A disagreement between the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee about how communal dollars should be spent overseas is the topic of this week’s Forward Reporters’ Roundtable. Reporter Josh Nathan-Kazis moderates a conversation between Forward editor Jane Eisner and staff writer Gal Beckerman, both of whom recently reported on the…
The viral video defending Sholom Rubashkin is a sleekly produced three minutes. A young, clean-shaven actor sits in a chair, facing a camera. A dramatic score plays under his monologue, which relates a reasonable narrative. “Rubashkin’s gamble with the law is a no-no, and he should get punished,” the man says after describing how the…
It is the news Americans seldom encounter: a lead news brief about a U.S. Army captain convicted of theft in Iraq; a study showing an increase in child-abuse cases in America, and an otherwise unreported offer from Iran to help the United States contain the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The media outlet behind these…
A new group that includes some of Europe’s best-known pro-Israel intellectuals is calling for international pressure on Israel to foreswear Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Self-consciously styled after the dovish American pro-Israel lobby J Street, JCall has provoked the anger of Europe’s Jewish establishment in a phenomenon similar in some…
The age of great world’s fairs is supposed to be over, but no one told the Chinese. Ignoring the conventional wisdom that these grand global assemblages have been rendered obsolete in the era of the Internet and satellite communications, and that their six-month life spans make them an unconscionable financial waste, the Chinese have merely…
At Ruben, a new restaurant with a distinctly American Jewish flavor, there’s almost no need for a menu; the thick smell of pastrami is like a business card for the eatery’s unabashed focus on smoked meats. Patrons can choose among freshly sliced heaps of pastrami, turkey or a mix, placed between two thin slices of…
Israelis have just taken their annual national ride on an emotional rollercoaster. As per the yearly routine, on the morning of Memorial Day, or Yom HaZikaron, April 19, cemeteries across the country filled up for commemorative events, and the country ground to a halt for two minutes of silence to pay respect to fallen soldiers…
When Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel published an open letter in April arguing against pressuring Israel on the issue of Jerusalem, it was seen as a sign of just how severe tensions had become between the Obama administration and Israel’s government and its allies in the American Jewish community. What a difference a couple weeks make….
For veteran Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter, political races are a way of life. But at 80, the Jewish politician is facing a new kind of challenge. For the first time in decades, he is running on the Democratic side of the political map, trying to win a tough upcoming primary and a November race that…
Imagine a touchable world. That’s the Purell slogan, a slogan that has convinced legions of Americans, especially parents, that they cannot leave the house without a good-luck charm to ward off all evil. Er, without a small vial of anti-bacterial lotion. But in fact, it is easy to imagine a touchable world: We’re living in…
The phone rang, and I could hear the tears in my friend’s voice. She explained that she had complications during pregnancy and was hospitalized for an extended period. Her twins were delivered prematurely and would need to stay in the NICU indefinitely. She worried about her babies’ development both short and long-term. “Why are other…
נאָך איר מאַנס טויט אין 2003 האָט זי געהאָלפֿן אַרויסגעבן זײַן לעקסיקאָן פֿון די ייִדישע שרײַבער אין ראַטן־פֿאַרבאַנד.
