Shortly before his inauguration, Donald Trump announced the creation of his own cryptocurrency, $TRUMP, a venture which many consider to be a conflict of interest given his role as president in setting governmental cryptocurrency policies. Cryptocurrency is a digital currency that operates independently of any governments, unlike traditional money. The first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, was released in 2009. As of now, it is believed that the market value of all cryptocurrency is almost 3 trillion dollars. There are a number of controversial issues surrounding cryptocurrency, particularly because it is generally unregulated. It has become a preferred currency for many illegal operations, including money laundering, terrorism, and the illegal drug trade. In 2017, a Russian Jewish entrepreneur, Vyacheslav Semenchuk, launched a cryptocurrency specifically marketed to Jews. Billed as the “first kosher crypto currency in the world,” 10% of all profits are designated to go to interest-free loans for Jews. The currency is available for purchase on Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath, because the system is entirely automated, according to Semenchuk. What is this “Jewish” cryptocurrency called?
Donald Trump is having an impact on the politics of countries around the world, affecting their own trade and tariff policies, and elections. In Canada, the Liberal Party trailed the Conservative Party by as much as 20% in the polls until Trump imposed huge tariffs and threatened to take over the country as our 51st state. As a result, the Liberals won the election. Germany’s far-right party did well in their election, but not nearly as well as expected, in backlash to the support they received from Trump and in particular Elon Musk.
And in Australia, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was elected to a second term, though his party had been trailing significantly in the polls leading up to the election. Charles Edel, the Australia chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, suggested that the impact of Trump on the results was significant, noting that “There were enough similarities to the Canadian election to suggest that the conservatives’ fortunes fell as Trump’s tariffs and attacks on America’s allies ramped up.”
Australia’s Jewish population currently numbers around 150,000. Mount Scopus Memorial College in Melbourne and Moriah College in Sydney are both co-educational primary and secondary Jewish Day Schools. The University of Sydney and Monash University in Melbourne both have Jewish Studies departments, and there are active chapters of B’nei B’rith, National Council of Jewish Women, and Kadimah (which focuses on Yiddish culture). The Jewish Museum of Australia in Melbourne was established in 1982, and in 1992 the Sydney Jewish Museum opened, dedicated to the Holocaust and Australian Jewish history. There are approximately 80 synagogues in the country. Who were the first Jews to arrive in Australia?
A. In 1493, the first Jewish immigrants arrived in Perth, having fled the Inquisition in Spain. They quickly established a cemetery, and the first synagogue, Comunidad de los Judíos, was built in 1495.
B. At the same time as massive Jewish emigration from Russia and Eastern Europe in the late 19th century to Western Europe, America, and Palestine, smaller groups emigrated to the East, including a significant number of Jews who settled in Shanghai. In the early 1900’s, a small group of those immigrants sailed to Australia and established the first Jewish community in Canberra.
C. Among the early European settlers in Australia were sailors from Great Britain, who established a penal colony at Botany Bay. Eight Jewish prisoners were among those who were transported to Botany Bay in 1788.
D. The first Australian Jewish community were emigrants from Germany who fled prior to the Holocaust. As the United States and other Western nations refused to take in many fleeing Jews, some managed to find passage to Australia, leading to the founding of the first synagogue in the port city of Brisbane in 1939.
E. On Noah’s Ark, two of Noah’s grandchildren, Lud and Aram, were playing hide and seek by climbing into the pouches of the two kangaroos who were aboard the ark. They did not realize that the kangaroos left the ship after it settled on Mt. Ararat after the flood, and before they knew it, the kangaroos arrived in Australia with their stowaways still on board.
Pope Francis died last week at the age of 88, after serving as the leader of the Catholic Church for 12 years. He was the first Jesuit to serve as Pope, and the first Pope who was born in the Americas. Pope Francis was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, and he became a priest, eventually being named the Archbishop. He was an advocate of peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and he signed the Vatican’s first treaty with Palestine. He visited Israel in 2014, where he was the first Pope to visit the gravesite of Theodor Herzl, while also visiting Yad Vashem and the Western Wall. More recently, Pope Francis condemned the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, while also criticizing Israel for its actions in the subsequent Gaza War. While serving as the archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio developed a close relationship with Rabbi Abraham Skorka, a prominent leader in the local Jewish community. The two clerics held a series of inter-religious talks on such topics as God, atheists, homosexuality, and capitalism. What was the circumstance that led Archbishop Bergoglio to say to Rabbi Skorka, “I guess this year we are going to eat chicken soup.”?
A. In 1996, Rabbi Skorka attended an Easter celebration at the home of Archbishop Bergoglio. The next year, the Rabbi invited the Archbishop to attend the Passover seder at his home, leading to Bergoglio’s remarks.
B. Archbishop Bergoglio ended up in the hospital during Lent in 1995 because of a respiratory infection. Rabbi Skorka paid him a visit there, where he noted that “our people have the perfect cure for your ailment, chicken soup.” The archbishop replied jokingly that, “though it is Lent, I guess this year we are going to eat chicken soup.”
C. The two clerics were attending the annual Buenos Aires Clergy Council dinner. While the menu usually includes locro, the traditional Argentinian stew which includes veal, pork and chorizo, that year’s dinner took place at the rabbi’s Benei Tikva Synagogue, with a kosher menu.
D. As part of the annual Buenos Aires Carnival Street Fair celebration, the Clerical Council of Argentina sponsored an event where different faith groups would cook their favorite recipes to sell as a charity fundraiser. The Archbishop made that comment when he came upon Rabbi Skorka at the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (Argentine Jewish Community Center) table.
E. The Archbishop was a fan of the championship San Lorenzo soccer team and the Rabbi was a fan of the lowly River Plate team, whose fans were known as “gallinas,” which means chickens, leading to the Archbishop’s remarks in a soccer discussion with the Rabbi.
Pope Francis died last week at the age of 88, after serving as the leader of the Catholic Church for 12 years. He was the first Jesuit to serve as Pope, and the first Pope who was born in the Americas. Pope Francis was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, and he became a priest, eventually being named the Archbishop. He was an advocate of peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and he signed the Vatican’s first treaty with Palestine. He visited Israel in 2014, where he was the first Pope to visit the gravesite of Theodor Herzl, while also visiting Yad Vashem and the Western Wall. More recently, Pope Francis condemned the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, while also criticizing Israel for its actions in the subsequent Gaza War. While serving as the archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio developed a close relationship with Rabbi Abraham Skorka, a prominent leader in the local Jewish community. The two clerics held a series of inter-religious talks on such topics as God, atheists, homosexuality, and capitalism. What was the circumstance that led Archbishop Bergoglio to say to Rabbi Skorka, “I guess this year we are going to eat chicken soup.”?
A. In 1996, Rabbi Skorka attended an Easter celebration at the home of Archbishop Bergoglio. The next year, the Rabbi invited the Archbishop to attend the Passover seder at his home, leading to Bergoglio’s remarks.
B. Archbishop Bergoglio ended up in the hospital during Lent in 1995 because of a respiratory infection. Rabbi Skorka paid him a visit there, where he noted that “our people have the perfect cure for your ailment, chicken soup.” The archbishop replied jokingly that, “though it is Lent, I guess this year we are going to eat chicken soup.”
C. The two clerics were attending the annual Buenos Aires Clergy Council dinner. While the menu usually includes locro, the traditional Argentinian stew which includes veal, pork and chorizo, that year’s dinner took place at the rabbi’s Benei Tikva Synagogue, with a kosher menu.
D. As part of the annual Buenos Aires Carnival Street Fair celebration, the Clerical Council of Argentina sponsored an event where different faith groups would cook their favorite recipes to sell as a charity fundraiser. The Archbishop made that comment when he came upon Rabbi Skorka at the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (Argentine Jewish Community Center) table.
E. The Archbishop was a fan of the championship San Lorenzo soccer team and the Rabbi was a fan of the lowly River Plate team, whose fans were known as “gallinas,” which means chickens, leading to the Archbishop’s remarks in a soccer discussion with the Rabbi.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and his family celebrated the first night of Passover with a seder at the Governor’s Residence in Harrisburg. He, his wife Lori, and their children finally went to sleep around 1:00am, only to be awakened an hour later when a state trooper assigned to security woke everyone and rushed them out of the house because of a fire. Thankfully no one was hurt, as it was discovered that the fire resulted from an arson attack. The attacker referenced Palestinians as a motive for his assault on the residence of the Jewish governor, saying that Shapiro needed to know that the attacker “will not take part in his plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people.” Shapiro was raised in an observant Jewish home and attended Jewish day schools. His family celebrated Shabbat dinners together, a tradition he carries on with his family in the Governor’s Residence, where the Shapiros arranged for the kitchen to be kosher. Shapiro, who was on Kamala Harris’s short list for a running mate, is a strong supporter of Israel, and he says that his Jewish upbringing guides him in his life, noting that “I think we all have a responsibility to do tikkun olam and to do our part, and that’s what my faith has taught me.” Last year Donald Trump referred to Shapiro as “the highly overrated Jewish Governor of the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” to which Shapiro responded, “He’s someone who has routinely peddled antisemitic tropes like this.” Where did Josh Shapiro propose to his wife, who he first met in 9th grade at Akiba Hebrew Academy (now known as Barrack Hebrew Academy)?
The White Lotus completed its third season of storytelling about the wealthy guests at beautiful resorts, focusing as always on their pettiness, their self-centeredness, their air of superiority, and their despicable behavior. Season 3 took place in Thailand, featuring characters including actress Jaclyn and her childhood friends Kate and Laurie, wealthy (but crooked) businessman Timothy Ratliff and his family, and troubled Rick Hatchett and his girlfriend Chelsea, plus Belinda, the masseuse returning from Season 1. While there have been no Jewish characters among the guests at the resorts over the past three seasons, Season 3 did feature a Hebrew song during one episode. What was that song?
Passover begins on Saturday night, April 12. Jews worldwide are beginning to shop, change over their dishes, and cook and bake in preparation for the seders and week-long holiday where only Kosher-for-Passover certified foods are traditionally eaten. Because of the tariffs President Trump imposed on Canadian goods earlier this year, Canada retaliated by banning imports from the United States. This has resulted in a Canadian shortage of Manischewitz sweet Passover wine, which can no longer be imported from the Manischewitz Company in New York. Remaining stocks of the wine have been snatched off the shelves as there are no locally made alternatives. Meanwhile, food manufacturers continue to expand their selection of Kosher-for-Passover certified items. For example, Manischewitz is now offering frozen gluten-free knishes while Tuscanini is now selling Passover savory tomato jam and Italian chocolate truffles. Gefen has introduced hot honey, and Heaven and Earth now offers a grain-free pasta line for the first time. What marijuana product, certified Kosher-for-Passover by Rabbi Yaakov Cohen and Whole Kosher Services, is being offered for the first time in 2025?
Manischewitz! by infowidget is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr
A 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar (known as Burma until 1989) and Thailand last week, resulting in much destruction and huge numbers of dead and injured. Among the many countries offering assistance is Israel, which has dispatched disaster-relief experts to the region, including representatives of SmartAID, an Israel-based humanitarian organization. Burma was one of the first Asian nations to recognize the state of Israel, and Israel sent its first ambassador to Burma in 1953. The two countries have cooperated in the areas of arms production and sales as well as agricultural ventures. In 1961, Prime Minister David ben-Gurion visited Burma where he dressed in traditional Burmese clothing and studied Buddhism at a spiritual retreat. The first record of a Jew in Burma was in the 18th century, when Solomon Gabirol served as a commander in the army of King Alaungpaya. The Jewish population peaked at about 2500 members, with a synagogue and a cemetery, where 700 people are buried, but the current Jewish population may be less than two dozen. Where did a portion of Burma/Myanmar’s Jewish population come from?
A. Jews from Cochin in India came to Burma in the middle of the 19th century as merchants and traders, in particular in the cotton and rice industries.
B. After Kristallnacht, many German Jews attempted to flee the country, hoping to go to Palestine. But restrictions on admission by the British mandate government led many to travel elsewhere, including further east into Asia. Approximately 100 of these German immigrants reached Burma in 1939.
C. While the large migration of Russian Jews at the end of the 19th century traveled west, there were some who traveled east, further into Asia. One group of these immigrants reached Burma at around the turn of the century, establishing not only a synagogue and cemetery, but kosher butchers, a mikve, and a yeshiva as well.
D. Many of the Jewish immigrants came from Iraq, having fled from persecution and pogroms in the mid-1800’s.
E. A Jewish peddler traveled with his wife from Poland to Burma in the early 20th century. He noticed that the Burmese people had a lot of facial hair, which they would cut with primitive tools. The peddler, Menachem Zaken, saw an opportunity and began to sell razors (which had been invented by another Jewish immigrant from Poland, Jacob Schick) and cans of shaving cream. Zaken settled in Burma and established a company which he named after his new home. He marketed his products by placing billboards along the roadway, breaking up the wording over a succession of signs. Among his ads were the following: “Ben Met Anna/Made a hit/Neglected beard/Ben-Anna split/Burma-Shave”, “Use our cream/And we betcha/Girls won't wait/They’ll come and getcha/Burma-Shave”, and “Religious Jews/don’t shave their faces/But others want/close razor embraces/Burma-Shave.”
Writer, comedian, and talk show and podcast host Conan O’Brien is in the news, having recently served as host of the Academy Awards. He will again host the Oscars in 2026, and he was just honored with the Mark Twain Prize at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, following in the footsteps of such performers as Richard Pryor, Carol Burnett, Tina Fey, and Jon Stewart. O’Brien visited Israel in 2017, where he went to the Tel Baruch Central Synagogue in Tel Aviv to convert to Judaism. But he did not have much time in his schedule for that task, saying, “I have about an hour and 25 minutes to absorb 4000 years of culture and deeply held belief.” When the synagogue’s rabbi, Dov Halbertal, told him he would have to be circumcised, O’Brien replied, “Can we skip that part, because I need everything I got down there.” O’Brien did not convert, but he did throw himself a bar mitzvah party at the synagogue, where teenagers lifted him on a chair and Rabbi Halbertal played foosball with Conan. What did Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu say when told that Conan O’Brien would be visiting Israel?
A. “Even in difficult times, it is always important that we are able to laugh together. We welcome Conan O’Brien to the Promised Land.”
B. “The Hebrew word קונן (Conen) means ‘to lament’ and so I must say I was lamenting the upcoming visit of Conan O’Brien. But I’ve been told that he has planted a tree from JNF in my honor, so I look forward to meeting Mr. O’Brien.”
C. “The most famous Irishman to come to Israel is Chaim Herzog, our sixth president. I look forward to the visit from another famous Irishman, though he is not likely to be elected to office here.”
D. “When Rebecca gave birth to her elder son, it says in the Bible, ‘The first one emerged red, like a hairy mantle all over; so they named him Esau.’ I look forward to meeting this Irish descendent of Esau.”
The movie No Other Land won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. The film, made by two Israelis and two Palestinians, chronicles the experience of Palestinians living in the Masafer Yatta region of the West Bank from 2019 through 2023. The focus is on a Palestinian activist, Basel Adra, who recorded the destruction of many Palestinian homes by the Israeli military and West Bank settlers. Adra befriended a Jewish journalist, Yuval Abraham, and they worked together to tell the story of the local Palestinian community. The film has won much critical acclaim in addition to the Oscar award, while others have criticized the film. Israel Culture Minister called it a “defamation of Israel” while the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel criticized the film because of the Palestinian/Israeli partnership that produced it. Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner called the film antisemitic and called for a cancellation of the film’s screening by a local independent movie theater which leases space from a city-owned building. Because the showing proceeded, the mayor is now trying to cancel the theater’s lease.
Miami Beach has a long Jewish history. While some Jews settled there during the Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe in the late 19th century, yellow fever and a major fire wiped out the community. But Jews began to return, and upon the death of a Jewish tourist in 1913, the 35 Jewish residents established a cemetery and a synagogue. Florida banned discrimination in real estate and hotels in 1949, leading to a huge growth of the Jewish population and the building of many hotels that attracted Jews from the North. In the 1970’s, as much as 80% of the Miami Beach population was Jewish. What was a nickname for Miami Beach which arose based on the large Jewish population?
.jpg){kind=link}
