For 125 years, the Forward has delivered accurate, timely and nuanced news to American Jews. From breaking news to in-depth investigations, our reporting team covers the people, institutions and issues that define the many ways to be Jewish in the…
News
-
Groups Back Bill To Monitor Universities
WASHINGTON — Risking a clash with civil libertarians, major Jewish communal organizations are lobbying the Senate to approve a bill that would tighten federal monitoring of government-funded Middle East studies programs at universities. The bill, which passed the House of Representatives overwhelmingly, is pitting the Jewish organizational community against professors associations and leading international studies…
-
Like ‘Braveheart’ Comes to the Crucifixion, Critic Says
The day after Mel Gibson raked in $25 million with the launch of his blood-and-gore Crucifixion film, an overflow crowd of 400 flocked to the Center for Jewish History on February 26 for a forum on “Religion, Responsibilities and Relations: Responses to Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion.’” Sponsored by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and…
-
Peggy Tishman, 84, Communal Leader
Margaret “Peggy” Tishman, a communal leader and philanthropist for more than five decades, died March 5 at the age of 84 in Manhattan after an illness. One of the guiding forces behind the merger of the United Jewish Appeal of Greater New York and the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York in the late…
The Latest
-
Bouncing Back From ‘Insufficient Funds’
A check my daughter received for her bat mitzvah came back from the bank [marked] “insufficient funds.” The gift was from a school friend, whose parents I don’t know well. My husband says I should call them and see if it is okay to redeposit the check, but I don’t want to embarrass anyone. —…
-
Author Challenges Rambam’s Principles
A religious debate over intellectual freedom is brewing in the Orthodox world, following the recent publication of a book challenging the widespread view within Orthodoxy that Maimonides’s Thirteen Principles of Faith represents a binding articulation of Jewish theological dogma. In his book, “The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles Reappraised,” Marc Shapiro, a professor…
-
Hovering Between the Fantastic and the Mundane
Any writer concerned with the direction of language understands well that the future of a language — especially one with such a spectacular and contested history as Hebrew — rests in the minds of its youngest speakers. David Grossman, one of Israel’s most highly respected writers, has created perhaps the sturdiest and most convincing young…
-
Romancing ‘Failed Sciences’
In 1665, among the many residents of England’s plague-ridden cities who fled to the less-contagious countryside were two men of science, one escaping from Cambridge and the other from London. The former, the young Isaac Newton, we know and revere. The latter, the elderly William Lilly, we do not. Some 30 years earlier, Lilly had…
-
How Do You Do’s Novels
Help! Now it’s The New York Times. This is from a Times article last week about the new Broadway revival of “Fiddler on the Roof”: “‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ with music by Jerry Bock and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, is based on ‘Tevye the Milkman,’ a cycle of short stories by Sholem Aleichem published in…
-
It’s a Rich Battle as O’Reilly, Times Critic Square Off in Culture War
The culture war sweeping across America sometimes can appear to boil down to a sparring match between two men. In one corner is Bill O’Reilly, representing the Fox News Channel and the new brand of conservative populism sweeping the nation. In the other is Frank Rich, wearing the colors of the New York Times and…
-
Ich Bin Ein Vamp: Cabaret Comes to Café Sabarsky
What is it about Vienna? Of the numerous parallel universes coexisting in New York, one of the most seductive is the ever re-emerging fragments of the world of pre-Anschluss Vienna. This legendary period and place has such a hold on the imagination that when even just two descendants of Viennese immigrants show up in a…
-
‘I am de Gaulle, I am Mandela, I am Washington’
Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography By Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin Oxford University Press, 354 pages, $27.50. ——– Arafat’s War: The Man and His Battle for Israeli Conquest By Efraim Karsh Grove Press, 320 pages, $25. ——– In the course of several meetings during the latter half of the 1990s, I witnessed Yasser Arafat…
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward After Minneapolis shooting, local Jewish service channels a city’s grief and resolve
- 2
Culture ‘The Pitt’ tackled the trauma of the Tree of Life attack. Here’s how survivors of the synagogue shooting reacted to the episode.
- 3
News Why Josh Shapiro’s memoir could complicate a presidential run
- 4
Antisemitism Decoded How an ‘all-American boy’ became a Mississippi synagogue arson suspect
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Should we be comparing ICE agents to Hitler’s ‘Brownshirts?’
-
Holy Ground A Millennial rabbi built a synagogue where others have closed. Her maverick ideas are becoming a model.
-
Fast Forward ‘Anne Frank was in Amsterdam legally,’ Trump antisemitism envoy says in refuting Walz’s ICE comparison
-
Fast Forward Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino decries ICE ‘Gestapo’ comparisons as critics target ‘Nazi-coded’ coat
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism