The ink is barely dry on New York University’s preliminary plan for bailing out the financially strapped Center for Jewish History, but some insiders at the center have wasted little time in proclaiming it dead on arrival. Senior leaders at the two institutions are billing a newly proposed merger as a mutually beneficial arrangement that…
Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee emerged from the recent Values Voter Summit with a new wave of support from Christian conservatives, but he also garnered some unwanted attention from Jewish leaders incensed over his use of the word “holocaust.” In his address before the conference, hosted in Washington last month by the conservative Family Research…
Los Angeles – When a prominent Orthodox rabbi broke ranks with the official Orthodox line last week and called for an open discussion of the division of Jerusalem, the backlash was swift — though not entirely unexpected. Yosef Kanefsky, senior rabbi of B’nai David-Judea Congregation, a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Los Angeles’s Pico-Robertson neighborhood, is…
Encinitas, Calif. – As last week’s wildfires tore through Southern California, forcing hundreds of thousands from their homes, one group of evacuees managed to have a good time in spite of it all. Amid the chaos wreaked by the inferno, more than 100 Jewish seniors — including a plucky 101-year-old — fled their San Diego-area…
Palestinian militants are using the popular satellite mapping program Google Earth to choose targets for their rockets, a British newspaper reported last week. The report, in the left-leaning Guardian of London, followed repeated complaints that Google’s upgraded mapping program endangers Israel’s security by providing details of sensitive sites. The Guardian reported that Gaza-based members of…
At a fashion show at Manhattan’s Kleinfeld Bridal late last month, Israeli designer Pnina Tornai showed off her 2008 collection. Inspired by Edith Piaf’s famous love song “La Vie en Rose” (“Life in Pink”), the white wares featured floral accents on Tornai’s signature corset designs. A bejeweled gown with spaghetti straps and a scalloped hem…
I just learned two new words, which is exciting, at my advanced age. They are: redd, a nesting area for trout eggs; and alevin, a newly hatched fish with its yolk sac still attached. (I also learned milt, but I’m trying to block it out. Google at your peril.) Both words (not milt, thank God,…
William Steig (1907-2003) worked at The New Yorker for 73 years, and in that time the magazine published more than 120 of his covers and 1,600 of his drawings — not bad for the son of Eastern European Jewish immigrants. Born in Brooklyn and raised in the Bronx, Steig had been known to say that…
Leah Kauffman, the singer-songwriter behind the “Obama Girl” video, has a new crush: Ann Coulter. Two differences between her “Obama Girl” video and her latest work: This time around, rather than using a lip-syncing model, Kaufman’s in front of the camera and she’s clearly only tongue-in-cheek in her affection for Coulter (a la Andy Samberg’s…
The United States should support a “step-by-step” peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians, presidential hopeful John McCain told an audience of Jewish leaders in New York this morning. That cautious assessment, delivered by McCain during a meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish organizations, brings the Arizona senator into the company…
McCain: No Red Meat The United States should support a “step-by-step” peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians, presidential hopeful John McCain told an audience of Jewish leaders Tuesday in New York. The cautious assessment, delivered by McCain during a meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, brings the Arizona…
