Rigoberto Vinas

Every Shabbat for more than five years my congregation at the Lincoln Park Jewish Center of Yonkers has joined me in prayer for the release of Alan Gross. We are pleased to be able to wish him a Happy Chanukah on American soil after he languished in the hellish prisons of communist Cuba. For our congregation it was personal. Many of us, myself included, are Cuban Jews (“JuBans”) who understand the Cuban situation not only on an intellectual level, but also on a deeply personal one.

The Islamic State extremist group has executed 100 of its own foreign fighters who tried to flee their headquarters in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the Financial Times newspaper said Saturday. An activist opposed to both IS and the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who is well-known to the British business broadsheet, said he had “verified 100 executions” of foreign IS fighters trying to leave the jihadist group’s de facto capital.