The dilapidated former Burlington Coat Factory on Manhattan’s Park Place seems an unlikely locus for a controversy that has swept up prominent national Republicans, political candidates, Jewish leaders, and New York City’s mayor. Through a glass door decorated with a bumper sticker reading “U.S.A.,” one can see a quiet, makeshift Muslim prayer space. Security guards…
‘You! You look great! Let’s take a picture! We all still look the same!” Really? Thirty or 40 years after they last met as spades-addicted teens, and they still look the same? Well, maybe they do — to each other. Maybe all it takes is meeting up again at the same bungalow colony and seeing…
I spent most of the day yesterday on Orchard Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Not literally. I was reading Jane Ziegelman’s new book, 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement. I wanted to know what they ate in the days before Crisco, Cool Whip, corn…
This week on the Forward Reporters’ Roundtable, news editor Larry Cohler-Esses speaks with staff writer Gal Beckerman and associate web producer Nadja Spiegelman about Orthodox Judaism’s recent attempts to address the issue of homosexuality. The panel also weighs in on a recent “rape-by-deception” case out of Israel. <strong>Subscribe to Forward podcasts on iTunes</strong>
This week, my kids started Camp Mommy. They’re done with camp until the beginning of the school year, so we call the rest of the summer “Camp Mommy.” Camp Mommy means play dates and day trips. It also means getting anything accomplished is nearly impossible. It means I’m exhausted, but it also means that I…
Congressman Steve Cohen was the first to pass a resolution apologizing for black slavery; He frequently joins African-American voters in his district in dancing and singing; Cohen even asked to become a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, a request that was denied due to the group’s policy of accepting only black lawmakers. But still,…
On a single week in late July, a major flashpoint in the internal culture wars of the Orthodox world erupted in two unrelated but connected incidents. The issue was homosexuality. A group of nearly 90 Orthodox rabbis chose July 22 to release their “Statement of Principles on the Place of Jews With a Homosexual Orientation…
At the Eucalyptus, a restaurant just outside Jerusalem’s Old City walls, 250 Orthodox Jews gathered in late July to learn Talmud and to discover what meat-and-milk tastes like. The meat had been marinating in milk for, well, almost a lifetime. The dish was udder of cow, which, as the many rabbis in attendance pointed out,…
The restaurant and dance club Selam has all the hallmarks of an inspiring Israeli success story. Selam is owned and operated by Yaacov, an Eritrean refugee who trekked across the Sinai desert and risked his life to reach the Jewish state. Now in the country three years, Yaacov — who would give only his first…
What’s in a name? Lately, that age-old question has become a burning issue for leaders of Conservative Judaism. Once the largest of American Judaism’s denominational streams, the movement today, though still significant, faces declining membership, financial difficulties and confusion about what it stands for. The confusion is in part a result of lost distinctions as…
Feminist groups in Israel find themselves divided over a recent court ruling on rape that liberal groups condemn as tainted with racism. In the July 19 ruling, a married Arab father of two was found guilty of “rape-by-deception” for having sexual intercourse with a Jewish woman after introducing himself as a Jewish bachelor. He was…
