Rich Cohen often writes books about eccentric Jews: Brooklyn mobsters, World War II resistance fighters, and even his own family (he is the disinherited grandson of the inventor of Sweet ‘n’ Low). His latest book, “Israel Is Real” (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux) is what Cohen calls a love letter to the Jewish state. But the…
“The blood of my daughters was a price that saved others’ lives,” said Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish. One year later, the Gaza physician is trying to make sense of the deaths of his children, killed by Israeli missiles during Israel’s military campaign. The circumstances that brought on those missiles remain in dispute. But now, Abuelaish, whose…
The search for a successor to Jehuda Reinharz, president of Brandeis University, is under way, but moving at a pace too slow for some. At the same time, Reinharz is fending off accusations stemming from the serious financial challenges now facing the school. Reinharz announced his resignation last September, promising that he would stay until…
Like a couple that just can’t get along, even when they agree, Washington and Jerusalem have spent early January locked in squabbles. Beneath the media radar, the America-Israel strategic relationship is flourishing after running into problems at the end of President George W. Bush’s tenure, according to Israel’s Washington ambassador, Michael Oren. Yet, relations between…
Acts of civil disobedience are among the strategies that the Reform movement is weighing as it mulls how best to advocate for religious pluralism in Israel, particularly at Jerusalem’s Western Wall — the site of recent confrontations between women worshipping as a prayer group, the Orthodox rabbis who control access to the wall and the…
Observant Jews are voicing concerns over modesty and looking for compromise on the Transportation Security Administration’s plan to expand the use of whole-body imaging machines for airport security, after last month’s failed attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound jetliner. Leaders in both Conservative and Orthodox communities are debating how scanners with the ability to see through…
Richard Blumenthal, long known as one of the nation’s most active state attorney generals, stands a good shot of becoming the Senate’s 14th Jewish member with the surprise announcement by Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd not to run for re-election this year. Blumenthal, 63, declared his intent to run for the seat January 6, the same…
When Tzemah Yoreh opens his prayer book, he recites the following passage: “I will pour out my heart. But to whom? Why, oh why, do you not exist, my God?” You can’t find those words in any synagogue’s siddur — at least not yet. Yoreh prays from “Liturgical Experiments: A Siddur for the Skeptical,” the…
With his foot up in bed after surgery for a broken ankle, Rabbi Avraham Kivelevitz, a teacher at SAR High School in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, contemplated how to reach students taking his senior elective Kabbalah course. It was the start of the school year, and the plethora of English texts attempting to…
A KIMONO-WEARING CANTOR IN NEW YORK GILBERT & SULLIVAN’S PLAYERS’ MIKADO When the operetta “The Mikado” made its 1885 London debut at the Savoy Theatre, its creators — lyricist William Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan — could not have imagined that in 2010, in New York City, the cast would include a Jewish cantor (a…
A son-in-law of Sholom Rubashkin, the kosher meat mogul convicted of financial fraud in November, has pleaded guilty to child endangerment in a case related to the sexual molestation of a 13-year-old boy at a mikveh. Under a plea bargain agreement, he faces up to 60 days in jail. Under oath, Rabbi Yaakov Weiss admitted…
געוויסע עקספּערטן האַלטן, אַז מע דאַרף באַטראַכטן ל״ג־בעומר ווי אַ פֿרילינגדיקן מײַ־פֿעסטיוואַל
