RELIGION HEADLINES THR 3-5

(SRN NEWS)-

(  )  Someone fired shots at a synagogue in Toronto this week.  No injuries were reported at Temple Emanuel after 20 rounds were fired into the building.  Parishioners had held a service earlier in the evening.  Synagogue leaders released a statement saying “We are working closely with law enforcement and security partners.  We remain united and resilient.  Our building is damaged; our congregation is not.”  Toronto police say they have increased their patrols near Jewish synagogues and other institutions, especially since the outbreak of hostilities between the U.S., Israel and Iran.  Those Jewish institutions have also increased security.

(  )  New York Attorney General Letitia James is ordering one of Manhattan’s largest hospitals to resume providing sex-change operations for children.  NYU Langone (lang-GOAN) stopped doing the procedures amid funding threats from the Trump administration.  In a letter to the hospital, the attorney general claims the hospital’s decision violates the state’s anti-discrimination laws by “jeopardizing access to medically necessary healthcare for some of the most vulnerable New Yorkers.”  President Trump has vowed to keep taxpayer dollars from funding medical procedures designed to help kids live as the opposite sex.

(  )  Israelis continue to celebrate the Jewish holidays even as the war with Iran continues.  This week’s celebration of Purim, which is usually marked by boisterous street parades and costume parties, featured activities inside bomb shelters.  In Tel Aviv, people of all ages wearing Purim costumes streamed into a mall’s underground parking lot that also functions as a bomb shelter for the traditional reading of the Purim story.  The holiday marks the salvation of the Jewish people living in the Persian Empire after the destruction of the First Temple as recounted in the book of Esther.  The drama took place in the year 356 BC.

(  )  A man who repeatedly drove his car into the Chabad Lubavitch (hah-BAHD  LOO-bah-vitch) world headquarters in New York City earlier this year has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of intentionally damaging religious property.  The man was arrested on hate crime charges following the January 28th incident, which damaged an entrance to the revered Jewish site but did not cause any injuries. The new federal case comes on top of multiple state-level hate crime charges, including attempted assault.  The incident rattled New York’s large Jewish community which has seen a spike in anti-Semitism in recent years.