Agudath B'nai Israel

08/18/2026

Private Samuel A. Backer was killed in action in November of 1918 in the Meuse Argonne offensive. 108 years later, moving remarks were delivered by his great nephew, Hiday Biran, after the Latin Cross headstone gracing private Backer's grave was replaced by the Star of David at the Meuse Argonne Ame...

08/04/2026

𝟐𝟓𝟎𝐭𝐡 𝐀𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐩

Jewish War Veterans celebrate the Chaplain Corp, formed on this date in 1775, reportedly based on General Washington’s “𝑊𝑒 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑠” comment to staff. The Corps came together just six weeks after the Continental Army itself, and a year before there was a United States.

First limited to clergy “𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑎 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛,” later opened to other faiths during the civil War with President Lincoln’s appointment of Rabbi Jacob Frankel in 1862.

Today, some 3,000 chaplains representing a wide range of beliefs offer spiritual and emotional support to service members and their families across all the military branches.

Photo Caption: 29 October, 1944 Chaplain Rabbi Sidney Lefkowitz conducts the first Jewish services in Germany since the start of WW II surrounded by concrete “Dragon-Teeth” tank barriers on the Siegfried Line. [Photo: National Museum of American Jewish Military History]

07/12/2026

On the morning of July 10, 1941, in the small northeastern Polish town of Jedwabne, half of the town's population murdered the other half — roughly 1,600 men, women, and children. Early that day members of the German gestapo met with local town authorities and asked what should be done with the Jewish residents; the town's Poles, led by figures like the mayor and a local carpenter, insisted that all Jews be killed. Though the Germans issued the order, Polish residents — not German soldiers — carried out the actual killing, using brutal, improvised methods.

What followed was a day of extreme, sadistic violence carried out largely by local Polish neighbors rather than the German occupiers. Victims were badly beaten, forced to perform degrading acts of humiliation and made to dig graves for people just murdered before being killed and buried themselves. The violence culminated when the town's remaining Jews were marched into a barn, which was then set on fire, burning them alive while the town was sealed off so no one could escape.

05/29/2026

Most people know about Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe and Sephardic Jews from Spain. But there is a third world that almost no one talks about. 🕎
The Italkim — Italy's indigenous Jewish community — trace their roots to Jews who arrived in Rome before the destruction of the Second Temple. They were there before the Ashkenazi traditions formed. They were there before the Sephardic expulsion of 1492. They developed their own liturgy, their own cuisine, their own dialect of Judeo-Italian, and their own sacred calendar that belongs to no other Jewish world.
For over 2,000 years, they held their identity with quiet, extraordinary dignity: surviving Roman emperors, medieval popes, the Inquisition, and the Holocaust. And yet most people have never heard of them.
This is what Jewish diversity actually looks like: not two branches, but dozens. Each one a world unto itself, each one carrying something irreplaceable.
Which Jewish community's history surprises you most? Drop it in the comments. 👇

05/26/2026

we remember the U.S. Military Chaplain Rabbis memorialized at Chaplains Hill, Arlington Cemetery.
May their memories forever be a blessing. 

* Chaplain Capt. Nachman S. Arnoff
* Chaplain Lt. Col. Meir Engel
* Chaplain 1st Lt. Frank Goldenberg
* Chaplain 1st Lt. Alexander D. Goode
* Chaplain 1st Lt. Henry Goody
* Chaplain Capt. Joseph I. Hoenig
* Chaplain Maj. Samuel D. Hurwitz
* Chaplain 1st Lt. Herman L. Rosen
* Chaplain Capt. Solomon Rosen
* Chaplain Capt. Morton H. Singer
* Chaplain Capt. David M. Sobel
* Chaplain 1st Lt. Henry Tavel
* Chaplain Capt. Irving Tepper
* Chaplain 1st Lt. Louis Werfel

05/05/2026