Los Angeles – When Geoff Silverman, a Hollywood literary manager, made his first foray into Jewish charity work, the draw was not purely philanthropic. The program he joined, the Entertainment Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, offered an enticing component that few other Jewish philanthropic endeavors could match: the chance to network…
Jerusalem – Vice President Dick Cheney traveled to Israel and the West Bank this past week, but in a sign of what some Middle East scholars are calling “peace process fatigue,” the visit drew scant attention from the Israeli press and resulted in barely any progress on the ground. Cheney’s visit to Israel, part of…
As Hillary Clinton’s odds of winning the Democratic nomination grow longer, some of her top financial backers are finding themselves divided over whether she should fight on to the convention. In interviews with the Forward this week, nearly a dozen Clinton supporters displayed a variety of opinions and emotions about the campaign, ranging from concern…
Rabbi Eli Teitelbaum, an ultra-Orthodox educator and innovator who created a series of dial-in phone lines with lectures on sacred texts, died March 23 at the age of 68. Teitelbaum pioneered the now-popular concept of a subscription phone service that allowed users to listen over the phone to lectures on the Talmud with his Dial-a-Daf…
Studies Suggest Possibilities for Engaging the Intermarried Three new studies about interfaith marriage have been released in recent weeks, all supporting the increasingly common notion that intermarriage isn’t necessarily fatal to Jewish continuity. Taken together, the three studies suggest that a combination of Jewish education, outreach and sensitivity can bring interfaith couples and their children…
As if relations between Israel and the United Nations had not deteriorated enough, a new cause for strain arose this week when a prominent American Jewish law professor, who accuses Israel of genocidal policies in the Palestinian territories, was named by the world body’s top human rights entity to monitor the situation in the Palestinian…
If a blood test revealed that you were likely to contract the same cancer that painfully and violently killed your mother, what would you do? Have radical surgery to prevent it? Undergo frequent screenings and aggressively treat cancer at its earliest signs? Or would you not take the test at all? Jessica Queller shares her…
The Romaniote Jews are said to be vanishing, but photographer Vincent Giordano is dedicated to preserving their history before it drifts away. Their fading legacy is captured by Giordano in Before the Flame Goes Out, an exhibition that explores two small communities rooted in ancient traditions. There were large groups of Romaniotes living in Greece…
In many cities around the globe, hotel guests enjoy hi-tech conveniences. Lobby doors whiz open automatically; the faucets in public restrooms begin spurting water as soon as a hand approaches and toilets flush when the user stands up. Most important, entering one’s room is easier than ever before: Instead of the cumbersome, old-fashioned key, the…
Harare, Zimbabwe — In early March, a South African rabbi traveled to Zimbabwe’s capital city on one of the many trips he has made in recent years to give material and spiritual sustenance to a Jewish community suffering from one of the world’s worst economic crises. The rabbi, Moshe Silberhaft, held a meeting at the…
The country’s largest kosher slaughterhouse, already under scrutiny for its labor practices, took another hit last week when Iowa state officials fined it $182,000. The Iowa Division of Labor cited AgriProcessors for a broad range of recent health and safety violations, including a failure to provide workers with proper safety training, insufficient programs to manage…
