So oversubscribed was the April 3 Juilliard School Centennial Gala at Lincoln Center’s Peter Jay Sharp Theater that a number of guests ended up enjoying the concert on screens in the theater’s VIP lounge. Among the attendees were Linda Fierstein, Mary Rodgers, David Judelson, and Barbara Barrie. Between canapés, Barrie told me that being fired…
LYNCHBURG, Va. — Addressing one of the country’s most influential Christian fundamentalist colleges this week, the leader of America’s largest synagogue movement highlighted areas of common concern while calling for mutual respect and toleration of diversity. I can “believe what I believe without calling you a homophobic bigot, and you can do the same without…
Almost 80 years ago, Al Jolson captivated movie audiences with “The Jazz Singer,” a semi-autobiographical tale of a young singer who forsakes a career as a cantor to make it on Broadway. These days Jolson’s story has undergone an unlikely rewrite in Las Vegas — where three of the city’s largest synagogues boast cantors who…
TEL AVIV — Although the signs were visible well before Israel’s March 28 elections, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz refused to believe that his term at the helm of Israel’s most sensitive ministry was actually drawing to a close. “I don’t believe he [Prime Minister Ehud Olmert] would give up on me,” Mofaz told the Forward…
A leading Jewish civil rights organization is warning that white supremacists are using the heated public debate over immigration reform to target Hispanic immigrants and to foment anti-Latino violence. This week, in conjunction with its annual national leadership conference in Washington, the Anti-Defamation League issued a report documenting an increase in anti-Latino rhetoric on the…
WASHINGTON — Moshe Yaalon, the recently retired chief of staff of the Israeli military, is a kibbutznik from a Labor movement background. But in sharp contrast to the retired military men entering the next Knesset, Yaalon is the rare, and arguably most important, retired Israeli general to publicly oppose unilateral Israeli withdrawals from the West…
Maurice “Chico” Sabbah, founder of the nation’s only non-Orthodox Jewish boarding school, died April 17 at age 77. A wealthy businessman, Sabbah poured more than $100 million into the school’s 100-acre campus in Greensboro, N.C. His contribution, which paid full tuition for the school’s initial 77 students, is believed to be the single largest donation…
WASHINGTON — As Hamas struggles to tighten its grip over the Palestinian Authority, Jordan and Egypt are seeking ways to weaken the Islamic fundamentalist movement, according to diplomats and policy experts in Washington. Jordan and Egypt had been supportive of the P.A. and its president, the Fatah-aligned Mahmoud Abbas. But, informed observers say, with Hamas…
Conservative Jews Sue The Israeli wing of Conservative Judaism, known as Masorti, filed a lawsuit against the Israeli government, claiming discrimination in praying at the Western Wall. The lawsuit filed Sunday follows an agreement between the movement and the government that assured its members freedom of worship at the Robinson’s Arch area at the southern…
The funeral of the Satmar grand rebbe went off on Tuesday night like a vast unchoreographed dance on the dark streets of Williamsburg, illuminated only by the yellow glow of streetlights and the red and blue flashing of the police car sirens. The mourning was undercut by a steady anticipation of violence between followers of…
A student opinion column in Brandeis University’s campus newspaper has enraged parents, students and alumni by suggesting that the school is too Jewish. In the April 4 column, titled “Brandeis: Too Jewish For Its Own Good,” sophomore Matt Brown, 19, argued that the pervasive Jewishness on campus was detrimental to student life and scared away…
