Benjamin Soskis
By Benjamin Soskis
-
Culture Judging Aharon
Last March, when the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists decided to give its 2007 Pursuit of Justice Award to Aharon Barak, the recently retired chief judge of the Israeli Supreme Court, they chose a surprising colleague to present the honor: Antonin Scalia. The ceremony was held in the august interior of the Supreme…
-
Culture The Capitol Gang
The recipe for a successful reality television series is relatively straightforward. Take a bunch of young, attractive coeds, cram them into a tight space and stoke their competitive instincts with a common challenge that demands both teamwork and individual distinction. Set up a camera, and voilá: instant drama, or, at least, a reasonable facsimile thereof….
-
News Romancing ‘Failed Sciences’
In 1665, among the many residents of England’s plague-ridden cities who fled to the less-contagious countryside were two men of science, one escaping from Cambridge and the other from London. The former, the young Isaac Newton, we know and revere. The latter, the elderly William Lilly, we do not. Some 30 years earlier, Lilly had…
-
News Falun Gong Suit Divides Capital
Last October, while then-Chinese president Jiang Zemin was visiting the United States, he received an unwelcome surprise. Practitioners of the spiritual movement known as Falun Gong, which was outlawed by the Chinese government in 1999, served his security detail with notice of a lawsuit filed against him in a Chicago federal court. The class-action suit…
-
News Parley Takes a Fresh Look at World’s Oldest ‘Demon’
There is often comfort in the familiar, even in a familiar evil. That is why in the analysis of antisemitism, the historical approach, the search for continuities, is often an emotionally and rhetorically conflicted one. Casting one’s eyes back on the past millennia of persecution offers a terrifying vista. But if such a perspective can…
-
News New Talk Radio Format: Minorities Spar With Chasids
When WWRL-AM (1600), one of the nation’s oldest black-owned and -operated radio stations, hosted an event last week at the Times Square Planet Hollywood to celebrate its new line-up, the buffet was laden with treyf Buffalo wings and hamburgers. But there was another table, too, stacked with glatt kosher meals. This was no catering snafu;…
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion It’s time for the pro-Palestinian movement to make a radical change
- 2
News Should synagogues remove the Israeli flag from bimahs now? How a New York shul made the decision
- 3
Opinion JD Vance just made a critical error in Israel — and time to curb Hamas is running short
- 4
Opinion The biggest impediment to peace between Israelis and Palestinians has little to do with Gaza
In Case You Missed It
-
Yiddish לזכר דעם שטילן העלד פֿון נעפּאַל, ביפּין דזשאָשיIn memory of the quiet hero from Nepal, Bipin Joshi
אויף די מאַניפֿעסטאַציעס דערמאָנט מען לרובֿ נישט זײַן אַקט פֿון מענטשלעכקייט און זײַן אוממענטשלעכן סוף.
-
Fast Forward ‘The church is asleep right now’: Ted Cruz calls on Christians to confront right-wing antisemitism
-
Fast Forward Trump nominee for Kuwait ambassador, grilled at confirmation hearing, loses support over Israel views
-
Looking Forward The best Shabbat I ever kept, or how to dodge the biggest World Series spoiler ever
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism