What's New in Jewish News This Week

Nation’s Largest Teacher’s Union Votes to Sever Ties with ADL, JCA Responds

This month, the US’s largest teacher’s union, the National Education Association (NEA)—which is also the teacher’s union of Maine—voted to cut all ties with the ADL: banning their lessons on antisemitism, Holocaust education, and Jewish-American history. According to the proposal, the “NEA will not use, endorse, or publicize any materials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), such as its curricular materials or its statistics…NEA will not participate in ADL programs or publicize ADL professional development offerings.” This vote will now head to the Executive Committee of the NEA for final approval.

This is an incredibly disconcerting development. While the ADL does not represent the views of the entire Jewish community, it has built widely respected anti-bias and Holocaust education curricula that are acclaimed for their effectiveness in progressive, centrist, and right-leaning spaces. Banning the ADL will eradicate a pillar of Jewish-American education and handicap the American Jewish community’s ability to fight rising antisemitism in schools.

We here at Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine joined 378 other Jewish organizations last week in a joint letter to the NEA’s Executive Committee, strongly urging them to veto this resolution. Along with our friends at the Jewish Federations of North America and Jewish Council for Public Affairs, we are closely monitoring this situation so we can best support Jewish parents and educators in Maine. You can read the communal letter with our organization’s name on it here, and learn more about the situation on Axios.

New Polish Plaques Deny Complicity With Nazis

When Jews gathered this week for the anniversary of a World War II massacre in the Polish town of Jedwabne, they saw a new installation—one that denied a historical consensus about the grievous events that unfolded there. At the same time, a far-right lawmaker interrupted the memorial gathering — and triggered a police investigation by calling the gas chambers at Auschwitz “fake.”

Thursday marked 84 years since the crimes in Jedwabne, a town of less than 2,000 people northeast of Warsaw. In 1941, local residents killed hundreds of their Jewish neighbors, most of them in a barn where they were burned alive. An official investigation by Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance confirmed in 2002 that the murder was carried out by Poles. But Jedwabne has become a flashpoint in Polish politics, with some far-right politicians claiming it was Germans who perpetrated the massacre and characterizing research on Polish complicity as part of an effort to slander their nation. Read more about this disturbing controversy at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Five Hebron Sheikhs Break Away from Palestinian Authority and Call for Peace With Israel

Five leading Hebron sheikhs, headed by Sheikh Wadee’ al‑Jaabari, have asked Israeli Economy Minister Nir Barkat to let Hebron break from the Palestinian Authority and form an “Emirate of Hebron” that would fully recognize Israel as the Jewish state and join the Abraham Accords. The clan leaders have pledged zero tolerance for terror and proposed a joint economic zone that could employ tens of thousands of Palestinians inside Israel. The initiative has drawn cautious interest in Jerusalem, underscoring mounting frustration with the Palestinian Authority among many West Bank Palestinians. If it moves forward, Hebron could become the first Palestinian‑led experiment in clan‑based self‑rule and economic partnership under the wider Abraham Accords umbrella.

Honoring the Legacy of Norman I. Godfrey

July 15, 2025

Honoring the Legacy of Norman I. Godfrey

A Note From the JCRC Director

July 9, 2025

Last month, the Jewish Community Alliance here in Portland, as well as another synagogue in Portland, received a letter. Its typewritten message was simple: “I will kill all at this location for Palestine for Russia.” It hurts to admit that I wasn’t surprised. Since I began my role a few months ago, there has been what feels like at times a firehose of Jew-hatred: on my very first day of work, a white nationalist emailed hundreds of staff members at Portland schools a vile article with racist drawings of Jews lifted straight from Nazi Germany. I have learned of Jewish children finding swastikas scribbled on their belongings at Southern Maine schools. I’ve corresponded with a Jewish woman who was told on a Portland bus that she “belonged in a cemetery” for wearing a Star of David. This isn’t just inflamed rhetoric. In the last two months, there have been two deadly terrorist attacks against the American Jewish community: a firebombing in Boulder, Colorado which killed an elderly Holocaust survivor, and a shooting at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, in which a gunman yelling “Free Palestine” shot and killed Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgram. The irony is that both Yaron and Sarah were peacemakers: Sarah volunteered at an advocacy group which trains young Palestinians and Israelis to work together, and Yaron worked at the Israeli embassy, with a focus on building bridges with the Arab world. Our CEO, Leslie Kirby, and I were at the very same Capital Jewish Museum last month for a conference. In a sad reminder of our new norm, we were told to hide our presence there—no posting, no pictures—until after the event had concluded. There at the museum where the makeshift sidewalk memorial to Yaron and Sarah still gathered fresh flowers, we bowed our heads for a long moment of silence. I looked up to see faces filled with glistening tears—people who knew Yaron and Sarah personally. With these events playing in my mind, I recently went to the synagogue in Portland which had also received a death threat letter. An armed guard greeted us at the door. Sitting there, I wished that modern antisemites could see the room. It was a beautiful, diverse gathering of people, simply thanking God for giving us the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, known to Christians as the Old Testament). We prayed for peace, we read from the Torah, we sang the songs of our ancestors. Grandparents, parents, children, babies. I wish that these Jew-haters could see the works of the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine, and all the good deeds it does in the community. Every day, I am awed by my coworkers at the JCA, who in the last year alone have distributed over 46,000 diapers, 11,000 menstrual pads, and 500 pairs of winter boots to Mainers in need; they’ve helped hundreds of refugees secure life-saving medical care, housing, and first jobs; they’ve created “Mitzvah Days” where Jewish volunteers package meals for the needy and clean up Maine trails; they lend our space out to diverse cultural groups, including hosting last month’s World Refugee Day. It is incredible what the people on our staff do on a daily basis. It is fully in line with the Jewish value of Tikkun Olam—the practice of repairing our broken world. And yet, there are groups that not only wish for Jewish death, but celebrate it. After the Capital Jewish Museum shooting, the DSA Liberation Caucus, which is a subgroup of the Democratic Socialists of America but does not speak for the organization as a whole, posted a picture of the shooter, Elias Rodriguez, with the words “Build the International Popular Cradle of Resistance!” underneath him. Their statement read: “Rodriguez’ targeted attack on two Israeli diplomatic staff on May 21, 2025 was a legitimate act of resistance…[his] act was fully justified.” They might as well have continued: slaughter anyone associated with Israel or Judaism, and you will be glorified. I have no doubt that were a terrible attack to happen to the Maine Jewish community, those same people would gleefully celebrate it. But we know this is absolutely not true of the Portland or Maine community at large. Just like we as a Jewish community condemn prejudice and hatred, just as we as a society can condemn racism and homophobia and Islamophobia, so too should we identify and condemn Jew-hatred—whether it emerges from bigots who wrongfully exploit the Palestinian cause to kill, threaten, or bully Jewish people, or from losers who drape themselves in the fetid symbols of Neo-Nazism. We very much look forward to tackling this issue of antisemitism together as a community. Please continue to read for an update of what we’ve done so far, and an invitation to join our work.

Dorothy Suzi Osher Obituary Announcement

July 3, 2025

The Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine (JCA) announced today that following the passing of Suzi Osher, a long-time Maine resident and philanthropist, on Saturday, June 28th, the organization will be receiving a transformative gift from an Alfred Osher trust. The gift, to be received in the newly-established Alfred and Dorothy Suzi Osher Charitable Fund, will be held in a new entity under the auspices of the JCA. The fund is to be used explicitly for Jewish education, Jewish social and welfare programs, and outreach programs to promote Jewish traditions and values. According to Leslie Kirby, the JCA’s Chief Executive Officer: “This gift, the largest donation in our organization’s history, will make possible incredible growth throughout our community and region. We are fortunate that Dr. and Mrs. Osher made their Estate intentions clear to the JCA in a way that allowed us to anticipate this transformational moment over the course of time. More information regarding the specifics of the bequest will be shared within the coming months.” This is not the first time the Oshers have extended their generosity to the JCA. Mrs. Osher was the lead benefactor of a 2015 capital campaign, which allowed the organization to build its state-of-the-art center on Congress Street in Portland. In gratitude, the facility, which opened in 2017, is known as the Alfred and Suzi Osher Campus of the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine. This gift is in furtherance of the spirit of philanthropy both within and beyond the Jewish community that animated the Oshers’ lifetime of giving. The couple’s philanthropic endeavors have benefited numerous educational and healthcare institutions, including Maine Medical Center, the Children’s Museum and Theatre of Maine, the YMCA, the Dr. Alfred and D. Suzi Osher School of Music at the University of Southern Maine, and Tufts Dental School. Long-standing JCA Board of Directors member Rachael Alfond has been selected by the board to chair the committee overseeing the formation and management of the Fund. “An opportunity like this only presents itself once in a lifetime,” Alfond said. “I am honored to carry on the legacy of the Oshers and their mitzvot - good deeds - that will have a ripple effect for generations.” Dr. Osher, who passed away in 1999, was an oral surgeon and orthodontist who practiced in Biddeford, Maine. Supporting their community was always top of mind. In Suzi’s words: “When I make a gift, I always follow it.” Suzi established the Dr. Alfred Osher and D. Suzi Osher Scholarship at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine to honor her late husband, a long-term clinical faculty member. Suzi Osher was the daughter of French-Canadian immigrants, who faced substantial hardships weathering the Depression as a child in Biddeford, Maine. Mrs. Osher learned to value education and hard work. “My first job was playing the piano at a local music store when I was just 10,” she once recalled. “At 15, I was working for the government Census Bureau.” After high school, she worked as a bookkeeper for Alfred Osher, a local oral surgeon. Several years later, she completed a course in anesthesiology at Boston City Hospital and began assisting with procedures. In 1962, Dr. Osher completed the Tufts postgraduate program in orthodontics and became the first board-certified orthodontist in Maine. After the couple married, Suzi Osher pursued her interests in business and fashion, opening a specialty clothing store in Biddeford, a venture she called “my real career.” Even as she managed her own successful business, she stayed involved in her husband’s growing dental practice. “We were one of those rare couples who enjoyed working together,” she said. The JCA is honored to have been chosen and entrusted with this ultimate act of generosity from the Oshers, and we look forward to facilitating its continued impact over the coming years. For more information about Mrs. Osher’s life and philanthropy, please read her official obituary . Rooted in Jewish values, history, and our connection to Israel, the JCA cultivates and sustains a welcoming and thriving Jewish community in Maine, and strives to build a better world for all. Formed in 2000, the JCA is the result of a merger of three institutions: the Jewish Community Center, the Jewish Federation of Southern Maine, and Jewish Family Services, which combined the programming and fundraising arms of the Jewish community.