By Nathan Guttman
Jewish Community Centers, known for their fitness facilities and child care services, are increasingly becoming the target of protesters taking issue with the artistic programs they offer. In Washington, a new grassroots organization is calling on the local federation to adopt guidelines that will withhold funding from the JCC if the center’s theater puts on plays that “denigrate Israel and undermine its legitimacy.”
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By Karen Loew
On a recent late-winter afternoon, the workers’ center on the second floor of a nondescript office building in New York City’s Chinatown was full and busy. Everyone had just eaten lunch; warm soup was welcome after picketing in the cold outside an offending restaurant, Saigon Grill on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. In the rear of the small office suite, with worn blue industrial carpet underfoot and inspirational posters bearing Mandarin Chinese writing on the walls, a circle of Saigon Grill’s delivery men discussed how to deal with what they called their employer’s latest affronts.
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By Karen Loew
Along the broad boulevards and dignified streets of the largely liberal, Jewish Upper West Side, sweatshops don’t seem to be sprouting. From Riverside Park to Lincoln Center, from Harry’s Shoes to Zabar’s, the neighborhood appears to be a civilized place where the days of residents, working folk and visitors unspool in familiar, reassuring rhythms.Read More
By Karen Loew
Garment industry sweatshops are hardly a thing of the past in New York City: They are a feature of commerce today. The New York State Department of Labor has found it necessary to maintain particular vigilance for several decades, founding the Apparel Industry Task Force in 1987 to monitor the city’s largest manufacturing sector. Today, that task force has a staff of 30, including multilingual investigators, who also comprise the Fair Wages Task Force. The chief of both units, Lorelei Salas, director of strategic enforcement, said that their missions overlap because “the same conditions you find in the garment industry, you can find in other low-wage industries.”Read More
By Nathan Guttman
From his all-American name to the clean cut of his smart, well-tailored suit, Indiana Democrat Andre Carson defies the stereotypes that many Americans may have of Muslims.
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By Mary Jane Fine
The weather is picture perfect at Digital Domain Park on this spring-training Sunday afternoon, but as every New Yorker knows, the overall picture for the Mets is far, far less than perfect.
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By Nathan Guttman
Amid a raging national debate over the federal budget, Jewish organizations are rallying to save projects that are dear to the community from the chopping block.Read More
By Cary Spivak
At Wisconsin’s Capitol building, in Madison, rabbis and other members of the state’s Jewish community have been a visible presence as protests have swelled in support of state and local public worker unions. But the community’s biggest and most politically influential bodies — its two federations and affiliated community relations councils — have been conspicuously silent.
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By Josh Nathan-Kazis
By the time the union was done with J.P. Stevens and Co., the boycott of the giant textile manufacturer had so penetrated the culture that the wives of Stevens executives, heading off to cocktail parties, would warn their husbands not to tell anyone where they worked.
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By Gal Beckerman
Think “Erin Brockovich” meets “Schindler’s List.” That’s the pitch for a new film in development by Sony Pictures that may star Oscar-winning actress Sandra Bullock. As improbable as it sounds, the movie will tell a suspenseful story about insurance companies and the Holocaust, an epic battle that led to one of the largest programs of Holocaust restitution.
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As First Maharats Graduate, Orthodox Women Leap Forward
Why a Rabbi Should Not Marry Outside the Faith
Why I Only Date Jewish Guys
Taking Aim at Corporate Jewish Burial Business
Barbra Streisand Visits Western Wall After Landing in Israel With Puppy
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