A government-funded video made by one of New York’s largest Orthodox social service agencies — touted as its guide for dealing with child sexual abuse — makes no mention of abuse as a crime to be reported to police. Critics say the video raises questions about Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services, which is heavily…
Looking for a Jewish cookbook with a recipe for lobster canapés? Then Roberta Saltzman is your woman. Or how about the Sinai Temple Sisterhood’s old cookbook from Marion, Ind., with its offering of venison with sour cream? Or stuffed bangus, a (kosher) fish from the Philippines used for a Filipino variation on gefilte fish and…
Asked how he and his wife managed to cope as they approach the three-year anniversary of their son’s kidnapping by Hamas, Noam Shalit was characteristically blunt. “We don’t,” he said, his arms tightly crossed and his expression stony. “You cannot get used to this situation. It’s a continuous nightmare.” Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, now 22,…
Recent controversies about labor issues in the Jewish community have often become battles between non-Orthodox and Orthodox Jews. At the Congress Plaza Hotel in Chicago, this paradigm seems to hold, with rabbis from more liberal denominations protesting the Orthodox Jewish owners of the hotel. But in Chicago, the standard mold is broken by Rabbi Asher…
Four men suspected of terrorist activities. Four men arrested, caught in the very act. On the surface, it seemed like a seamless maneuver, a textbook exercise in counterterrorism that nabbed four Newburghß, N.Y. men suspected of plotting to blow up two synagogues in the Riverdale section of the Bronx and shoot down military planes. But…
Of all the rabbis ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary on May 21, few have journeys to the rabbinate quite as unlikely as Juan Mejia. Raised as a Catholic in Colombia and educated at Christian schools, Mejia was on his way to becoming a monk when he discovered as a teenager that his family had…
It was clear that something unusual was going on in the Orthodox-only village of Nof Ayalon, in central Israel, when residents spotted a bikini-clad teenager strutting her stuff. Nof Ayalon, near Modi’in and not far from the Green Line, very much bears the imprint of its founders. It was set up in the mid-1990s by…
MILTON GLASER — A MANY-SPLENDORED GRAPHIC DESIGNER WHO LIVES TO CREATE During the question-and-answer session following the May 14 premiere of Wendy Keys’s film “Milton Glaser: To Inform and Delight” — about the graphic designer extraordinaire — author and critic Steven Heller, co-chair of the School of Visual Arts MFA Design Department, blurted out to…
NEWS ITEM: Israel’s deputy health minister, at a press conference dealing with the influenza problem, scrupulously avoided using the phrase “swine flu.” Ultra-Orthodox, he apparently regarded that expression as non-kosher and thus unfit for utterance; instead, he stuck to “Mexican flu.” We must confront, we can’t eschew The current epidemic, flu, An illness which the…
There is a cheesecake sitting in my (boyfriend’s) refrigerator right now. At some point late last week I got it in my head that with Shavuot just around the corner I should make a cheesecake. Since I’m doing a time-share with my boyfriend’s kitchen, permission had to be granted by the relevant roommates, which was…
As Israel continues to proclaim its readiness to launch a military attack on Iran should American diplomacy fail to stop Tehran’s drive for nuclear capabilities, an increasing number of analysts and some political leaders are publicly questioning Jerusalem’s confident portrayal of its chance for military success. Their concerns, based on sober analyses of Israel’s known…
