Jacob Victor
By Jacob Victor
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Culture Ashkenazim Prove Central in Pancreatic Cancer Study
Pancreatic cancer, an often fatal disorder affecting about 1% of the American population, is not usually considered a “Jewish” genetic disease, but researchers at the National Familial Pancreas Tumor Registry at Johns Hopkins University would beg to differ. The NFPTR operates a special sub-registry to specifically track pancreatic cancer patients and their relatives among the…
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Culture Two New Gaucher Meds on Horizon
Two new oral treatments for Gaucher disease, the most common of the Jewish genetic diseases, have reached Phase II clinical trials and could be on the market within the next few years. Two pharmaceutical companies, Genzyme and Amicus Therapeutics, are each developing their own oral drugs and have taken very different approaches to tackling the…
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News Orthodox Pols’ Meeting Raises Ire in N.J.
A photograph that appeared in a local newspaper last month, depicting a meeting of mostly Orthodox New Jersey politicians, has sparked controversy in the suburb of Teaneck, heightening existing tensions between the Orthodox and non-Orthodox communities in the town of 39,000. The New Jersey suburbs have, in recent years, become a breeding ground for strife…
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Culture Hands-On Workshops Spice Up Classes
Every year, nursery school students at the Hebrew Academy of Morris County, a community day school in Randolph, N.J., put down their pencils and crayons and spend a few hours learning about Judaism in a more unusual way. Sometimes, they dive into bowls of flour and water and make homemade matzo, and other times they…
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News Sherwin Wine, Founder of Humanistic Judaism
Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine, a writer, scholar and community leader who founded the first congregation of Humanistic Judaism, died Saturday. He was 79. Wine was killed in an automobile accident while on vacation in Essaouira, Morocco. He and his partner, Richard McMains, were traveling back to their hotel when a car hit their taxi. The…
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News Activists Up Efforts To Cut Circumcision Out of Bris Ritual
A few months before his son was born, Thomas Wolfe of Wheeling, W.Va., consulted the rabbi of his Reform congregation to discuss plans for the baby’s circumcision. “I had the perception that a circumcision was just an innocuous procedure, with no risk,” he later told the Forward. After the rabbi had recommended that Wolfe find…
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News Moshe Decter, 85, Activist for Soviet Jewry
Moshe Decter, an activist and writer who was instrumental in raising world awareness about the plight of Soviet Jewry in the 1960s, died July 5 of congestive heart failure. He was 85. Decter was one of the first to begin writing publicly about the persecution of Jews in the Soviet Union. With funding from a…
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Israel News ‘Martyred’ Mouse Gets the Ax
The latest victim of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an oversized tuxedo-wearing mouse whose favorite pastimes included teaching basic reading, playing with his friends and trying to bring about a worldwide Islamist revolution. Farfur, the creepy Mickey Mouse look-alike that is the star of the Palestinian children’s program “Tomorrow’s Pioneers,” was killed off during the show’s…
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Culture Why saying ‘L’shana Tova’ on Rosh Hashanah may not be the correct phrase
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Culture You can buy Sukkot gift boxes that say ‘tuchus’ on Amazon
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Culture Hitler is trending on TikTok again — and they’re trying to make him seem like a nice guy
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Film & TV Netflix finally gave Jews our Hot Rabbi. Too bad every other Jew in the show sucks
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