Pennsylvania lawmakers on Wednesday honored the memory of the 11 Jewish worshippers who were killed in October 2018 at the Tree of Life Or L’Simcha Synagogue in Pittsburgh.
The joint session in the state’s House of Representatives in the capital, Harrisburg, was attended by nearly two-dozen relatives of the victims.
The opening prayer was conducted by Rabbi Jonathan Perlman of the New Light Congregation, which was one of the three services taking place at the synagogue during the shooting.

Elan Carr was sworn in on Thursday as the U.S. Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo administered the oath of office to Carr, who placed one hand over a Hebrew Bible, or Tanach, that was held by his wife, Dahlia. The secretary remarked that the Iraq War veteran and attorney was chosen for “fierceness and vigor that he’ll bring to combating anti-Semitism,” according to a source at the event, which was closed to the press.

Mayanei Hayeshua opens Pediatric Psychiatric Department
Mayanei Hayeshua’s Mental Health Center now boats a new in-patient Department of Pediatric Psychiatry. The Department caters to children between the ages of 12 and 18 and includes two separate wards: one for girls and one for boys, and is headed by Dr Leonid Kikinzon, a senior psychiatrist who has worked in several major Israeli hospitals and is the author of several scientific papers.

British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has come under fire again for defending the decision of schools to send students to a festival which featured a campaigner who vandalized the Warsaw Ghetto.
According to investigative journalist Iggy Ostanin, Corbyn slammed the British Board of Deputies for considering banning eight schools from attending the Tottenham Palestine Literary Festival in 2011, where one of the speakers was Ewa Jasciewicz, an activist who spray-painted “Free Gaza and Palestine” on the wall of the Warsaw Ghetto in 2011.
“The Board of Deputies are hardly objective in this matter. Their record of denunciation of all things Palestinian is well known,” Corbyn told the Islington Tribune at the time.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine on Thursday commended Israel for its attempt to land a spacecraft on the moon, even though the Beresheet spacecraft failed to land on the moon.
“While NASA regrets the end of the SpaceIL mission without a successful lunar landing of the Beresheet lander, we congratulate SpaceIL, the Israel Aerospace Industries and the state of Israel on the incredible accomplishment of sending the first privately funded mission into lunar orbit,” Bridenstine said in a statement.
“Every attempt to reach new milestones holds opportunities for us to learn, adjust and progress. I have no doubt that Israel and SpaceIL will continue to explore and I look forward to celebrating their future achievements,” he added.

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