New London man faces drug, weapons charges in Mass. Jewish teens fight anti-Semitism in Germany

Dudley, Mass. (AP) — Several people have been arrested in Massachusetts with about 90 grams of crack cocaine.

Dudley police say they and the Southern Worcester County Drug and Counter Crime Task Force executed a search warrant in Dudley early Sunday morning and arrested four people.

A SWAT Team seized the cocaine, over $3,000 in cash and a loaded 9mm firearm.

Twenty-eight-yearold Benjamin Wilterdink, of Hampton, Conn., and 29-year-old Jamal Tillman of New London, Conn., were arrested on drug trafficking and firearm charges,

Forty-four-year-old Shawn Gliniecki of Dudley is charged with those charges and possession of a dangerous weapon.

Forty-four-year-old Sherri Wright of Brooklyn, Conn., is charged with drug trafficking charges.

All four suspects are being held on bail awaiting arraignment at Dudley District Court today.

It is not clear through electronic records if they have attorneys.

Luckau, Germany — Sophie Steiert opens a bag of kosher gummy bears and offers them to 20 other German teenagers seated around her in their high school classroom.

“They’re really yummy,” Steiert, 16, says with an enticing smile. “And by the way, does any one of you know what kosher means?”

The students shrug. Most of the 17-year-olds never have met a Jewish person. In school, they’ve only talked about dead Jews: the 6 million killed by the Nazis.

For years, the Jewish community in Germany relied on Holocaust survivors to be its ambassadors. Jews who made it through the horror were the ones with the moral authority to teach young Germans about the perils of anti-Semitism and the crimes of their forefathers.

But with the number of survivors dwindling and schoolchildren today at least three generations removed from the Nazis, young Jews like Steiert are being tapped to put a modern take on an old message.

More than talking about the crimes of the past, they have been encouraged as volunteers for a school outreach program to focus on Jewish life in Germany today. The program was launched amid fresh concerns about anti-Semitism in schools and on the streets of German cities.

Enter Steiert and her friend Laura Schulmann, two girls from Berlin who want to change perceptions and challenge stereotypes as their community’s 21st-century ambassadors.

Germany’s leading Jewish group, the Central Council of Jews, started the peer-to-peer education project last year. Both the program and the 90 Jewish teenagers recruited for it so far are called “likratinos,” which is based on the Hebrew word “likrat” and loosely translates as “moving toward each other.”

During a recent visit to Bohnstedt-Gymnasium high school in Luckau, a town south of Berlin, Sophie and Laura tried to approach the students’ lack of knowledge with easygoing openness.

One teen raised his hand and shared he had once seen Jews while vacationing in Austria. They were wearing black caftans, big hats and sidelocks, he said.

Laura explained that the people he saw were ultra-Orthodox Jews adhering to strictly observant practices.