Beth Schwartzapfel
By Beth Schwartzapfel
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Culture Israeli, Palestinian Students Talk ‘Face to Face’
Although Avi Gordis has lived in Jerusalem since he was 9, he had never had a conversation with a Palestinian until last year. “I was afraid of every Palestinian I saw,” Gordis, 17, told the Forward. That changed last summer, when the Face to Face/Faith to Faith Program brought Gordis together with Saleh Alzjary, a…
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News Judith Vladeck, 83, Formidable Labor Lawyer
A trailblazer in women’s rights, a formidable labor and anti-discrimination lawyer, and longtime general counsel of the Forward Association, Judith P. Vladeck died Monday at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York after a long struggle with cancer. She was 83. Vladeck was the daughter-in-law of B. Charney Vladeck, who was the Forward’s general manager…
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Culture Rembrandt Revised
As Jewish devotees of Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn are fond of noting, he lived and worked in Amsterdam’s Jewish quarter during the “Golden Age” of the 17th century. He painted dozens of portraits of Jews and had a relationship with at least one prominent Jewish figure — Rabbi Menasseh Ben Israel. As conventional wisdom…
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Israel News Boxer Bends Diet for Presidential Treats
Among the guests at the White House’s Hanukkah party were Jewish boxer Dmitry Salita and his trainer Jimmy O’Pharrow. “It was very exciting, a great holiday gift,” the undefeated, Odessa-born, New York-raised pugilist told the Shmooze. After an hour or two of drinking and mingling, Salita said, he and O’Pharrow were called into the separate…
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News Home for the Holidays
With the endless violence in the Middle East, it would be easy to say that my girlfriend, Shereen, and I — she is Muslim; I am Jewish — represent the potential for world peace. But of course, like the world, our story is a little more complicated than that. Shereen’s father, Ahmed, is from the…
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Israel News Handwriting Analyst: Jack The Ripper Not Jewish
Somehow, in the process of murdering, disemboweling and surgically removing the organs of five London prostitutes in the fall of 1888, the notorious Jack the Ripper found the time to write a letter, wrap it around a preserved kidney and mail it to the chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. “Sir,” it read, in smudged,…
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News Getting Goofy: New Takes on Holiday Tunes
It’s hard to keep a straight face when writing about a man who calls himself Danna Banana. And judging from the cover of his new CD, “Bananukah!” — on which the singer/songwriter (aka Dan Cohen) is pictured with a plastic Viking helmet, an armful of maracas, a foam-topped sledgehammer and a spatula — straight faces…
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News University To Begin Diversity Training
Michigan State University announced recently plans to offer a series of diversity training sessions for faculty and students, focusing on Islam-related subjects. The announcement came on the heels of an October 3 meeting between members of the university administration and the Muslim Student Union. The Muslim group, in concert with the Michigan chapter of the…
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