Accusations of abusive work conditions put spotlight on N.J. religious center
Updated 10:15 AM;
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The mandir is a magnificent, intricately carved marble temple evocative of ancient India, set out on a sprawling campus planted incongruously in the farmlands of New Jersey.
With space for prayer, a dining hall, a youth center and a welcome center for the temple, it attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year. It has its own entry on TripAdvisor.
But earlier this week, the builders of the religious and community complex off Route 130 in Robbinsville Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, a major Hindu sect known as BAPS were accused in a lawsuit of using forced labor construct it, drawing the attention of federal investigators.
At least, not in the AP world.
This past week, the AP Stylebook made an official change to no longer use the term “anti-Semitism” or “anti-Semitism,” and to change it to “antisemitism.”
They have finally caught up with Microsoft Word, which long ago stopped red-lining “antisemitism.”
No one could accused AP of being avant-garde in this matter. Deborah Lipstadt’s recent book on the phenomenon made that change: Antisemitism Here and Now.
In May, 2020, in a speech at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, she said: “Why do I spell antisemitism without a hyphen? Because anti-Semitism is not hatred of Semitism or Semites – people who speak Semitic languages [Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic JKS note]. Antisemitism is Jew hatred..”
Asian Americans are victims of hate crimes since coronavirus outbreak. N.J. congressman Kim says action is needed.
Updated Feb 19, 2021;
Posted Feb 19, 2021
Rep. Andy Kim, surveying beach erosion with Mantaloking Mayor E. Laurence White on Feb. 12, 2021, said action was needed to stem the increase in attacks against Asian Americans.
Noah K. Murray for | NJ Advance
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The same message was delivered to a Asian American shopping at a Bergen County supermarket and one riding an Essex County bus: COVID-19 is your fault.
“They were the only Asian Americans in that setting and they were both verbally attacked and accused of being the cause of COVID’s rise,” recounted Jun Choi, a former mayor of Edison and chair of Jersey Promise, an advocacy group for Asian Americans in the state.
Khyati Joshi joins Religion News Service as new columnist
Religion News Service (RNS), thanks to a grant from the Guru Krupa Foundation, is pleased to announce that Dr. Khyati Y. Joshi has joined RNS as a columnist covering Hindus and Hinduism. Her first column focuses on Vice President Kamala Harris’ “embodied diversity” and how Harris and second gentleman Douglas Emhoff offer a model for interfaith families.
Joshi is a professor of education at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey and a social science researcher whose work focuses on the intersections of race and religion in the United States.
“I’m looking forward to writing about current events and emerging issues that illuminate how religion is lived in America. My writing will combine my scholarship with stories from the daily experiences and sensations of being neither White nor Christian in a country where both are normative,” said Professor Joshi
January 22, 2021
Kamala Harris is sworn in as U.S. Vice President as her spouse Doug Emhoff holds a bible during the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., January 20, 2021. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
“Ready to Serve” were the first words tweeted by the newly sworn-in Vice President Kamala Devi Harris, the first woman, the first Indian-American to become the second most powerful person in the United States, and by some accounts, in the world.
Emotional responses began popping up on social media when Harris raised her hand to repeat the pledge recited by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor Jan. 20, 2021, on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, to mark what is being characterized as a historic victory by women around the country, especially Black women (Harris is part Black as her father is originally from Jamaica).