A week after Israel’s fatal raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla, which left nine dead, Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, appeared on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.” It was not an easy assignment. Stephen Colbert plays a satirical version of a right-wing television host who regularly and mercilessly mocks his guests. In introducing…
Florida’s Senate Democratic primary on August 24 is presenting residents of the mostly Jewish condominium communities of South Florida, and many other Floridians, with an unusually stark choice: a longtime Democrat who for some represents old politics, and a newcomer who brings to the race a fresh face, piles of cash and a Jewish mother…
On a recent afternoon, a group of puzzled Italian tourists gathered beneath a scaffold at the corner of Greenwich and Liberty streets as a light rain fell over Lower Manhattan. “We want to find a way just to see Ground Zero and we only have this site, and we were wondering, is there another place…
At lunchtime on a street corner on the west side of Manhattan, a spot not typically known for its cuisine, people with palates from East and West line the sidewalk for one thing — falafel. Customers at the Quick Stop truck, a “Moving Kosher Experience”, hungrily accept their large pita sandwiches stuffed to the brim…
A race in one of the country’s most heavily Jewish congressional districts is pitting an incumbent Jewish Democrat against a rising Republican star. Running in Florida’s 22nd district, Republican Allen West raised more money in the second quarter of 2010 than any other congressional challenger, according to Politico. West, a former Army lieutenant colonel who…
The New Israel Fund, the target of attacks by right-wing organizations accusing it of supporting anti-Zionist groups, is discussing the possibility of specifying in its guidelines that grants will be given only to groups that accept the idea of Israel as a Jewish homeland. The discussions have been taking place in recent months in Israel…
“Immigration is a very big and a difficult process,” said Yan Klats, sitting at the back of a classroom at the Hampton Synagogue surrounded by other young, Russian-speaking Jews. “Our parents came here in their 40s and 50s, and they had to deal with rejection and with learning a new language. We all went through…
In June 2006, the Supreme Court of Israel handed down one of the most important but barely publicized rulings in the history of the Jewish state. The decision to cancel the Law for the Privatization of Prisons halted a process that would have abdicated an unprecedented amount of state authority — that is, the correctional…
“I miss Gan Edna,” my three-year-old daughter told me this morning at breakfast. Gan Edna was the nursery school Hannah attended two years ago, but out of the blue, she decided she missed it. We spoke about it, and I assured her we could go back and visit it if she’d like. She loves her…
In this week’s Reporters’ Roundtable, staff writer Josh Nathan-Kazis speaks with Berlin-based Forward contributor A.J. Goldmann about Muslim leaders’ recent visit to two Nazi death camps. Then opinion editor Daniel Treiman joins Nathan-Kazis to discuss the Forward’s annual supplement on Jewish genetics. <strong>Subscribe to Forward podcasts on iTunes.</strong>
UJA-Federation Summerfest Concert Showcases Hall & Oates Welcoming a record 1,200 Long Islanders to the Theatre at Westbury on July 27 for UJA-Federation of New York’s 20th annual Summerfest Concert, Erik Gershwind, who, with his wife, Jackie, chaired the event, defined the organization’s ethos by citing Greek general and statesman Pericles: “What you leave…
