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“She remembered who she was, and the game changed.” ~Lalah Delia

The scale. Those dreaded words and those dreaded numbers. It can strike fear in the heart of any generally happy human. We look at guidelines and BMI charts and always think, “It should be lower.”

Have you ever been having a perfectly good day and suddenly think, “Maybe I should weigh myself?” And just like that, your day is ruined.

How do we let a $20 bathroom scale dictate how we feel about ourselves?

I remember stepping on the scale and seeing numbers that somehow determined how I valued …

(RNS) — Barbara Steinmetz, an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor, was participating in a Boulder, Colorado, rally calling for the release of the Israeli hostages on June 1, 2025, when a man shouting “Free Palestine” hurled Molotov cocktails at the demonstrators. At least a dozen protesters were burned, Steinmetz among them, and another died of her injuries.  

Steinmetz had escaped the Holocaust. Her burns proved that she had not escaped antisemitism. 

In fact, while much has been written about the surge in antisemitic incidents in the United States following the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, the fact is, antisemitism is a long and too often forgotten part of American history.  

The USC Shoah Foundation, which is dedicated to collecting eyewitness accounts to the Holocaust and other genocides, has documented Americans’ experiences with antisemitism along the way.

Not long after World War II, Holocaust survivor Alice Silban tried to rent an apartment in Germantown, a Philadelphia neighborhood. When the rental agent learned that she was Jewish, he said: “We don’t rent to Jews.” She cried out: “Oh mein Gott, I knew somebody else who didn’t like Jews, and you know what (was) left from them: Ashes.”  The agent grabbed her by the collar and marched her out to the street and threw her into the gutter, she said. 

In the mid-1990s, Holocaust survivor Marion Adler was an insurance agent. When she went to meet a prospective client in Somerdale, New Jersey, he asked about her accent and religion. Hearing that she was a Jew, he tore up his application and shouted: “Hitler should have killed you and all the Jews.” He then called her manager at New York Life Insurance Company to ask how dare they hire Jews.

When Erin Schrode was just 25 and running for Congress in California’s second district in 2016, her Judaism also made her a target. She recalls one email, showing her face next to a yellow star, imprinted “Jude,” with the words: “Get out of my country, kike. Get back to Israel where you belong. That or the ovens, take your pick.” 

Antisemitism in America is not novel and dates all the way back to 1654, when 23 Jews arrived in New Amsterdam, and the governor, Peter Stuyvesant, tried to throw them out. Calling Jews “hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ,” he appealed to the colony’s owner, Amsterdam’s Dutch West India Company, to banish them. Surely, their enmity and “deceitful trading with Christians” merited expulsion. But even as his wish was not granted, Stuyvesant’s hostility foreshadowed the antisemitism Jews would bump into, from time to time, in America.  

America’s Jewish community remained small until, starting in the 1880s, poverty and pogroms drove more than 2 million Jews out of Russia and Poland. They came expecting better lives in this golden land, and many found them.   

Nevertheless, by the 1920s, their children and grandchildren learned that college and university quotas limited their educations, corporations and businesses boldly advertised that they hired only Christians, and housing ads announced, as those Holocaust survivors would later discover, no Jews allowed. Only after World War II would legislation, capped by the 1964 Civil Rights Act, make such educational, employment and housing discriminations illegal.    

Americans mostly ignore this history of our nation’s antisemitism. Instead, the Holocaust has become the framework for understanding the hatred of Jews and where it could lead. A seemingly never-ending stream of cultural productions — films, plays, books, museums, memorials and testimonies — have been produced. At least half the nation’s states mandate Holocaust education, although most teachers spend no more than two hours a year teaching it.  

From sundown April 13 through sundown April 14, Jews around the world will mark Yom Hashoah, the day the Jewish people have chosen to commemorate the catastrophe of the Holocaust. In their homes, Jews will light memorial candles in memory of the 6 million murdered. In their synagogues, they will gather for special services. In many places, like on my own university campus, students and faculty, no matter their faiths, will take turns reading out the names of the murdered and the places where they were killed.    

In today’s fraught moment, we can only hope these memorials remain peaceful and that they remind us of something we have been too slow to reckon with: the Holocaust did not happen here, but antisemitism did, and does. 

(Pamela S. Nadell is the author of “Antisemitism, an American Tradition.” She is the director of the Jewish studies program at American University in Washington, D.C. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

Lately I’ve tried to think more intentionally and carefully about how I expend my energy—almost like conducting an energy inventory of sorts. This reflection has made me pay more attention...

The post The Power of Friendship to Reveal Your Soul appeared first on BahaiTeachings.org.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S.-born Pope Leo XIV pushed back Monday on President Donald Trump’s broadside against him over the U.S.-Israel war in Iran, telling reporters that the Vatican’s appeals for peace and reconciliation are rooted in the Gospel, and that he doesn’t fear the Trump administration.

“To put my message on the same plane as what the president has attempted to do here, I think is not understanding what the message of the Gospel is,” Leo told The Associated Press aboard the papal plane en route to Algeria. “And I’m sorry to hear that but I will continue on what I believe is the mission of the church in the world today.”

History’s first U.S.-born pope stressed that he was not making a direct attack against Trump or anyone else with his general appeal for peace and criticisms of the “delusion of omnipotence” that is fueling the Iran wars and other conflicts around the world.

“I will not enter into debate. The things that I say are certainly not meant as attacks on anyone. The message of the Gospel is very clear: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’” Leo said.

“I will not shy away from announcing the message of the Gospel and inviting all people to look for ways of building bridges of peace and reconciliation, and looking for ways to avoid war any time that’s possible”

Speaking to other reporters, he added: “I’m not afraid of the Trump administration or of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel, which is what the Church works for.”

“We are not politicans. We do not look at foreign policy from the same perspective that he may have,” the pope said, adding, ”I will continue to speak out strongly against war, seeking to promote peace, promoting dialogue and multilateralism among states to find solutions to problems.

“Too many people are suffering today, too many innocent people have been killed, and I believe someone must stand up and say that there is a better way,” he said.

Trump says Leo is not ‘doing a very good job’

Trump delivered an extraordinary broadside against Leo on Sunday night, saying he didn’t think the U.S.-born global leader of the Catholic Church is “doing a very good job” and that “he’s a very liberal person,” while also suggesting the pontiff should “stop catering to the Radical Left.”

Flying back to Washington from Florida, Trump used a lengthy social media post to sharply criticize Leo, then kept it up after deplaning, in comments on the tarmac to reporters.

“I’m not a fan of Pope Leo,” he said.

Trump’s comments came after Leo suggested over the weekend that a “delusion of omnipotence” is fueling the U.S.-Israel war in Iran. While it’s not unusual for popes and presidents to be at cross purposes, it’s exceedingly rare for the pope to directly criticize a U.S. leader — and Trump’s stinging response is equally uncommon, if not more so.

“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” the president wrote in his post, adding, “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.”

Italian politicians across the spectrum showed their solidarity with Leo. Premier Giorgia Meloni sent a message of support for his peace mission while the leader of the main opposition party, Elly Schlein, was more direct, calling Trump’s attacks “extremely serious.”

Trump repeated that sentiment in comments to reporters, saying, “We don’t like a pope who says it’s OK to have a nuclear weapon.”

Later, Trump posted a picture suggesting he had saint-like powers akin to those of Jesus Christ. Wearing a biblical-style robe, Trump is seen laying hands on a bedridden man as light emanates from his fingers, while a soldier, a nurse, a praying woman and a bearded man in a baseball cap all look on admiringly. The sky above is filled with eagles, an American flag and vaporous images.

Leo’s opposition to war irked Trump

All of that came after Leo presided over an evening prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday, the same day the United States and Iran began face-to-face negotiations in Pakistan during a fragile ceasefire. The pope didn’t mention the United States or Trump by name, but his tone and message appeared directed at Trump and U.S. officials, who have boasted of U.S. military superiority and justified the war in religious terms.

Leo, who is on an 11-day trip to Africa starting Monday — has previously said that God “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.” He’s also referenced an Old Testament passage from Isaiah, saying that “even though you make many prayers, I will not listen — your hands are full of blood.”

Before the ceasefire, when Trump warned of mass strikes against Iranian power plants and other infrastructure and that “an entire civilization will die tonight,” Leo described such sentiments as “truly unacceptable.”

In his social media post on Sunday night, however, Trump went far beyond the war in Iran in criticizing Leo.

The president wrote, “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a Country that was sending massive amounts of Drugs into the United States.” That was a reference to the Trump administration having ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January.

“I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do,” Trump added, referencing his 2024 election victory.

He also suggested in the post that Leo only got his position “because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump.”

“If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican,” Trump wrote, adding, “Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician. It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church!”

In his subsequent comments to reporters, Trump remained highly critical, saying of Leo, “I don’t think he’s doing a very good job. He likes crime I guess” and adding, “He’s a very liberal person.”

Bishops say the pope is not a politician

Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement saying he was “disheartened” by Trump’s comments.

“Pope Leo is not his rival; nor is the Pope a politician. He is the Vicar of Christ who speaks from the truth of the Gospel and for the care of souls,” Coakley said.

The Italian Bishops’ Conference expressed regret over Trump’s words, and underlined that the pope “is not a political counterpart, but the successor of Peter, called to serve the Gospel, truth and peace.”

In the 2024 election, Trump won 55% of Catholic voters, according to AP VoteCast, an extensive survey of the electorate. But Trump’s administration also has close ties to conservative evangelical Protestant leaders and has claimed heavenly endorsement for the war on Iran.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth urged Americans to pray for victory “in the name of Jesus Christ.” And, when Trump was asked whether he thought God approved of the war, he said, “I do, because God is good — because God is good and God wants to see people taken care of.”

Winfield reported from aboard the papal plane.