nation / world
Detroit Church Father Coughlin Founded Hosts Jewish-Catholic
Relations Event
The National Shrine of the Little Flower — founded by notorious antisemite
Father Charles Coughlin — hosted on May 31 an event titled “The Jewish-
Catholic Relationship: Past, Present, and Future,” a series of historical lectures
co-sponsored by the Archdiocese of Detroit and the local Jewish Community
Relations Council, JTA reported.

Jews and Catholics alike filed into the pews in Royal Oak, Michigan, to hear
two academics, one Jewish and one Catholic, discuss the history of relations
between the two faiths, most of it revolving around Catholic antisemitism.

The choice of venue was deliberate.

“There’s so much polarization in our society, we need this reconciliation in gen-
eral,” Rabbi Asher Lopatin, executive director of the Detroit JCRC/AJC, told the
Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “What’s more powerful than for Jews and Catholics
to come together in Father Coughlin’s church?”
The pairing of organizations made for an interesting historical wrinkle: The
Detroit JCRC/AJC was originally founded in 1937, and one of its first orders of
business was to publicly oppose Coughlin’s broadcasts as antisemitic.

Meanwhile, the Archdiocese of Detroit supported and protected Coughlin for
the first decade of his broadcasting career, until 1937, when the death of the area’s
bishop, combined with Coughlin’s escalating bad press, led the Vatican to appoint
a new bishop who worked more aggressively to control the Radio Priest’s rhetoric.

Survey: Americans Not Paying Attention to BDS Movement
A Pew Research Center survey released on May 26 found that American adults
are just not paying attention to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement
against Israel, JTA reported.

A whopping 84% of adults surveyed said they have heard “not much” or “noth-
ing at all” about the movement, which seeks to pressure Israel into changing its
policy toward the Palestinians by promoting boycotts and economic sanctions.

Only 5% of the surveyed adults — who were of diverse religious backgrounds
— knew “some” about it, and only 2% strongly support it.

Pew used an online panel to survey 10,441 U.S. adults from March 7 to 13, with
the stated goal of better understanding Americans’ views of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. The margin of error for the full sample was 1.5 percentage points.

EV Sales Rise Sharply in Israel
In the first five months of 2022, 5.2% of all cars sold in Israel, or 6,900 cars,
were electric vehicles, compared to just 1.2% in the same period in 2021, Globes
reported. Globes said the EV market would have grown faster if there weren’t delivery
delays of Tesla cars because of COVID lockdowns in China.

Car industry sources said there is a backlog of more than 12,000 orders for EV,
which should comprise about 8% of new car sales.

Israel will increase by 10% its purchase tax on electric vehicles starting in
January. Those increases will apply to 2022 orders delayed beyond the end of 2022.

Aliyah from Ethiopia Resumes
After more than a year of delays, aliyah resumed from Ethiopia on June 1 with
181 immigrants arriving at Ben Gurion Airport, The Times of Israel reported.

Some of the immigrants had waited for decades to reunite with their families.

The flight was the first since March 2021.

Another 160 immigrants arrived the next day, with additional flights expected
in the coming months. The Israeli government approved last year bringing 3,000
new immigrants from war-torn Ethiopia. The Jewish Agency said they will all
arrive by November.

Since the covert Operation Solomon ended in 1991 — with the vast majority of
the Beta Israel community being brought to Israel, the government has sporadi-
cally decided to bring over those left behind. They often are referred to as Falash
Mura — converts to Christianity because of coercion or fears of persecution —
and not considered eligible for aliyah under the Law of Return. JE
— Compiled by Andy Gotlieb
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