Judge Kimba Wood Shows Her Cultural Sensitivity — and Feminism
By Debra Nussbaum Cohen November 22, 2010
You’ve got to love a lawyer who writes a note — laden in Yiddish and as footnoted as any legal brief — to the judge presiding over his client’s case, touting the forthcoming birth of the lawyer’s grandchild and asking for a recess from the trial so that he can be at the bris if said grandchild is a boy.
And you’ve got to love a judge —in this case federal Judge Kimba Wood of the Southern District Court of New York, who appears not to be Jewish — who responds not only with permission, but also with a desire to “balance the scales” and decides that “if a daughter is born, there will be a public celebration in Court, with readings from poetry celebrating girls and women.”
It turns out that not only is the lawyer, Bennett Epstein, about to become a zeyde. According to this blog post on the website Israel Insider, he’s also devoted to the Jewish state.
(tichel tip: Jeffrey Goldberg.)
Why I became the Forward’s Editor-in-Chief
- Alyssa Katz, Editor-in-Chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
