Last Friday, my son’s class put on a show to celebrate their completion of kindergarten. The kids sang songs recalling all they had learned in school this year – complete with choreography and props. The evening was just wonderful! My husband and I and both sets of grandparents watched eagerly, kvelling with pride at Jeremy’s…
The deadly raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla in the Mediterranean Sea has left both Israel and Turkey searching for answers. Who fired the first shot on the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara, where the nine deaths occurred? What motivated some pro-Palestinian activists to attack the Israeli commandos who boarded that ship, when other commandos boarding other ships…
Minutes after Jewish boxer Yuri Foreman lost his super welterweight title to Miguel Cotto, making the Puerto Rican superstar the new world champion, a second fight erupted in the press room. In one corner were scores of reporters trying to make sense of the match’s wild eighth round, when a towel hurled into the ring…
When Random House chose this summer for the publication of Sasha Polakow-Suransky’s new book documenting, for the first time, the extent of Israel’s “secret relationship” with apartheid South Africa, it had the World Cup in mind. The sporting event would put South Africa in the spotlight and the book might benefit from the attention. They…
Four amot. That’s the distance that should separate plots for intermarried families from the rest of a Jewish cemetery, according to a new decision by Conservative Judaism’s rabbinical association. It’s roughly equivalent to about 6 feet, and for Andy Bachman, a Reform rabbi, that’s 6 feet too far. “What added insult to injury,” said Bachman,…
Supporters of former Agriprocessors executive Sholom Rubashkin are hailing his acquittal in Iowa state court of child labor charges, saying that the jury’s decision offers a measure of vindication for the embattled kosher slaughterhouse manager. Rubashkin, son of the founder of Agriprocessors and former chief manager at the company’s kosher meat plant in Postville, Iowa,…
Passions were flaring at the local Turkish Heritage Center. At a hastily organized meeting, participants — old and new Turkish immigrants to Israel and their descendents — debated in Hebrew and Turkish what, if anything, they could do to improve Israel’s plummeting image in Turkey. Some at the meeting said they gave interviews to the…
Overshadowed by the events of the Gaza-bound flotilla, the May 31 incident at Kalandia crossing near Ramallah went almost unnoticed. Little was reported on the injury of Emily Henochowicz, a 21-year-old American Jewish student who lost her left eye after being hit by a tear gas canister shot by Israeli soldiers during a pro-Palestinian protest….
Thanks to a new grant, the vibrant spirit of 14-year-old Victoria Confino, a Greek Sephardic Jew who immigrated to the United States in 1916, will continue to be a part of Manhattan’s Lower East Side Tenement Museum. A $500,000 grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation will help maintain the Confino Family Living History Program, including…
Most of us know what a macher (with the “ch,” as in Bach) is, but what do you call one in English? This question came to mind recently, in connection with the Holyland real estate scandal in Jerusalem, whose suspects include city mayor Uri Lupolianski and ex-prime minister Ehud Olmert. The key player in the…
The Forward has been honored with Deadline Club awards for excellence in reporting and in opinion writing for articles published in the Jewish national weekly newspaper in 2009. The awards, sponsored by the New York City chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, were announced during a banquet June 7 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Newspapers,…
