Despite the rapid approach of an unprecedented Gaza withdrawal that Israeli leaders depict as evidence of a high point in Israeli-American ties, the two allies have found themselves embroiled in recent days in a bewildering number of highly visible disputes of visceral intensity. Seemingly without connection to one another, Israel has become mired in simultaneous…
Israeli Arab leaders have demanded that the police not investigate the death of the Jewish gunman who killed four Arabs last week. The gunman, Eden Natan-Zada, an AWOL Israeli soldier, was murdered by an Arab mob after he shot and killed the driver of the bus he was on, as well as three passengers. Twelve…
Red Cross Targeted in Gaza The International Committee of the Red Cross suspended all field operations in Gaza on Monday in order to protest what it sees as a deterioration in security. The Red Cross closed its offices in Khan Yunis indefinitely, after gunmen fired dozens of bullets at them. A number of United Nations…
Andrew Singer is the nicest gay, Jewish, white rapper alive. This isn’t hyperbole. He also happens to be the only gay, Jewish, white rapper alive. Singer, 25, now lives in Manhattan’s East Village, but his voyage began in Kensington, N.H., about an hour north of Boston. Singer, who attended Hebrew school in Portsmouth, N.H., sees…
Last weekend, the Forward sent reporter Max Gross — aka the Hapless Jewish Writer — to the Catskills to report on a story. He came back an accidental horse racing champion. This is his story. Back in his college days, the Hapless Jewish Writer’s klutziness was the stuff of legends. During his first week at…
My children, like all Jewish children, are very, very advanced. They can perform higher calculus and split the atom. They have a 10-point plan for peace in the Middle East. As we speak, Josie, age 3 3/4, is directing an avant-garde production of Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” in the backyard (she acknowledges that her stuffed…
TEL AVIV — Israel earned the dubious distinction this week of being the Western nation with the highest proportion of its children — one in three — living in poverty. An annual report released Tuesday by the National Insurance Institute, Israel’s Social Security office, showed that the number of Israelis living below the poverty line…
When Samantha, a 13-year-old Jewish girl from Westchester County, N.Y., became a bat mitzvah, she read from the Torah and recited the ancient blessings before a gathering of family and friends. But unlike a typical ceremony, Samantha’s was in a catering hall and not a synagogue. She read from a rented Torah. And the rabbi…
It may have been the biggest disaster for European diplomacy since the Balkan wars in the early 1990s. After years of delicate negotiations with Iran to convince the mullahs to abandon their quest for nuclear weapons, last week the “EU3” group of Germany, Britain and France made a final offer to Tehran — give up…
Among the 3,000 champagne-sipping guests crowded into New York City’s French Consulate for the July 14 Bastille Day celebration — hosted by consul general François Delattre and his wife, Sophie L’Hélias-Delattre — were Rabbi Arthur Schneier and his wife, Elisabeth; concert pianist Charlotte White (whose grandfather and father were avid readers of the Yiddish Forward),…
After a leading religious conservative leader compared stem-cell research to Nazi medical experiments, several groups that condemned the analogy have reported a flood of messages from angry protesters, some of them threatening violence. During his syndicated radio show August 3, James Dobson, one of the country’s most influential religious conservatives and chairman of the conservative…
