pleads guilty to federal charges for firing gun outside synagogue
New York man pleads guilty to federal charges for firing gun outside synagogue Show Caption Hide Caption Trump says US will take over war-torn Gaza Strip President Donald Trump said during a news conference with Israel's prime minister that the U.S. should "takeover" the war-torn Gaza Strip. A New York man pleaded guilty to civil rights and firearm charges Tuesday for firing a shotgun outside a synagogue two months after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, federal prosecutors said. Mufid Fawaz Alkhader, 29, of Schenectady, New York, was arrested in December 2023 after firing two shots and yelling "Free Palestine!" outside Temple Israel in Albany, New York, just hours before the start of Hanukkah. Alkhader was arrested shortly after the incident and court documents revealed he told police in interviews that "events in the Middle East have impacted him." He was initially charged with possession of a firearm by a prohibited person because of his unlawful use of marijuana, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of New York. Alkhader was also charged with conspiracy to make a false statement during the purchase of a firearm days after his arrest. Alkhader pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of obstructing the free exercise of religious beliefs by threat of force, one count of brandishing a firearm during the commission of this offense, and one count of conspiring to purchase a firearm unlawfully, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. "The defendant's violent, antisemitic, and terrifying act targeted the Temple Israel congregation, the larger Jewish community, and the right of every person to practice their religion without fear of violence," U.S. Attorney Carla Freedman said in a statement. Alkhader, who has been in federal custody since his arrest, is scheduled to be sentenced on June 6. He faces at least seven years and up to life in prison, as well as a term of post-imprisonment supervised release of up to five years, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. 'We lost them': Palestinians make long trek back to their demolished homes in Gaza Synagogue daycare went into lockdown after shots were fired Prosecutors said Alkhader took an Uber from his home in Schenectady to the synagogue on the afternoon of Dec. 7, 2023. He then walked up to the front steps of Temple Israel and removed a shotgun from a duffel bag before firing two shots into the air shouting, "Free Palestine!" according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Alkhader also attempted to remove an Israeli flag from a flagpole outside of the synagogue before walking away from the scene, prosecutors said. At the time of the incident, Albany Police Chief Eric Hawkins said officers arrested Alkhader about three minutes after the shots were fired. He was detained in a parking lot around 300 yards away from the synagogue, according to Hawkins. No one was injured in the incident but a daycare operating inside the synagogue was forced into lockdown. "Alkhader also significantly disrupted activities that the Temple Israel community had planned to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah and made congregants afraid to return to their place of worship," the U.S. Attorney's Office said. Alkhader later admitted to authorities that he and another man conspired with each other to illegally purchase a shotgun from a gun shop, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Prosecutors said Andrew Miller — also from Schenectady — and Alkhader drove to a federal firearms dealer in Albany in November 2023, where Miller purchased the shotgun. Miller later gave the shotgun to Alkhader, which was fired outside of Temple Israel. Miller was sentenced in October 2024 to 14 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Increase in violent incidents since Oct. 7 attacks Since Oct. 7, 2023, people across the United States have endured antisemitic epithets, anti-Muslim rhetoric and near-violence in response to the war. Advocacy groups have reported a spike in hate crime incidents, including Islamophobia and antisemitism. The Anti-Defamation League, which tracks antisemitic incidents in the U.S., recorded more than 10,000 antisemitic incidents in the year after Oct. 7. At the same time, the Council on American-Islamic Relations — the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group — reported that anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian complaints topped 8,000 in 2023, with nearly half of these complaints reported in the final three months of the year. The group also documented nearly 5,000 complaints of discrimination between January and June 2024. The Oct. 7 attacks reignited decades-old hostilities and sparked an Israeli military response that has claimed the lives of more than 46,000 people in Gaza, according to Palestinian health authorities. A ceasefire and hostage release deal was reached last month. The first phase of the deal, which is set to run until early March, includes the release of 33 hostages in return for the freeing of nearly 2,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons. Last week, hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians began their journey back to the ruins of the Gaza Strip they once called home. Contributing: Cybele Mayes-Osterman, Kim Hjelmgaard, Marc Ramirez, and Sara Chernikoff, USA TODAY
