Polarization surrounding Israel is especially intense in the American Jewish community. But loud voices do not equate to a growing majority.
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The Abraham Accords embodied Hamas’s ultimate nightmare: an Israel that would be admired.
The post Crushing Hamas’s Soul: What I Wrote the Day After Oct. 7 appeared first on Jewish Journal.
Cover of the book “The Teacher: The Humanism of Pope Francis.” / Credit: General Directorate of Culture and Education of the Province of Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires, Argentina, Aug 12, 2025 / 16:22 pm (CNA).
The government of Buenos Aires province in Argentina will distribute the 168-page book “The Teacher: The Humanism of Pope Francis” in public and private schools, an initiative that seeks to keep his legacy alive and transmit his thought to new generations.
Gov. Axel Kicillof and the archbishop of La Plata (the provincial capital), Gustavo Carrara, were present at the presentation of the book, produced by the province’s General Directorate of Culture and Education.
The book seeks to keep alive the legacy of the Argentine pontiff, who died on April 21. With this initiative, the governor stated, the pope’s thought will be present in all schools in Buenos Aires province.
The director general of culture and education, Alberto Sileoni, remembered Francis as an “educator who conveyed his teaching through ideas and actions, promoting the pedagogy of inclusion and encounter throughout his life,” according to the Argentine newspaper La Nación.
He also described him as “an Argentine concerned about the life of his peoples and a school that embraces, teaches, and leaves no one out.”
Religious figures such as Carrara and Father José María Di Paola as well as educator Adriana Puiggrós, who offered her reflective perspective on Jorge Bergoglio’s papacy, participated in the development of the book.
The book includes various messages addressed to different sectors of society as well as excerpts from the Global Compact on Education.
The archbishop of La Plata stated that the book “perfectly captures the essence of Francis’ thought and is a very valuable tool for conveying the richness of his ideas.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
(RNS and NPR) — Every new moon and full moon, a small group of Native American Church members gathers in San Antonio’s sprawling Brackenridge Park for a ceremony called Midnight Waters. They meet at a specific bend in the San Antonio River. The slow-flowing river is lined with cypress and live oak trees and attracts herons, egrets and double-crested cormorants.
“The site of what most people know as Yanaguana or the San Antonio River, near the headwaters, starts to take on the shape of a river in the sky,” Gary Perez said. Perez is a Native American Church member and the principal chief for the Pakahua/Coahuiltecan Peoples of Mexico and Texas.
What Perez calls “the river in the sky” is also known as the constellation Eridanus. He said it’s this river bend’s resemblance to the constellation and the presence of cormorants that qualifies it as a sacred place.
“These birds carry our intentions or our prayers up to the heavens,” Perez said.
In June, the city received a pair of court wins in an ongoing religious rights battle between San Antonio and the Native American Church members over the shady river bend, its trees and the water birds who call them home.
The tensions began more than two years ago, in February 2023, when the city closed the river bend area to begin repairs on historic buildings and retaining walls along the river. The city said the project would require the removal of 77 trees. If the trees stay, government officials said, their roots will likely cause further damage to the retaining walls. But Perez and his partner and fellow Native American Church member Matilde Torres sued for access to the site and to save the trees along the riverbank.
Perez and Torres argued that the city’s park improvement plan would destroy the spiritual ecology present at the river bend, making it impossible for them to perform ceremonies that rely on that specific place. They sued under the First Amendment’s free exercise clause, the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act and two provisions of the Texas Constitution.
A district court reopened the ceremony site in October 2023 while the case made its way through the lower courts and on appeals to the state Supreme Court.
On June 13, the Supreme Court of Texas ruled that a state constitutional amendment that kept churches open during the COVID-19 pandemic does not apply to this case. Soon after, on June 24, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a stay that barred the city from removing trees or deterring cormorants while the case is deliberated. The 5th Circuit is now deliberating the TRFRA claim, the First Amendment claim and a claim under the Texas Constitution’s freedom to worship provision. The court could release that ruling any day.
Shannon Shea Miller, director of historic preservation for San Antonio, said the repairs will protect the bank from erosion and help the tree canopy in the long term.
“By stabilizing this area, then we’ll be able to not only save the trees that can remain but stabilize the area for future tree growth as well.”
San Antonio cannot legally remove the trees if cormorants or other migratory birds are there. The city has used fireworks and clapper boards to deter egrets and herons in recent months and now has permission to deter cormorants. Assistant Director of Communications Brian Chasnoff said in a statement that those measures will increase wildlife biodiversity, water quality and park access.
But Torres disagrees and was visibly shaken when a city worker set off a firework while she was speaking during a recent ceremony.
“That noise is part of the problem!” she exclaimed. “When they don’t understand and respect wildlife and Mother Earth, that’s the problem!”
Perez has been holding ceremonies in Brackenridge Park for 25 years. He said the site is an important stop for Indigenous people traveling to peyote gardens in South Texas.
“This site is just one of many on the way down,” Perez said. “People from as far away as Canada have been traveling through here for thousands of years.”
Perez said the peyote pilgrims over the centuries have performed the same Midnight Waters ceremony that he leads today. The ceremony is inspired by a Coahuiltecan creation story in which the cormorant plays a leading role.
The story says a cormorant unwittingly disturbed a sleeping panther and the panther roared at the bird. As the cormorant took flight to escape, droplets of water fell from its tail feathers, bringing life to the earth.
Perez said that like the river bend where the story takes place, the panther and cormorant are represented by constellations, known by the Greek names Leo and Phoenix.
Perez begins the ceremony at the moment the constellation in the sky aligns with the river bend in Brackenridge Park — which occurs once every two months. Torres and others sing, invoking a spirit that pervades all life. A man enters the circle and passes a bucket of water to Perez. He then dips a cormorant feather in the water and flings water on the people in the circle, blessing them. As the ceremony comes to end, a community member blows a jaguar whistle that represents the panther roaring at the cormorant.
“The (creation) story tells about the water that came from the cormorant’s tail feathers that brought life to this region,” Perez said. “The blessing of the water with the cormorant feathers is analogous to the water falling from the tail feathers of the escaping bird.”
The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, a human rights group, submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court of Texas that urged the court to “end a lamentable history of governmental disregard for Indigenous people and their sacred practices.”
But San Antonio maintains that the repairs are necessary for safety reasons.
“Of course we want to save as many trees as possible,” Miller said. “But in order to make this area accessible to the public again we absolutely have to deal with the public safety concern.”
The city carried out a tree age study and found that the oldest tree that would be affected by the repairs dates back to 1931. The oldest oak trees in the construction area date to 1945. Miller said the retaining walls in the contested area are older than the trees — the walls were originally built in 1925 — and are now failing. The city plans to excavate behind the historic walls and install additional concrete support.
The bimonthly Brackenridge Park ceremonies are a relatively new phenomenon. Traditionally, ceremonies were held for special occasions such as solstice and equinox or when peyote pilgrims were passing through. Perez said the closure of the site spurred the increased ceremonial activity at the park.
“We need to raise awareness of what this place is because the spiritual ecology is in a fight for its life and we need help,” he said.
After one recent Midnight Waters ceremony concluded, Perez and Torres opened the ceremonial circle to people of all backgrounds, Indigenous or otherwise. Some came to receive blessings while others came to make a stand for the natural environment and their connection to it. Excy Guajardo said she got involved with the group after seeing the city’s bird deterrent tactics.
“I saw people banging boards and shooting at these beautiful birds that had nested by the playground,” Guajardo said. “It really moved me, and I started crying because the birds had nests and babies.”
One member of the group noticed the birds returned to the trees in the ceremony area just moments after a firework popped.
“That’s resistance right there,” she said. “Even the animals know that they need to be here.”
Perez and Torres see the fight to protect the trees and the cormorants that nest in them as a sacred calling. And they said they’re prepared to take that fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary.
Torres said that as long as the cormorants keep returning to this river bend, she will be here, too.
“As long as these trees stand, this will be their home,” she said. “But if these trees are gone, that’s it.”
This story was produced through a collaboration between NPR and RNS. Listen to the radio version of the story.
(RNS) — No one knows who wrote the Jewish rabbinic text known as Sefer Hachinuch, or “A Book of Guidance.” The author, a 13th-century rabbi, modestly signed his work “A Levite of Barcelona.”
But the tome has enjoyed great popularity in the Jewish world for the ensuing centuries — for good reason. The author goes through the Torah and, with impressive erudition and scholarship, defines and elaborates on each of the Jewish Bible’s commandments and prohibitions.
The Torah portion Eikev will be read in synagogues worldwide on Saturday (Aug. 16). It gives the commandment to “love your fellow,” as well as “to love the convert.” While Judaism doesn’t seek converts, it allows anyone willing to shoulder the obligations of Jewish law to become part of the Jewish people, with a special order to show favor to a convert. Anyone who shows any degree of disrespect for a convert or causes him any pain, the Sefer Hachinuch explains, violates this commandment.
But the author expands upon the idea:
“We are to learn from this precious commandment to have mercy on any person who finds himself in a foreign place [and] not ignore him when we find him alone and far from those who can help him.
“And with these sentiments, we will merit to be treated with mercy by God … the verse hints to this idea when it adds ‘because you were strangers in the land of Egypt,’ reminding us that we were once burned with the deep pain felt by any person finding himself among foreign people in a foreign land. … And God in his mercy took us out of there. Our own mercy should likewise be felt for any person in a similar situation.”
That expansion of the commandment is striking and most pertinent today. While immigration is something that rightly has rules, and borders cannot be totally open to all, too many are so willingly jumping on the anti-immigrant bandwagon. But the Jewish attitude toward those foreign-born people, who often have risked their lives to come here, legally or otherwise, is one of mercy and concern.
The “love the convert” verse’s reminder of the Jewish people’s sojourn in Egypt is meaningful here, too. Many, if not most, American Jews are no more than a generation or two removed from their own immigrant forebears. Our parents or grandparents found themselves here, far from their birthplaces, as strangers in a strange land.
My parents were among those who arrived on American shores from a faraway place, Eastern Europe. My mother, fortunately, immigrated as a child before World War II; my father immigrated after fleeing Nazis and spending the war years in a Soviet-Siberian labor camp. The kindness of those who welcomed and aided them from the start allowed them to marry, come to lead a Jewish congregation in Baltimore for many decades and raise a family. I knew countless others like them.
They came to love this country, which gave them new lives. And, although I was born here, I inherited that same feeling. I can easily imagine the pain and fear born of uncertainty that they all must have felt when disembarking from the ships that brought them here. I remind myself that similar feelings are felt by more recent arrivals from other places.
Immigrants these days are often immediately and unfairly judged to be freeloaders or worse. To be sure, there are immigrants who, by their choices to commit serious criminal acts, have earned the verdict of deportation. But the vast majority of the newcomers have not made any such choices, and are not invaders but guests. We are obligated to treat them as such.
That means not only helping them acclimate and offering them practical assistance, but also caring for their feelings. The Talmud teaches that our sensitivity to others extends even to the words we use. In Jewish law, verbal mistreatment, or ona’at devarim, is a thing. A big thing.
One may not remind a convert, the Talmud teaches, of his behavior before his conversion — or remind the child of a convert of his parents’ origins. The implications for how we are to speak to immigrants are obvious.
Whatever immigration policy one might favor — and there are legitimate differences of opinion about the larger issue — the Jewish attitude toward the “stranger” in our midst is, as the Sefer Hachinuch put it, to have mercy on him and “not ignore him when we find him alone and far from those who can help him.”
It is an admonition that all of us, whatever our faiths, do well to internalize.
(Rabbi Avi Shafran writes widely in Jewish and general media and blogs at rabbiavishafran.com. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)
Medal of Valor Award winner Darin Kinder shares gripping narrative of survival and transformation in the aftermath of 9/11
DALLAS — A U.S. Secret Service agent has told for the first time how surviving the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center 24 years ago changed his life.
Medal of Valor recipient Darin Kinder was inside the World Trade Center in New York City preparing to go into a meeting when the twin towers were hit by two hijacked jetliners on Sept. 11, 2001.
“The world began falling around me as debris from the plane, chunks of the building, and burning jet fuel rained down,” recalls Kinder in his new memoir, Bury Me In A Dirty Suit, set for release on Aug. 18, prior to the 24th anniversary of the Al Qaeda terror attacks that claimed nearly 3,000 lives. Click here to watch book trailer:
“I immediately assumed it was a terror attack,” recalled Kinder who recently retired as a special agent after 25 years of service that included protecting U.S. presidents and American interests in more than 40 countries.
But it’s his memories of 9/11 — the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil — that are the most vivid and haunting. The traumatic experience would change his life — and set him on a mission to discover God’s purpose.
“I shouted at the top of my lungs to approximately ten to fifteen injured and lost people who found me in the darkness,” Kinder remembered, assessing each victim for injuries and then directing them to safety.
“Follow the sound of my voice! “Come this way! There is a way out! There is light!” he instructed.
Amid the chaos and destruction, Kinder says he felt God speak to him, assuring him that he was not alone.
“The Lord almost literally put me on my knees in the middle of the intersection. He said to me, ‘I am with you. I have not forsaken you’,” Kinder says in his memoir, which is dedicated to the 422 first responders who perished while “knowing the danger and considering the cost.”
On 9/11, Kinder emerged “bruised, bloodied and covered head-to-toe in filth,” his suit shredded, and his shoes in tatters.
His heroic actions were later recognized with the Medal of Valor, the U.S. Secret Service’s highest award for bravery displayed by public safety officers.
‘Dirty Suit for God’
Kinder founded Fierce Faith [insert website hyperlink], a Christian organization that encourages men to live purposefully serving God. “Spend the rest of your days getting your ‘suit’ dirty for the glory of God,” he challenges them.
“More than ever, our culture needs men who will lead with integrity,” Kinder says, “not simply a life driven by a code of rules, but a life standing firm on faith in Jesus and the power of God’s grace. We need brave men who believe they were created not with a heart of shameful fear, but a heart of power and love.”
As founder of Fierce Faith, and author of his first book, “Bury Me in a Dirty Suit,” Kinder is a sought-after speaker and frequent podcast guest. He lives in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas where he and his wife Heather are training-up their four sons.
Click here to learn more information including how to purchase a copy of Kinder’s book, Bury Me In A Dirty Suit: Discovering Man’s Valiant Purpose in the Aftermath of 9/11.
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MEDIA: To review a full “Bury Me In A Dirty Suit” press kit online, visit here. To schedule an audio or video interview with Darin Kinder or to receive a review copy of the book” contact:
Gregg Wooding, 972-567-7660
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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of RNS or Religion News Foundation.
The Archdiocese of Port-au-Prince condemned the kidnapping of nine people from an orphanage on the outskirts of the capital on Sunday, Aug. 3. / Credit: Creative Photo Corner/Shutterstock
ACI Prensa Staff, Aug 12, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).
The Archdiocese of Port-au-Prince denounced the “collapse of humanity” in Haitian society, “where the unthinkable has become commonplace,” in response to the kidnapping of nine people from an orphanage on the outskirts of the capital on Aug. 3.
In a statement, the archdiocese said it received the news of the kidnappings, which included an Irish lay missionary and a disabled 3-year-old boy, with “deep sadness and profound indignation” and expressed “its fraternal solidarity and spiritual closeness” with the orphanage, a “tireless sower of hope for the most vulnerable.”
The archdiocese also expressed its solidarity with the residents of Kenscoff, who have been affected “by the brutal violence that has taken hold in this town over the past few months.”
“Once again, crimes committed with chilling cynicism bear witness to the collapse of humanity in our society, where the unthinkable has become a daily occurrence. Crime knows no bounds. And places of care, education, refuge, and hope are now being targeted,” the Aug. 6 statement lamented.
“This kidnapping constitutes an attack on what is most noble in a society: service free of charge to others, the innocence of the defenseless child, the faith embodied in works of mercy,” the archdiocese stated, condemning this new act of barbarism, calling it “a sign, among many others, of moral collapse, state failure, and a society that is losing its sense of life and human dignity.”
If competing interests are allowed, the archdiocese noted, to make society insensitive to the suffering of the victims of the violence prevailing in Haiti, “we will become accomplices in the slow but sure destruction of this country.”
“Because silence in the face of the unacceptable is a form of renunciation of our human and Christian vocation,” the statement emphasized.
“The Archdiocese of Port-au-Prince urges all the faithful, all men and women of goodwill, to raise their voices, unite in prayer, and take concrete measures to reject this climate of dehumanization,” the statement added.
Furthermore, the archdiocese urged the civil, military, and police authorities “to assume their responsibilities to guarantee the safety of all and obtain the immediate release of the kidnapped persons,” emphasizing that “Haiti’s future cannot be built on blood, impunity, and fear.”
“The time has come together to say enough. And to act. In these dark days, may the light of the risen Christ illuminate our decisions, our words, and our actions. May Our Lady of Perpetual Help intercede for our beloved Haiti and especially for all those who are suffering,” the statement concluded.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.