New US Homeland Security guide aims to help houses of worship protect themselves
Washington DC, US AP A new guide from the US Department of Homeland Security released Wednesday aims to help churches, synagogues, mosques and other houses of worship protect themselves at a time of heightened tensions in faith-based communities across the country. Hoboken Police officers stand watch outside the United Synagogue of Hoboken, on 3rd November, 2022, in […]
Germany saw 2,480 anti-Semitic incidents in 2022, monitoring group says
Berlin, GermanyAP A group tracking anti-Semitism in Germany said Tuesday that it documented 2,480 incidents in the country last year – just under seven incidents per day on average. In its annual report, the Department for Research and Information on Anti-Semitism, or RIAS, said that while it registered a slight decrease in antisemitic incidents in […]
US Department of Homeland Security appoints a new 25-member security faith advisory council
United StatesRNS The US Department of Homeland Security has announced the appointment of a new, 25-member faith-based advisory council to assist Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in finding ways to protect houses of worship. The council consists of Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh clergy plus some law enforcement and non-profit faith group leaders. Crime scene tape surrounds […]
Renaissance synagogues being restored in Venice’s ghetto
Venice, ItalyAP Venice’s Jewish ghetto is considered the first in Europe and one of the first in the world, and a new effort is underway to preserve its 16th-century synagogues for the Jews who have remained and tourists who pass through. For nearly two years, restorers have been peeling away paint and discovering the original […]
Essay: Nearly half of all churches and other faith institutions help people get enough to eat
BRAD R FULTON, a social scientist at Indiana University, looks – in an article first published on The Conversation – at the “outsized” role churches and other faith institutions play in feeding America’s hungry…
Report: Anti-Semitic incidents in US hit record high in 2019
Silver Spring, MarylandAP American Jews were targets of more anti-Semitic incidents in 2019 than any other year over the past four decades, a surge marked by deadly attacks on a California synagogue, a Jewish grocery store in New Jersey and a rabbi’s New York home, the Anti-Defamation League reported Tuesday. The Jewish civil rights group […]
Holy Land churches, mosques, synagogues close for coronavirus
Jerusalem, IsraelRNS In the days before the novel coronavirus, the thought that every church, synagogue and mosque in the Holy Land would be ordered shut was simply unimaginable. Yet that is today’s reality. Ultra-Orthodox Jews pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on 15th March, 2020. Israel imposed sweeping travel and quarantine measures more than […]
CHURCH BUILDINGS: IN ST LOUIS, FORMER HOUSES OF WORSHIP ARE RETOOLED TO MEET THE CITY’S NEED
BILL MOTCHAN, in an article first published on Religion News Service, looks at how former churches and synagogues in the US city of St Louis are being repurposed…