The dimensions of a recent financial scandal at the World Jewish Congress appear to be significantly broader than has been publicly known, judging from an unreleased audit that found about $3 million to have been withdrawn from the organization’s accounts with no documented explanation. The missing sum of 3.85 million Swiss francs is detailed in…
As Democrats seek to pick up 15 seats to win control of the House of Representatives, they are counting on several of the dozen or so Jewish candidates fighting to replace Republican incumbents. According to polls, the most likely Democratic pick-up is in Arizona’s eighth district, where state lawmaker Gabrielle Giffords — great-granddaughter of a…
As one of the country’s most closely watched Senate races — and the only one involving an endangered Democratic incumbent — comes down to the wire in the Garden State, recent polling shows Democratic Senator Bob Menendez with a slight lead over political scion and state lawmaker Tom Kean Jr. Democrats need to pick up…
Few New Yorkers expected Alan Hevesi — the state comptroller and one of the most influential Jewish elected officials in the country — to face an uphill battle for re-election this year, when Democrats like him are winning big in the Empire State. But scandal may take him down. A former all-city basketball player, 6-foot-3…
Stephen Bing is already known as a multimillionaire real estate heir, movie mogul, prominent playboy and perennial paparazzi prey. Now you can add “record-setting political donor” to the list. Bing, 41, of Los Angeles, has put a whopping $40 million into California’s Proposition 87, a measure on November’s ballot that would impose a tax on…
Entertainer and author Kinky “Jewboy” Friedman may not win the Texas governor’s race, but he’s making a splash just by running. A former country-and-western performer who sprinkled his music with heavy doses of satire — one well-known hit was “They Ain’t Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore” — Friedman is now among four challengers looking to…
In June 2005, the Backstreet Boys released “Never Gone,” an album filled not with the teeth-rotting pop confections of the group’s youth, but with songs of a more adult contemporary style. To date, the disc has sold some 3 million copies — huge numbers for most bands, but a far cry from the 30 million…
These days, getting Josie dressed in the morning is approximately as easy and effortless as brokering peace in the Middle East. We are the all-pink, all-the-time channel around here. Last year, I was able to trick her into wearing brown by calling it “chocolate.” This year, not so much. She has this one pink skirt…
In his book “Jewish Heroes & Heroines of America: 150 True Stories of American Jewish Heroism” (Lifetime Books, 1996), Seymour Brody offers biographical sketches of American Jews throughout history who made significant contributions to society. A number of the profiles, accompanied by lively illustrations by Art Seiden, can be seen in six virtual exhibitions presented…
‘But the people of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord, exceedingly.” This is presented to us (Genesis 13:13) as an aside, an observation to suggest that Lot’s choice of the plain of the Jordan was not, after all, the right one. We had just been told, in Genesis 13:10, that it was a…
Senate (13) New Members: Ben Cardin (D-Md.); Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Re-elected: Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.); Herb Kohl (D-Wis.); Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) Returning: Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.); Norm Coleman (R-Minn.); Russell Feingold (D-Wis.); Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.); Carl Levin (D-Mich.); Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.); Arlen Specter (R-Pa.); Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). House (30) New Members: Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.); Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.);…
