During an intermission of the Gotham Chamber Opera’s October 17 performance of excerpts from Handel’s “Ariadne Unhinged” and the duet from Bizet’s “The Pearl Fishers,” hosted by British consul-general Sir Philip Thomas at his home on Manhattan’s East Side, Carl Bernstein (of Woodward and Bernstein of the Watergate exposé) told me, “My great uncle Itzev-Isidore…
An official with an educational program for Jewish high school students has resigned after allegedly using the Internet to seek out liaisons with underage boys and to transmit naked pictures of himself. Rabbi David Kaye resigned from the Washington-based Panim: The Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values on October 31, several days before being shown…
Nashville’s Temple Cemetery offers, in capsule form, a taste of the rich history of the city’s Jews. In one section there rests Zadock Levy, who, with eight nephews in tow, arrived in “Music City” from Bavaria in the 1850s and promptly opened a clothing store that exists to this day. In another there is Judah…
Starting this month, shoppers will be able to show their support for Israel when they’re buying new shoes, purchasing Hanukkah presents or just filling up their gas tanks. Menachem Landau and Zev Dobuler founded Heritage Affinity Services to launch the HAS Advantage Card, a specialty credit card that generates money for charitable groups in Israel…
Jewish teenagers are learning that tzedaka involves more than slipping a few coins into the collection box at synagogue. In innovative programs around the country, teens are being given control over thousands, or even tens of thousands, of dollars in an effort to teach them the ins and outs of philanthropy — from reading budgets…
I just returned from a trip to Atlanta, where I found myself in conversation with a fellow traveler who was visiting from Miami. He was only supposed to be in Atlanta for three days, but Hurricane Wilma hit his Florida home while he was away, and he was in no particular rush to get back…
Passion is the defining characteristic of effective philanthropists. It’s what separates people who “make donations” from people who make a substantial and lasting impact in the fields they choose to support. Passion isn’t limited to mega-donors. At all levels of giving, passionate philanthropists are energetic — they will roll up their sleeves and commit time…
Despite the negative spotlight that the oil-for-food scandal has cast on the United Nations, we must not forget that an effective U.N. is in America’s interest. We must not forget, for it is only with bold and persevering American leadership that the world body will be able to emerge from this latest turmoil and become…
NATHAN DIAMENT The conservative White House and the conservative Congress are fertile lobbying grounds for a conservative organization like the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. Orthodox Jews voted overwhelmingly for President Bush last November — more than 70%, some studies suggest — and have been rewarded at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Maximizing…
TEL AVIV — Israel is stalling on the removal of illegal outposts, according to the official who wrote a government report on the matter. Eight months after the Cabinet approved her investigative report showing collusion by government agencies in the construction of illegal West Bank settlement outposts, the government has taken no significant steps to…
This was, for many of us, the year that the world shrank. It was a year framed by disasters, beginning with a horrifying tsunami that swept South Asia and ending with a string of storms that destroyed New Orleans and ravaged south Florida. Perhaps the disasters were getting bigger, or perhaps the global village was…
