Long Island Students Caught Wearing Incredibly anti-Semitic Shirts While Drinking Underage

The shirts bear the word "Auschwitz," accompanied by a swastika and the message "hit the showers"

By: Caitlin Marceau for Shalom Life

Students at Commack High School, in Long Island, really need to start making better choices. Recently two of them were photographed wearing anti-semitic t-shirts to a party.

The students wore bright red shirts with large black swastikas and the word “Auschwitz” written above the symbol. If that wasn’t inappropriate enough, the shirts also had “hit the showers” written beneath the Nazis symbol. From the look of them, it appears the students made the shirts themselves.

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For One Outspoken Teenager in Revolution-Era Iran, Queen Esther Was a Kindred Spirit

Amid political upheaval, an embattled girl fled entirely alone—the lessons of Purim’s heroine propelling her to freedom

By Sima Goel for Tablet Magazine
When I escaped from Iran in 1982 at the age of 17, I took a heart-wrenching journey into the unknown, crossing the dangerous Kavira Loot Desert in the company of smugglers. I was one of the first in my family to leave the country. I took nothing with me except my belief in freedom, a sense of my own identity, and my love for home and family.

Today, as we count down the days to Purim, I remember my life in Iran, and I feel my heart grow full. For most Jews, Purim and the story of Queen Esther provide the community with an opportunity to celebrate Jewish survival. For me, Purim and Esther bring me back to my hometown of Shiraz and the steps I, like Esther, took to stay true to myself.

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Hitler Facebook Post Rocks L.I. High School

Great Neck South under fire for ‘horrific’ image; school says it takes Holocaust education seriously.

Amy Sara Clark, Staff Writer, The Jewish Week

 A heavily Jewish Great Neck high school has come under scrutiny after someone posted a “horrific” anti-Semitic image on the freshman class’ Facebook page.

The image is of two young children, one of whom has been Photoshopped so that he has a Hitler-style mustache and Nazi armband. Above his head it says, “I’d rather be gassing Jews right now.”

Officials from Great Neck South High School and the district said in a public letter that the Facebook page is not under the auspices of the school, but that as soon as they learned of the posting on Sunday they immediately took action to get it removed.

The student who is suspected of having posted the image attends John F. Kennedy High School in Plainview, 15 miles away on Long Island, a Plainview school official confirmed. 

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Mom is a drug addict, where is God?

The Sufferer

In FreshInkForTeens.com

Editor’s Note: This article was one of the finalists in our winter writing contest. More than 70 contestants from around the country and Israel answered the following question: “What Do You Want Jewish Community Leaders To Know About Teens Today?” The writer was granted anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the subject matter and to protect the family’s privacy.

She rolled around in her bed, muttering threats of self-harm under her breath. This was not the first time, nor would it be the last, that my mother spent consecutive days strung out on cocaine. She had torn my family apart, left my siblings lonely and desperate for affection and seemed to care for nothing but how and when she would get her next fix.

As a young boy, the concept of God was nothing short of baffling. Having attended a Jewish day school, I was injected with the notion that God was the omnipotent, omnipresent and ever-merciful master of the universe. I was told that God was everywhere.

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Passover: The Next Generation

by Jessica Baar for FreshInkForTeens.com

The honor of reciting the four questions transitions from the oldest cousin to the younger ones.

“Frogs here, frogs there, frogs are jumping everywhere!” I must have heard this song, specifically this line, at least 100 times.

As I stand in my cousins’ dining room in New City, in Rockland County, I am surrounded by familiar faces. All are singing along to this amphibious tune. The song is your traditional Passover jam about the slaves in Egypt and the many plagues used to free them. Singing this song is one of many family traditions on Passover.

Let me paint the scene here. Every year my family drives two hours up to New York from our town in Pennsylvania and spends one day of Passover with my cousins. We have a seder, nosh on some food, sing songs and more. When I was little some of my most prominent holiday memories were from Passover. I’d always look forward to going to my cousins’ house because it was so much fun. They’d always sing songs, tell funny stories about the holiday and let the little kids perform for everyone. What child wouldn’t enjoy that?!

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Teens' tweets on killing, bombing Jews deemed no threat

Kevin Pentón, Asbury Park Press

JACKSON – A State Police sergeant's teenage daughter who dressed like Hitler and posted on social media a picture of a popular gathering spot for Orthodox Jews — with the caption "perfect bombing time" — may have behaved offensively, but not criminally, authorities said.

The Ocean County Prosecutor's Office examined the Twitter post and a cache of other pro-Hitler images by the Jackson teen and her associates and concluded that they did not amount to any credible threat.

"There was never any danger being posed to the community," said Al Della Fave, a spokesman for the office. "It didn't rise to anything criminal."

He added that the one teen's connection to law enforcement afforded her no special treatment — even as police remain on heightened alert for terrorism and threats conveyed through social media.

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One: A Poem for the Jewish People

A poem by Shayna Lowenstein, winner of NFTY's 2015 creative writing competition.

One.

One voice against the world.

One community linked together like the stars forming constellations in the sky.

One journey.

One thousand journeys.

One million journeys taken from the beginning of time, each different than the one that came before it.

One nation, a Jewish nation,

Building a foundation with self-determination to grow stronger,

Stronger than we were the day before and stronger than our ancestors in the desert could have ever imagined.

We are a blank canvas and each journey is a colorful marker.

As we each take our journey we create pictures.

Beautiful lines connecting us, one by one, day by day,

Pictures that will show us the world,

Pictures our grandchildren will one day look at and ask stories about,

And we will tell them.

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