Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren blamed his own government for giving him an “incomplete” report recently that led to his giving leaders of Conservative Judaism an inaccurate account of one of their members’ detention at Jerusalem’s Western Wall. The woman, Nofrat Frenkel, was detained last November after she wore a tallit and carried a Torah in…
Steven Goldstein jokes that his office in suburban New Jersey is “like the Jewish Museum of Montclair.” A sage-looking rabbi peers down from a lithograph on one wall, and a print of Theodor Herzl hangs from another. There are a Hebrew movie poster and a mezuza. Goldstein, however, doesn’t work for a Jewish organization; he…
The recent arson attack on a Palestinian mosque brought international attention, and solidarity from unusual quarters, to this quiet West Bank farming community. But now that rabbinic visitors have dried up, and Israeli politicians are done condemning the incident, villagers fear that the crime will go unsolved, much like the crimes they say preceded the…
Jewish advocates for the elderly breathed a sigh of relief as both the Senate and the House of Representatives included a provision for creating a voluntary long-term care health insurance program in their respective versions of health care reform legislation. The Community Living Assistance Services and Support Act, known as the CLASS Act, has been…
FOOD ALLERGY INITIATIVE HONORS RESTAURANTEUR EMERIL LAGASSE AND OFFERS HOPE TO THOSE FATALLY ALLERGIC TO PEANUTS New Orleans was the motif for the Food Allergy Initiative’s December 7 ball, at which that city’s culinary master, Emeril Lagasse, was presented with FAI’s Lifetime Achievement Award by Four Seasons owner Julian Niccolini, who declared: “Nobody in this…
American Jews of a certain class and culture have the scene engraved in their memories: Woody Allen?s Alvy Singer in ?Annie Hall? at Annie?s goyish parents? house, suddenly seen through their eyes as a Hasid, in a long black coat and peyes. It?s a hilarious moment: Allen imagining how he is seen by non-Jews, giving…
I listen to music as an act of perceiving history. I am listening to hear the voices of ghosts from bygone days, who sang their songs before I was born. And when I sing the music of my own family?s past, I feel that I am receiving a surer transmission from the recesses of history…
Once upon a time, David Mamet picked up Abraham Cahan?s ?The Imported Bridegroom,? and in the course of perusing the book, he later wrote, ?I discovered in myself the racial type of the lapsed Talmudist.? The first time I read of Mamet?s discovery, in the preface to the playwright?s ?Writing in Restaurants,? I cheered. I…
The mission of any historical museum is to recuperate what might be lost or forgotten by posterity, and Paris?s Shoah Memorial, which bills itself as a ?research, information, and awareness-raising center,? succeeds brilliantly with a new exhibit about Romanian-French poet, critic and filmmaker Benjamin Fondane. An eponymous exhibit about Fondane, Benjamin Fondane, which opened on…
Samuel Sherman writes from Voorhees, N.J.: ?I?m curious about the name of Israel?s airline, El Al. As far as I know (which probably isn?t enough) el and al are both prepositions in Hebrew, meaning ?to,? and ?on,? ?above? or ?about,? respectively. How can one preposition be the object of another preposition? Can al be a…
Our Forward 50 issue identifies the people who we feel are interesting, influential and important in the Jewish world. But although it?s people who make culture, it?s what they make, not who they are, that matters. Below is a new annual feature, the Forward Fives, celebrating the cultural insights, experiences and productions of the past…
