German diplomat promises action on Nazi in Queens

Rambam and Shalhevet students picket consulate and war criminal’s home

By Mayer Fertig

Issue of November 13 2009/ 26 Cheshvan 5770

 

Andreas Zimmer, head of the legal department of the German consulate, addressed Rambam students

Rambam and Shalhevet students drew reactions from a German official and, apparently, from a known Nazi war criminal whose U.S. citizenship has been revoked. The students held a pair of demonstrations on Monday marking the 71st anniversary of Kristallnacht.
Jakiw Palij obtained his U.S. citizenship by concealing his Nazi past, the Justice Department has found. A judge who presided over the case found Palij trained at the SS-run Trawniki Training Camp and that on November 3 and 4, 1943, he helped slaughter Trawniki’s entire inmate population of some 6,000 Jewish civilians.

Far from Yemen

Yemenite Jews struggle to find a new home in Monsey

By Michael Orbach

Issue of November 13 2009/ 26 Cheshvan 5770

Zohar Qafni rubbed his forehead, which bears scars from rocks thrown at him by Muslims in Yemen.
“We are grateful to America that saved us from Arabs,” he said in Arabic as several of his children played around a car in rural Monsey, NY. The boys were dark skinned with long curling sideburns, which  Jews from Yemen call simonim (signs). Qafni earned a living in Yemen making shoes by hand. He said he hopes to continue practicing his trade in America.
Shukri Karni, who sheared sheep in Yemen, said he came because three of his ten children were already living in Monsey.
“Nobody forced me to come,” he said, while watching two of his children play in the grass with a piece of plastic. They made faces at their father until he growled at them. Karni still has a house in Yemen that he hopes to sell within the next few months; in Monsey, he spends most of his time learning with the rabbi of the Yemenite shul located in the basement of a small house.
“I want my children to be Yemenite and study Torah,” he explained.

Classy comment

By The Jewish Star Staff

Issue of November 13 2009/ 26 Cheshvan 5770

Long Island Rail Road commuters at the Lawrence station early Tuesday came face to face with crude social commentary presumably authored by one of their neighbors.
LIRR Police were summoned after words in blue marker were found scrawled on the side of an automated ticket machine on the platform.
The machines are equipped with cameras, raising the possibility that an image of the vandal was recorded.
This is at least the fourth such episode on the rail road this year, including two swastikas  discovered in separate incidents — one on a platform, another carved inside a train.