How did the Wesleyan administration relate to the actual Nazis and Nazi supporters on its Connecticut campus in the 1930s?
The post The Nazi Skeletons in Wesleyan U.’s Closet appeared first on Jewish Journal.
BURNSVILLE, N.C. (RNS) — A kerosene heater still sits in the middle of Mack and Lucille Thomason’s living room, a testament to the trauma they and others in their rural Yancey County North Carolina community experienced when Hurricane Helene unleashed its raging waters last fall.
The Thomasons, retired in their 70s, saw 4 feet of water slosh up to the door of their doublewide trailer, destroying the floor, furnace, back porch and most of their kitchen appliances. The hurricane also damaged their well, leaving them without water. For weeks, Mack Thomason had to walk to the creek behind the house to collect water in five-gallon buckets so he and wife could flush the toilet.
They were nearly despondent and living in a borrowed camper when their daughter told them she found someone who could help with repairs. That someone was Keith Ashe, the site coordinator for Baptists on Mission in Burnsville, a town about 7 miles north of Pensacola, where the Thomasons live.
“He said he’d be back, so I looked for him and, true to his word, they’ve been here,” Thomason, 77, said.
Hurricane Helene caused unprecedented damage in the mountain region of Western North Carolina, where hurricane-level rainfall is rare and only 4% of residents have flood insurance. The September storm destroyed about 4,400 homes and damaged 185,000.
Gov. Josh Stein estimated the damage at $60 billion, with about $15 billion needed for housing. On Monday (April 14), the Federal Emergency Management Agency denied North Carolina’s request to continue matching 100% of the state’s spending on Hurricane Helene recovery.
Six months later, that recovery has just begun. Securing funding and contractors for home repairs has been a huge challenge for many homeowners, especially those with limited means. The Thomasons — he worked third shift at a textile factory, and she was a housekeeper at a nursing home — were lucky. Baptists on Mission, an auxiliary of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, came to their rescue on Jan. 21.
RELATED: As Trump officials demonize faith-based partners, government grants are called heresy
Volunteers installed two ductless heating and cooling systems, called mini-splits, rebuilt the back deck, hung two new doors and surrounded the raised trailer home with new vinyl skirting. Best of all, one volunteer, a well drilling specialist from Texas, was able to repair the well.
Samaritan’s Purse, another Christian humanitarian relief organization, provided the couple with a new refrigerator, dishwasher and freezer to replace the ones the flood rusted.
The two Christian groups are among a slew of faith-based organizations that rushed to help in the wake of the storm. About half a dozen are still there, but Baptists on Mission and Samaritan’s Purse — both based in North Carolina — have made a long-term commitment to remain. The two organizations plan to help homeowners there, cost-free, for as long as it takes — likely another five years.
Samaritan’s Purse is the bigger of the two organizations and has provided 111 campers for people whose homes were uninhabitable, 179 new vehicles, numerous appliances and other household goods, said Luther Harrison, the organization’s vice president of North American ministries.
Based in Boone, it also plans to build new homes from scratch: 36 have been approved and 10 are under construction. The organization has budgeted $523 million — all from private donations — to help with Hurricane Helene recovery. Of that, it has already spent $61 million.
“This hit our backyard, this hit people that we work with, people that we know, and it has really opened the eyes of the community to what Samaritan’s Purse is able to do in these communities and just show them that God loves them,” Harrison said.
But when it comes to home repairs, many have turned to Baptists on Mission. To date, the organization has completed repairs on 203 homes damaged by the hurricane. It’s working on an additional 230 and has 500 more homes on a waiting list.
In Helene’s aftermath, it perfected its rapid repair method, which aims to make a home livable quickly, even if cabinets have yet to be installed or the trim around the doors isn’t complete. The idea is to get people back into homes and then return later to complete the finishing touches.
Baptists on Mission has six rebuild centers in Western North Carolina, where its thousands of volunteers can sleep for a week or a weekend while they work on homes. The organization feeds them three meals a day and provides the tools and materials to work on homes.
Many volunteers are skilled at construction trades; others work alongside a team leader who guides them. The volunteers, young and old, come from Baptist churches, not only in North Carolina but across the country.
“People ask me all the time, why am I a Southern Baptist?” said Stan Jenkins, a pastor from Henderson, North Carolina, about 260 miles away, who brought half a dozen church members to volunteer in Burnsville last month. “Here’s the reason I always give: I don’t know any other denomination that does mission work like we do. I mean, we take mission work seriously.”
Baptists on Mission has proved itself during past disasters. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it rebuilt 720 homes in Gulfport, Mississippi.
After hurricanes Matthew in 2016 and Florence in 2018, the North Carolina legislature took notice of their work. In 2023, the North Carolina General Assembly awarded it $5 million for future disasters in the state. This January, the governor announced he was giving the group another $3 million for Hurricane Helene assistance.
And last month, North Carolina’s leaders approved an additional $524 million for Helene recovery. Baptists on Mission might get a small slice of that, too.
The organization is mainly funded by Baptist churches across the state. This year’s budget from church donations is $1.6 million. Government funding pays for construction materials that will help put people back in homes faster.
“We didn’t use any state funds or federal funds to set up and manage our rebuild centers or to pay to coordinate our leadership,” said Richard Brunson, its executive director. “We’re just using federal funds and state funds for building materials.”
To avoid endangering volunteers, Baptists on Mission typically doesn’t repair roofs. Homeowners who receive money from FEMA must use those funds before Baptists on Mission will help. Typically, money from FEMA is not enough to cover all the necessary repairs, Ashe said. The type of fixes Baptists on Mission undertakes are typically no more than $40,000.
Ashe, the Burnsville site coordinator, had been volunteering for Baptists on Mission for some 15 years. He is a pastor at Coweeta Baptist Church, about 110 miles south of Burnsville near the Georgia state line, and taught vocational trades at a community college for 10 years before moving on to ministry full time.
But when he came up to survey the damage from Helene on Oct. 3, 2024, he decided to join the staff. He now trades off weeks in Burnsville and back home tending to his church.
“Just seeing the people, how humble people were — every one of them would say, ‘Go check on my neighbor, he’s worse off than I am’ — and then to see their faces turned from hopelessness to hope after we offered them assistance, that’s just worth it all,” he said.
Last month, Ashe visited several sites where volunteers were working. At one of the homes, volunteers were laying new vinyl flooring to replace hardwood floors damaged when the hurricane caused a mudslide, shattering windows and causing an electrical surge that killed all their appliances.
Christy Fox, who owns the home with her husband, Jeff, recalled how Baptists on Mission came over one bitterly cold day this past winter. Her husband showed them the house while she stayed in the car.
“My husband came out and he was like, ‘Well, they can’t help with the roof, but they can help with … ’ — and he started naming off all these things that we were trying to do ourselves. And I said, ‘Really?’” Christy Fox said. “’When are they gonna start?’ Because so many places have long waiting lists. And he said, ‘Monday.’ And I said, ‘Are you serious?’”
Jeff Howell, who retired last month as Yancey County emergency management coordinator, said he had a good relationship with Baptists on Mission and was impressed with their operation.
“There were a lot of shady people that came in and some really weird stuff that started happening” after the hurricane, Howell said. “It was not good, but it was very comforting to know that we always had Samaritan’s Purse and Baptists on Mission right there.”
And he added, for homeowners, there’s an extra level of comfort: “Having local people that talk like we do, it just kind of puts people at ease,” Howell said.
For the Fox family, as for the Thomasons, the assistance has been a blessing.
“Just seeing progress in your home, that helps a lot,” Christy Fox said. “They’ve made it a whole lot easier.”
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Beds sit amid the debris in the aftermath of an Israeli strike on the Al-Ahli hospital, also known as the Baptist or Ahli Arab hospital, in Gaza City on April 13, 2025. / Credit: OMAR AL-QATTAA/AFP via Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 15, 2025 / 17:37 pm (CNA).
Church leaders in Israel are expressing outrage after Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out a wave of airstrikes on Palm Sunday, with two of its missiles targeting Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City.
The Anglican Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, which runs the hospital, condemned the attacks “in the strongest terms” in a statement on Sunday, reporting that a child who had been suffering from a head injury had “tragically died as a result of the rushed evacuation process,” which reportedly took place in under 20 minutes.
“The Diocese of Jerusalem is appalled at the bombing of the hospital now for the fifth time since the beginning of the war in 2023 — and this time on the morning of Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week,” the statement reads. “We call upon all governments and people of goodwill to intervene to stop all kinds of attacks on medical and humanitarian institutions. We pray and call for the end of this horrific war and the suffering of so many.”
While no other deaths were reported as a result of the bombing, the Anglican diocese reported that the “twin strikes” had destroyed the hospital’s two-story genetic laboratory and damaged its pharmacy and emergency department buildings. The diocese also noted collateral damage in the surrounding area, including a nearby church.
Under international law, hospitals have special protection. “This hospital, already strained by months of siege, stood as one of the last beacons of medical hope in Gaza, where dozens of health care institutions have been systematically destroyed,” the Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem, Theopholis III, wrote in a statement on April 13. “The stripping away of such sanctuaries of life and dignity is a tragedy that transcends all boundaries of politics and enters the realm of the sacred.”
Al Ahli is the only Christian hospital in Gaza and one of the last remaining major hospitals still functioning in the northern part of the region, according to the Associated Press.
The IDF wrote in a social media post after the strike that it had been targeting a “Hamas command and control center inside Al Ahli Hospital,” which it said Hamas had been using “to plan and execute terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops.”
⭕DISMANTLED: Hamas Command and Control Center 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 Al Ahli Hospital
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) April 13, 2025
The compound was used by Hamas terrorists to plan and execute terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops.
Despite the IDF repeatedly stating that military activity within medical… pic.twitter.com/KzqKhIpTBt
“Despite the IDF repeatedly stating that military activity within medical facilities in Gaza must stop, Hamas continues to blatantly violate international law and abuse the civilian population,” the post continued. “Prior to the strike, steps were taken to mitigate harm to civilians or to the hospital compound, including issuing advanced warnings in the area of the terror infrastructure, the use of precise munitions, and aerial surveillance.”
NEW YORK (RNS) — Hundreds of protesters held a Passover Seder at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters in Lower Manhattan on Monday evening (April 14) to demand the release of pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil.
The Seder, organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist Jewish organization, was held in response to a Louisiana judge’s ruling that said Khalil’s presence in the United States posed “potentially serious foreign policy consequences” and that he could be deported. The former Columbia University student, who is a permanent U.S. resident, was arrested by ICE in early March over his involvement in pro-Palestinian protests on campus.
The “emergency Seder” repurposed the Passover ritual to denounce the Trump administration for its strict immigration policies, for constraining pro-Palestinian activism, and for its attacks on transgender people, said Beth Miller, the group’s political director in a news release.
Rabbi Abby Stein, who officiates part-time at Kolot Chayeinu, a progressive Jewish congregation in Brooklyn, presided over the ceremony. She told RNS that the Passover story is an invitation to reflect on modern forms of oppression, pointing to the war in Gaza that Kahlil was protesting.
“In every generation, every person is obligated to see themselves as though they had personally left Egypt,” said Stein, who is also a trans-rights activist. “In this context, Egypt becomes a metaphor; in the biblical Hebrew, it means a narrow place. Think of a narrow place — it doesn’t get more literal than Gaza, this literally narrow strip of land that has been under siege for two decades and that is being bombed and bombed.”
Attendees held banners with phrases such as “Jews say exodus from Zionism” and “Opposing Pharaohs is a Jewish tradition.” The event was inspired by the 1969 Freedom Seder in Washington, D.C., organized by Arthur Waskow, an activist and now-rabbi in the Jewish Renewal movement, connecting the Jewish exodus story to the Civil Rights Movement and protests against the Vietnam War, according to JVP.
The protest also challenged the Trump administration’s claims that it is scrutinizing pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses with the goal of stopping antisemitism. As the protesters reclaimed the Jewish ritual, the release said, they aimed to show the administration had “zero concern for the safety of Jews and is using our people as cover for its fascist agenda.”
Ramzi Kassem, Khalil’s attorney, also spoke to the Seder crowd, as some participants held “Free Mahmoud, Free Palestine” signs.
“You have stood in solidarity with the Palestinian people as they are faced with genocide,” he said. Kassem called the Seder an example of “the grandest Jewish tradition, the truest Passover tradition.”
What is it that makes God an unlikely and surprising subject? And why would it never occur to me to make our Creator the theme of a Seder?
The post A Seder Surprise: Returning to God appeared first on Jewish Journal.
(RNS) — Those of us Jews who attended Seders this past weekend were obeying the commandment to tell the story of the liberation of our people from Egypt as if it were personal. “This is what God did for me,” we say, and woe betide the child who asks what the exercise means “to you people.”
To be sure, it’s an odd, truncated version of the story the Haggadah tells, one that all but leaves out Moses, who played a pretty important role in what transpired and who to this day counts as the greatest Jew of all time. Yet we Jewish Americans remember him all the same, most often by including the spiritual “Go Down, Moses” among the songs we sing at the end of the meal.
There’s a particular moment in Exodus’ account that struck me this time around. Recall that the first thing he’s reported as doing is to kill an Egyptian he comes upon beating an Israelite. Moses imagines that no one’s seen him do it until he encounters a couple of Israelites fighting with each other. When he upbraids the aggressor, the man says to him, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?”
Getting wind of this, Pharaoh tries to kill Moses, who flees across the Red Sea to Midian. There he is welcomed by a local priest and marries the priest’s daughter, who gives birth to a son who’s named Gershom (Hebrew for “stranger there”) because, Moses says, “I have been a stranger in a strange land.”
The strange land Moses has in mind is clearly Midian, but of course the Israelites are themselves strangers in a strange land, and the phrase has resonated through the ages for immigrants and refugees and exiles. And also for none of the above, who find that their native land, the land that’s been at least as good to them as Midian was to Moses, is becoming strange. Like America today.
Take the Jewish governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, whose home (the governor’s mansion) was broken into and firebombed early Sunday morning (April 13), a few hours after he presided over the first Seder. “This kind of violence is becoming far too common in our society and I don’t give a damn if it’s coming from one particular side or the other,” he said at a news conference.
Or consider the Jewish governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker. After President Donald Trump refused on Monday to arrange for the return of the Salvadoran native wrongly arrested in Maryland and flown without due process to a prison in his native land, Pritzker posted on Bluesky: “Ignoring a Supreme Court ruling to facilitate Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s return isn’t just cruel; it’s unconstitutional. They’re saying the quiet part aloud — if they get away with it now, they’ll do it to anyone.”
Or JB’s sister Penny, the senior fellow of the Harvard Corp. (the university’s board of trustees), and Harvard President Alan Garber, also Jewish, who jointly received the Trump administration’s letter demanding that the university prostrate itself as no American institution of higher learning has ever done before the federal government.
“The administration’s prescription goes beyond the power of the federal government,” wrote Garber in his own letter, declaring Harvard’s refusal to bow to the demands. “No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”
To be sure, Harvard has had its ups and downs when it comes to Jews — including, among the downs, some tolerated behavior during last year’s pro-Palestinian protests on campus. But as is clear from its letter, the government’s concern about antisemitism is a pretext for establishing ideological control.
So, here’s to my alma mater for resisting the government’s efforts to turn it, and the country at large, into a strange land. And not just for Jews.
The new White House Faith Office is in high gear for Holy Week. / Credit: DJTechYT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 15, 2025 / 16:52 pm (CNA).
The White House has announced plans for the Christian Holy Week leading up to Easter, which will include a Wednesday dinner and a Thursday religious service with Christians from a variety of communities.
President Donald Trump on Palm Sunday kicked off Holy Week with comments acknowledging Jesus Christ’s “excruciating pain, torture, and execution on the cross” and the gift of redemption and the forgiveness of sins merited through his suffering and death. He added that “through his resurrection, we have hope of eternal life.”
Trump urged prayers for “an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon our beloved nation” and for the intention that the United States will “achieve a future that reflects the truth, beauty, and goodness of Christ’s eternal kingdom in heaven.”
Jennifer Korn, director of the White House Faith Office, told CNA that Catholics and Christians from a variety of Protestant communities are expected to be in attendance for the Holy Week events.
To celebrate Holy Week, the White House on Wednesday will hold a dinner and prayer service, which will be livestreamed online. On Thursday, the White House will host a prayer and worship service, which will include Christian hymns performed by musicians associated with Liberty University, a private Christian school.
Korn said Trump is hosting these events to ensure that Holy Week is “honored with the observance that it deserves.” She said the various events are “engaging with America in the way that America celebrates Easter.”
The 2025 Holy Week celebrations are also more robust than the events Trump held during his first administration. Korn noted that in his second administration, Trump has “a resolve that is really different [from] last time.”
Trump has publicly spoken about his belief that God saved him from being assassinated at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024.
“He’s been very transparent about that day — both publicly and privately — saying that it changed his life and he truly does believe that God spared his life to be president again and to really bring America back,” Korn said.
“We see that appreciation and humility that comes from a very near death experience,” she said, adding that, in private conversations, Trump speaks about that day in the same way he speaks about it in public: “He truly believes that.”
Korn also noted that Trump decorated the Oval Office with “two gold angels on two sides of the office.” During a meeting, she said the president told her to “look up at the ceiling” and said the angels are there “to guard over and look over the Oval Office” and his work and the work of his administration.
Trump in February established the White House Faith Office, which was created to help root out anti-Christian bias, defend religious liberty, and ensure that religious communities are part of the public policy discussions.
The new office replaced the former White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Korn said the creation of the Faith Office was historic and that it is different from the initiatives of previous presidents, adding it has “never been done before in the West Wing.” In meetings with the president, she said he frequently asks her: “How are my pastors doing, how are my priests, how are my rabbis doing?”
The separation of church and state, Korn said, “doesn’t mean that people of faith don’t have a voice in the government.” She asserted that this office is “bringing that voice back” with efforts to promote religious liberty domestically and abroad, among other initiatives.
In addition to the Holy Week celebrations, Korn noted that the White House is also hosting a Passover event on Thursday afternoon. The Jewish celebration of Passover, which began on April 12 and ends on April 20, overlaps with the Christian Holy Week this year.