"I was walking home from a #Shabbat morning service, wearing a #kippah and carrying my #tallit bag in my urbane, diverse #NewJersey town, when a pickup truck slowed down beside me. The driver rolled down his window and yelled something. I won’t repeat it here, but I can say with certainty it was not “ #ShabbatShalom.”

Why? Because of a small piece of fabric on my large, bald head.

My truck-driving antagonist was in good company. On social media, bigots will refer to #Jews as “the little hat people.”

"...During the 1968 #NewYorkCity school teachers’ strike, which aroused #antisemitism, an announcer on radio station WBAI-FM read a poem written by a school child, dedicated to #AlbertShanker, the Jewish head of the teachers’ union: “Hey, #Jew boy, with that #yarmulke on your head/You pale-faced Jew-boy, I wish you were dead.” Shanker, in fact, did not wear a yarmulke."

https://religionnews.com/2026/01/08/jews-and-hats-a-thousand-year-old-love-story/

This this this.

" #Hanukkah commonly evokes light, family gatherings, and childhood memory. But these associations sit atop a much deeper and more challenging history.

Hanukkah marks the only successful #Jewish revolt in recorded antiquity against cultural erasure.

Not against slavery. Not against imperial taxation. Not against foreign rule as such.

Against forced #assimilation.

The Seleucid decrees were not primarily economic or political. They were civilizational. They targeted the infrastructure of Jewish continuity itself: #Torah law and study, #Hebrew language, #Shabbat, #circumcision, and the #Jewishcalendar. #Torahscrolls were destroyed, and those who taught or possessed them were executed. In effect, the decrees aimed to dismantle Jewish memory.

Most ancient peoples who faced comparable pressures disappeared."

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/hanukkah-and-the-jewish-refusal-to-disappear/

This this this.

" #Hanukkah commonly evokes light, family gatherings, and childhood memory. But these associations sit atop a much deeper and more challenging history.

Hanukkah marks the only successful #Jewish revolt in recorded antiquity against cultural erasure.

Not against slavery. Not against imperial taxation. Not against foreign rule as such.

Against forced #assimilation.

The Seleucid decrees were not primarily economic or political. They were civilizational. They targeted the infrastructure of Jewish continuity itself: #Torah law and study, #Hebrew language, #Shabbat, #circumcision, and the #Jewishcalendar. #Torahscrolls were destroyed, and those who taught or possessed them were executed. In effect, the decrees aimed to dismantle Jewish memory.

Most ancient peoples who faced comparable pressures disappeared."

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/hanukkah-and-the-jewish-refusal-to-disappear/

Candle lighting is 4:41. Shabbat shalom!

#KansasCity #holidays #Jewish #Shabbat