Amid charges of mud-slinging, a group of archaeologists turned to dirt-digging — literally — in their fight against a controversial fellow academic. On Monday night, Columbia University’s pro-Israel student group played host to the latest installment in a lecture series aimed, at least partially, at rebutting Nadia Abu El-Haj, whose work has been critical of…
Feud Brews Over Frat A hawkish Jewish organization is joining cause with the American Civil Liberties Union in calling for a private California university to allow a Jewish fraternity to organize on campus. The Zionist Organization of America last week sent a letter to the president of Chapman University in Orange, Calif., arguing that the…
Josie lost her first tooth. How is this possible? Only moments ago she was teething. (Cue the music: “Sunrise, Sunset.”) She already knew about the tooth fairy. We’re not raising her in a Skinner box. She hears things. Every day, as she wiggled her loose tooth, she asked whether the tooth fairy was coming. Would…
Every morning in the shower, financial guru and best-selling author Suze Orman says a prayer — “I ask for forgiveness and relief for all whom I did harm, and forgiveness and relief for all who harmed me” — and she has been doing so for as long as she can remember. But it wasn’t until…
Every day, thou shalt use iPods and cell phones. But on one day, no iPod shall rise upon thy face and thou shalt surely place no cell phone beside thy ear. With the exponential increase in all sorts of media in the so-called digital era, Shabbat observance today demands far more abstinence than simply ignoring…
The 22nd annual Israel Film Festival descends on the Big Apple with 30 feature films, documentaries and TV shows. The event opens with Ayelet Menahemi’s “Noodle,” an award-winning drama about a 37-year-old widowed flight attendant who finds herself caring for an abandoned Chinese boy whose mother has been deported from Israel. Some 25 filmmakers will…
It took only three weeks, but finally PM Olmert’s office responded to the Orthodox Union’s letter voicing the group’s concern over talk about dividing Jerusalem. Olmert’s letter promises that the “issue of Jerusalem is currently not under negotiations with the Palestinians” and that in any future settlement, the PM will “strengthen the Jewish character of…
The Forward took a look this week at an unusual custody case in Kansas that is pitting a Reform Jewish father against his Orthodox ex-wife and their teenage son. In the wake of a divorce, how do parents handle their religious differences with their ex-spouses and with children who may be more religiously observant? As…
This past May, the Israeli band the Teapacks were eliminated in the semifinals of the Eurovision song competition, along with bands representing 17 other countries. Their elimination capped a months-long saga in which pop music collided with geopolitics, garnering international headlines for the six-member, ska-inflected group originally hailing from the now-embattled town of Sderot. Some…
PRESIDENT OF POLAND TOUTS WARSAW’S MUSEUM OF HISTORY OF POLISH JEWS “Our history is not complete if there is no history of Polish Jews,” declared Poland’s president, Lech Kaczynski, at the September 26 reception, held at the Polish Consulate in New York. The evening’s centerpiece was an overview of Warsaw’s Museum of the History of…
The Giuliani campaign is clearly reveling in being attacked by none other than Jimmy Carter on CNN last night. Carter – proving once again that he has zero intention of going quietly into the night – called Giuliani “foolish” for his contention the United States should be open to using force against Iran. By this…
