Eideard

Two Pakistani Muslims in Brooklyn are now running the oldest bialy store in the city, and keeping it kosher.

Zafaryab Ali and his business partner, Peerada Shah, were shocked on hearing through a friend that Coney Island Bialys and Bagels was closing. Ali had worked at the store for 10 years in the 1990s and remembers it always being crowded, with lines out the door and people waiting up to half an hour for fresh bialys. So Ali and Shah bought the store to keep the 91-year business alive.

Bialys are a lighter, softer cousin to the bagel, traditionally made with onion sprinkled on top.

“I know bagels and my partner knows management,” Ali said. “If we work hard and pay attention, we’ll build up and bring more customers in.”

Ali and Shah are keeping everything the same — ingredients, equipment, recipes — all used when it was a kosher store under Jewish management. Ali is now on the hunt for a rabbi to come and give the store an official kosher certification.

They even have some of the same staff, like Ernie Devivo, a semi-retired baker who is still helping out around the shop. “I’m glad we opened up again,” Devivo said. “It’s good for everybody.”

A wonderful tale. RTFA and enjoy ordinary working people who respect other traditions and the sense of community a neighborhood is capable of enjoying.

That the tale is of two Muslims reviving a Jewish tradition is icing on the cake. Or in my case, garlic on a bialy.

The Dutch lower house of parliament has passed a law effectively banning the ritual slaughter of animals…

The legislation states that all animals must be stunned before being killed. But the Islamic dhabiha and Jewish shechita methods of ritual slaughter require them to be fully conscious.

The legislation was proposed by an animal rights party with two MPs, which argued that failing to stun the animals subjected them to unnecessary pain.

But debate over the matter swiftly became a focus of animosity towards the Netherlands’ 1.2 million-strong Muslim community. The country’s Jewish population is comparatively small at 50,000.

Following months of debate a last minute concession was offered – the Muslim and Jewish communities will have a year to provide evidence that animals slaughtered by traditional methods do not experience greater pain than those that are stunned before they are killed.

However, observers say finding such proof will be virtually impossible.

The bill must still be approved by the upper house of parliament before it can become law…

In a rare show of unity, the Muslim and Jewish communities condemned the legislation and said it infringed on their religious freedom…

To make meat kosher for Jews or halal for Muslims, animals must be slaughtered while still awake, by swiftly cutting the main arteries and veins in their necks with sharp knives, and then allowing the blood to drain out.

Overdue.

Giving way to religious ritual 3000 years out of date is neither democratic or reasonable. So, of course, our government gives way in the United States.

A group of Jewish activists set sail for the Gaza Strip on Sunday, intent on defying an Israeli blockade and highlighting the suffering of Palestinians who live in the territory. Nine activists from Israel, Britain, Germany and the United States left Famagusta port in northern Cyprus with a small quantity of aid aboard their British-flagged catamaran, “Irene…”

“I want to raise my voice against evil and draw attention to 1.5 million people under siege. This is inhuman,” said Rami Elhanan, an Israeli peace activist who lost his 14-year-old daughter Smadar to a Palestinian suicide bomber in 1997.

Israel, whose Gaza policies have been under international scrutiny since its marines killed nine Turkish activists in brawls aboard an aid ship on May 31, dismissed the Irene mission as a “provocation…”

“Israel doesn’t have moral borders,” said Reuven Moskovitz, who at 82, is the oldest member of the group and a Holocaust survivor.

“I’m going because I am a survivor. When I was in a ghetto and almost died I hoped there would be human beings who would show compassion and help.”

Moral borders don’t mean a hell of a lot to Israel – or that nation’s patron saints in the White House and Congress. Not in a long, long time.

Would the Israelis attacks Jews on a mission of mercy? They already have done so plenty of times inside that nation’s borders, inside the borders of the lands they occupy. There have always been Jewish activists opposing Israeli imperial dreams. You just don’t get to see them in our obedient media sources.

A U.S. Airways jet was diverted to Philadelphia International Airport Thursday after a praying Jewish man’s religious item was mistaken for a bomb, police said.

There were initial reports that a man may have been wired with “a device” and FBI and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials and a police bomb squad all attended.

However, when authorities boarded Flight 3079 from LaGuardia Airport to Louisville, they established there was no bomb on board.

Government sources also said the passenger had been “praying loudly” and that the flight was diverted out of an “abundance of caution.”

Officials said a passenger had become alarmed by seeing a man with phylacteries — boxes containing verses from the Bible — which observant Jews strap around their arms and heads as part of morning prayers…

The passengers were due to fly to Louisville on a different plane. It was unclear whether the man wearing the phylacteries would be among them.

So, if you’re afraid of flying and must take a trip by air – don’t pray once you’re on board. At least not in Hebrew or Yiddish.

Political observers across New York are asking today whether Erie County Executive Chris Collins has irreparably damaged his prospects for statewide office after he compared Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to Adolf Hitler and an Antichrist during a Saturday speech in Buffalo.

Collins has already apologized for what he called “a poor joke,” delivered during a speech at the county Republican Party’s annual fundraiser in the Adam’s Mark Hotel.

That’s when the county executive referred to French seer Nostradamus’ prediction that the world would experience three Antichrists in conjunction with the Apocalypse, whose origin is the New Testament’s Book of Revelation.

Collins then said it’s generally accepted that the first was Napoleon, the second Hitler, and that he was “pretty sure” the third is Silver, an orthodox Jew from Manhattan…

“He’s the former shining light of the Republican Party,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic consultant from Manhattan who studies ethnic and religious voting patterns.

“Never mind the anti-Semitic content,” he said. “It makes him look nuts, and it doesn’t add to the discussion…

One of those attending Saturday’s dinner called the statement “unbelievable.”

“It was staggering,” said the Republican, who asked not to be identified. “It took my breath away.”

This is why spin doctors invent words like “misspoke”.

Jerks who can’t and won’t deal with society’s bigotry always have to fall back on some silly rationale to cover their buns when they let crap like this slip out.