In this week’s podcast, Forward editor Jane Eisner has a roundup of the stories in the March 3 issue of the Forward; Allison Gaudet Yarrow interviews Justin Taylor, author of the new story collection “Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever,” about secular Jewishness in the American South, and the American Jewish World Service’s Ruth…
OY! TO OLÉ! FRANTIC FRENCH BAR MITZVAH TO LADINO ROOTS AT SEPHARDI FILM FESTIVAL “By adding ‘Jewish’ to our title, we now get [more] media attention!” joshed American Sephardi Federation/Sephardic House President David Dangoor to the February 4 opening night crowd at New York’s Sephardic Jewish Film Festival, which ran until February 11. The evening’s…
As the Obama administration struggles to restart negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, a two-state solution remains the final goal, supported by governments in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Washington and Moscow. It enjoys at least lip service from everyone from Benjamin Netanyahu on the right to Noam Chomsky on the left. It is a term that has…
While the U.S. Senate is full of Jews (13 at last count), it boasts no alumni of the world of Jewish politics. That could change. According to recent reports, billionaire real estate mogul Mortimer Zuckerman, a prominent Jewish communal figure and veteran of the Jewish political scene, is considering a run for Senate in New…
With anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions efforts gaining visibility, the Jewish community’s main public-policy coordinating body is for the first time confronting the BDS movement as a specific and stated priority. At its recent annual plenum, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs passed a resolution stating that BDS should now “be regarded with the utmost…
Israel’s largest ultra-Orthodox political party is eliciting outrage from those to its right and a mix of anxiety and applause from those to its left after breaking a 113-year-old taboo and joining the Zionist establishment. Back in 1897, several leading ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, rabbis declared that it was prohibited for Orthodox Jews to get involved…
Israel’s influential Orthodox Zionists have divided into two camps following a sexual-abuse scandal involving one of their most renowned and charismatic leaders, stoking fears for the future of rabbinic authority. Takana, a rabbinic forum established in 2003 to clamp down on sexual misconduct by Orthodox educators, went public February 15 with allegations that Mordechai “Moti”…
I never cared much for vampires. Count Chocula cereal never swam in my bowl. Anne Rice novels eluded me, and I can’t look at blood without needing to lie down. The latest mania for the night creatures initially deterred me even more. But it’s undeniable that vampires are turning up in curious places: a bayou…
Starting Today, 100 Poems for Obama’s First 100 Days Edited by Rachel Zucker and Arielle Greenberg University of Iowa Press, 210 pages, $20.00. When President Kennedy uttered the now famous phrase “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country,” during his inaugural address, America took…
The United States is ramping up efforts to ensure that Israel does not surprise the world with a military attack on Iran as Washington extends its deadline for implementing stronger sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Washington’s clear but delayed shift toward sanctions and away from dialogue promises a period of uncertainty; American officials now say…
In this week’s podcast, Forward editor Jane Eisner has a roundup of the stories in the February 26 issue of the Forward; Nadja Spiegelman interviews filmmaker Nicole Opper on her new documentary about a young black woman raised by Jewish lesbian parents, and Allison Gaudet Yarrow speaks with author Hannah Seligson on the generation delaying…
