The New York Times recently published its roundup of the year’s Best Illustrated Children’s Books, and I had to laugh: Some of them are the literary equivalent of liver wrapped in spinach and seasoned with mortgages and Xanax. In other words, they have zero appeal to actual children. Somber hyperrealist paintings, delicately austere collages, sleek…
The collapse of the investment firm of Bernard Madoff has opened a black hole at the center of the tight knit circles of wealthy Jews who socialize and do business together, and who, year after year, support Jewish causes. Madoff, who stands accused of running a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, served on the board of Yeshiva…
Among the slew of Holocaust and Holocaust-related films opening this holiday season comes “Defiance,” based on Nechama Tec’s book about the remarkable true story of the Bielski brothers, Jewish partisans who safeguarded the lives of some 1,200 Jews in the Naliboki forest in Belorussia (Belarus) for more than two years during the war. The Forward’s…
The arrest of Wall Street trader Bernard L. Madoff, who federal agents say defrauded investors of an estimated $50 billion, has had immediate consequences in the Jewish philanthropic world. One charity already closed and insiders are worried that the ramifications of Madoff’s financial demise may extend to the many organizations he supported and the wealthy…
DYNAMIC DUDAMEL CONDUCTS THE ISRAEL PHILHARMONIC AT CARNEGIE HALL “The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra will continue to make beautiful music… and seek peace,” Lily Safra told the American Friends of the IPO audience at the November 17 Celebration of Israel’s 60th Anniversary concert, held at Carnegie Hall. “To chair such an event in the United States……
NEWS ITEM: In a televised report entitled “Sacred Vows, Secret Affairs,” CBS News uncovered a surprising degree of sexual immorality in New York’s ultra-Orthodox community, a group famously known for high standards of righteous behavior. Cited as one causative factor was the prevalence of pre-arranged marriage, causing unhappy spouses to seek fulfillment elsewhere. Ingesting too…
Jerusalem — To the Jewish West Bank settlers who attacked Palestinian people and property in Hebron this month, it was Operation Price Tag — an attempt to increase the price to the Israeli government of evacuating them from ground they view as sacred. To the prime minister of Israel, it was a “pogrom.” For all…
Shortly before the kosher meat company Agriprocessors declared bankruptcy this fall, Aaron Rubashkin, the 82-year-old owner of the company, stood under the fluorescent lights of his Brooklyn store and spoke about what it was like to watch the collapse of the company that he created in Boro Park and expanded first to Postville, Iowa, then…
San Francisco — In an early scene in “Milk” — the new biopic starring Sean Penn as slain gay activist and San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk — Milk, a proud new shop owner in the city’s Castro district, seeks to join his neighborhood business association. He initially gives assurances to a skeptical association leader,…
Hebron, West Bank — An innocent Palestinian family, numbering close to 20 people, in their home — all women and children, save for three men. Surrounding them, a few dozen masked Jews seeking to lynch them. A pogrom. This isn’t a play on words or a double meaning. It is a pogrom in the worst…
While major Jewish groups have publicly condemned the violence perpetrated by West Bank settlers against Israeli security forces and Palestinians in Hebron this month, the main voice of American Jewry has remained silent. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, an umbrella body of 51 Jewish groups, has not issued a statement about…
באַזונדערש רירנדיק דאָ זײַנען די בילדער פֿון משפּחה־רײַבונגען, פֿון באַגעגענישן װאָס ברענגען נישט צו קײן עמאָציאָנעלע פֿאַרשטענדיקונגען.
