Nathan Guttman, staff writer, was the Forward’s Washington bureau chief. He joined the staff in 2006 after serving for five years as Washington correspondent for the Israeli dailies Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post. In Israel, he was the features editor for Ha’aretz and chief editor of Channel 1 TV evening news. He was born in Canada and grew up in Israel. He is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
When Marc Ginsberg heard recently that the settler group Ateret Cohanim had taken possession of two properties in East Jerusalem and evicted its Palestinian tenants, the former Clinton administration official saw it as one more sign of a crucial flaw in… U.S. tax policy. As it turns out, American donors receive tax breaks to fund…
When a storm wreaked havoc on East Coast air travel last winter, among the thousands of travelers stranded were several dozen Israeli-American teens from Washington and Philadelphia. But these youths, who were en route to the annual meeting of the Tzofim, the Israeli scouts, were luckier than the many others forced to mill about air…
With all the media attention directed at the expression “chickenshit” used by anonymous senior administration officials to describe Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, some of the other insults contained in the Jeffrey Goldberg’s report went almost unnoticed. “Over the years, Obama administration officials have described Netanyahu to me as recalcitrant, myopic, reactionary, obtuse, blustering, pompous,…
There is no playbook guiding Modern Orthodox congregations on what to do when their rabbi is accused of abusing congregants and of violating their privacy at the most holy and intimate of moments. But when the venerable Washington congregation Kesher Israel got the news on October 14 that its spiritual leader of more than 26…
The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II scarred American history for years to come. Now, a new research paper argues that Palestinians share a similar traumatic experience. Pointing to a barely discussed chapter in the history of Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, the paper highlights a time when the fledgling Jewish state interned…
Washington’s Kesher Israel is emerging today from a long four-day stretch of holiday and Shabbat, back to dealing with the reality of news about the synagogue’s rabbi, Barry Freundel, who was arrested on voyeurism charges after allegedly peeping on women at the mikveh. For Orthodox members of the synagogue, it has been a forced, but…
It was the early Jewish nationalist Nathan Birnbaum who coined the term “Zionism” in 1890 to describe the movement to establish a secular Jewish state in Palestine. The idea’s essence was defined in the very name of the journal he published to advance the cause: “Self-Emancipation!” But now, the largest evangelical Christian group supporting Israel…
A young woman jogging down O Street Thursday night slowed down as she passed by Kesher Israel synagogue, in the heart of Georgetown. “My father used to go here,” she told a group of congregants standing outside, before entering services on the eve of Simchat Torah. “I just wanted to tell you to be strong.”…
צוליב דעם וואָס ס׳רובֿ פּאַריזער אַשכּנזים שטאַמען פֿון פּוילן, קומט די ליטוויש־ייִדישע קולטור נישט אָפֿט צו רייד
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