The Tea Party and the Talmud … do those things really belong in the same sentence? At a recent seminar sponsored by the Institute of American and Talmudic Law — a Manhattan provider of continuing legal education courses for lawyers — two Jewish scholars explored the Tea Party movement, the law, and the principles that…
When Réka Bodó was 13, she presented her mother with a choice. A rabbi had offered Bodó a bat mitzvah at a Jewish summer camp in Hungary. She told her mother that she could either have the ceremony there or in the city of Budapest, where her mother would be able to attend. Although Bodó’s…
“Everything looks worse in black and white.” – a lyric from “Kodachrome” by Paul Simon The last picture ever to be developed with Kodachrome film was processed on December 30 at the lone lab still handling the film — Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kan. A year after Kodak announced that it was retiring Kodachrome film…
In the final Reporters’ Roundtable of 2010, staffers discuss the Forward’s picks for the best Jewish fiction, non-fiction, movies, music and exhibitions of the year. Arts editor Dan Friedman, arts fellow Ezra Glinter and staff writer Gal Beckerman join host Josh Nathan-Kazis. View the staff picks, known as the Forward Fives here Subscribe to Forward…
For the first time, a Human Rights Watch report on the West Bank is calling on businesses to withdraw from there if they find themselves part of what the study describes as a “two-tier system of laws, rules and services” that favors Jewish settlers at the expense of Palestinians. This is a new move for…
Will the law allow return, Korrie Xavier wonders, for gay former military service members like her, who left the service only because they had to? Just five years after her bat mitzvah, Xavier joined the Navy as a seaman recruit. She was trained to maintain and fire weapons systems on the USS Boxer, an amphibious…
On a bed in his tiny shared apartment in Tel Aviv, Mekonen Kefete bares his right leg to illustrate the story of his journey to Israel. It is dotted with dark black marks where red-hot iron bars were cruelly poked into his skin. Kefete, 26, fled his native Eritrea a little more than a year…
Renaming a street in a tiny French village should have been of no consequence to anyone other than its inhabitants. But when the municipal council of Tremblois-lès-Carignan (population 115) in the Ardennes region voted to change the name of Rue Pétain to Rue de Belle-Croix, it marked the end of an era. Theirs was the…
Early one morning in the late 1940s, an elderly Ethiopian Jew stood with his young grandson at the top of a small mountain, waiting for sunrise. As the sun broke over the horizon, the old man, pointing toward the sun, said, “Remember, this is the way to Jerusalem.” That young boy was Baruch Tegegne, who…
Judging by a flurry of recent declarations, it is likely that early 2011 will see growing demands from the international community for Egypt to take action to halt the abduction, abuse and trafficking of Africans on its territory in Sinai. But some experts strongly doubt that Egypt will pay much attention. “In general, the Egyptians…
A tug-of-war is taking place over the government’s attempt to impose a core curriculum in ultra-Orthodox elementary and high schools, and it’s not just about education. It cuts to the heart of a bitter conflict within Israeli society on the issue of authority. Israel’s Education Ministry has launched a zero-tolerance policy aimed at Haredi schools…
