The Yiddish Forward’s “Pearls of Yiddish Poetry” column recently was dedicated to Zussman Segalovish on the occasion of his 55th yahrzeit. His first poems appeared in Warsaw. They were written in the carefree spirit of a man of 25. The Holocaust turned him from laughter to lamentation. He saw the Holocaust through the eyes of…
Jean Reuben doesn’t quite know how to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. It’s usually not an issue for someone like Reuben, an Orthodox Jew, since Jews don’t typically commemorate Catholic saints. But Reuben is also of Irish descent; her mother was from Belfast, her father from Dublin. Although she left Ireland long ago, Reuben has fond…
Flipping for Florida: Pounding the Republicans’ main line of attack on the apparent Democratic presidential nominee, Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman rapped Massachusetts Senator John Kerry on Monday for “flip-flopping” on Israel’s security fence and for “mistakes in judgment” regarding a 1997 remark praising Yasser Arafat as a “statesman.” Speaking to reporters during a conference call,…
Friday night, the eve of the Sabbath, has always held a special flavor for many Jews in many lands. Eleanor and Joseph Mlotek’s compilation “Songs of Generations: New Pearls of Yiddish Song,” has a song titled “Fraytik Oyf Der Nakht.” It first appeared in 1905 in sheet music without attribution to any author or composer….
While on a recent trip to Afghanistan, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld predicted that Osama bin Laden would be captured “at some point.” The scuttlebutt is that such a “capture” seems likely to come near enough to Election Day to provide President Bush with the votes necessary to lift him out of his sagging standing…
Driving the family home from synagogue, Audrey looked into the rearview mirror, and posed the usual Shabbes question to Andrew in his car seat, “So, katshkela, did you get anything out of Ki Tissa, today’s Torah portion?” “I sure did!” “Mazel tov! Tell us.” “I got a great idea for a costume! For next Halloween.”…
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…
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…
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…
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. —…
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…
