Is newly-elected congresswoman Dr. Nan Hayworth Jewish? The question has tripped up and puzzled politicos ever since this Republican/Tea Party ophthalmologist won a suburban New York City seat in Congress. Come January, Hayworth will be representative of New York’s District 19, an area that includes parts of Westchester, Orange and Rockland Counties — and Kiryas…
Author Dan Senor’s Election Reality Check on the Menu at UJA-Federation’s Lion of Judah Luncheon “Who [in this room] is a Holocaust survivor? Who was helped by NYANA [UJA-Federation’s New York Association for New Americans]? Who sent their kids to a Jewish camp? Stand up!” said Judy Baum, event chair at the October 26 UJA-Federation…
Last Sunday, my husband went to a franchise expo and returned with various nick-nacks for the kids. He gave my six-year-old son a pad and pen that he’d picked up. Jeremy was delighted and immediately started writing a story about our recent trip to Israel on the pad. At first he asked me how to…
The day I arrive in Munich is dismal and gray. One of the jewels in Germany’s crown, the Bavarian capital does not impress on a day like this. Rather, the Glockenspiel at Marienplatz, and the elegant shopping boulevard Maximilianstrasse seem dull and lifeless. Inside, the beer halls are bustling. No wonder — they are the…
At this year’s General Assembly of The Jewish Federations of North America, young Jews took to the streets of New Orleans to work on social service projects. They heard Jewish leaders exhort them about the dangers of the “delegitimization” of Israel. And some young Jews were ejected from the gathering when they stood up in…
Robert D. Putnam is one of those Harvard University professors respected for his scholarly research and celebrated for the masterful way he connects it to the narrative of modern life. When he wrote that Americans were “bowling alone” — and therefore no longer building up “social capital,” the trust, informal networks and energetic communities necessary…
Israel is poised to enshrine in law the right of some villages to handpick residents, following the advance of legislation that some decry as carte blanche for ethnic discrimination. The Knesset Law Committee has approved a bill that protects the right of communal villages of 500 or fewer families to select residents by using the…
For a Jewish Democratic congressman who has been a staunch ally of Israel, it was a troubling sign. A few days before the Republican tsunami crashed ashore in South Florida’s coastal Congressional District 22, the National Jewish Democratic Council felt the need to buy newspaper advertisements on consecutive days, reassuring Jewish voters that Rep. Ron…
The rebbe loomed large. His face looked down on the crowd from the oversize television screens around the room, and his voice boomed. He sang a traditional Hasidic chant. In rhythmic unison, 4,000 of his rabbis repeated the melody. They were sitting in a Brooklyn banquet hall, one of the largest rooms in New York’s…
After attending Jewish overnight camp for five summers and graduating from eighth grade at a Jewish day school, Caleb Bloomfield was ready for a break. The 18-year-old Brooklynite, now a public high school senior at The Beacon School, in Manhattan, wasn’t interested in going to his Conservative synagogue’s Hebrew high school program, or services, or…
Nearly a decade ago, when the Kadima Reconstructionist Community, in Seattle, was looking for a Torah to purchase for its congregation, it decided to have one written by a woman. This seemed like a reasonable request to the members of the small congregation, who knew female rabbis, female cantors, even female mohels. Women around them…
