JERUSALEM — The deputy mayor of Moscow is pushing for the merger of the offices of the two rival chief rabbis of Russian Jewry, the Forward has learned, in what is being seen as a bid by the government to install one as the sole representative of the divided community. The deputy mayor, Alexander Reisen,…
WASHINGTON — Bracing for a ruling against its separation fence by the World Court — which could pave the way for South Africa-style international sanctions — Israel and its allies here are considering a campaign to discredit the court as a biased organ of the United Nations. The proposed campaign is highly controversial even among…
Like its fellow Europeans steaming in the hot dog cart — frankfurters, sauerkraut and pretzels — the knish has by now achieved a pretty solid standing in American society, such that its ancestral origins are no longer much thought about. Its name, though, can’t help but give it away, what with that distinctive two-syllable “k-n”…
Participants in a panel discussion sponsored by The New Republic and Saudi Arabia are claiming that their most hard-hitting criticisms of the kingdom were edited out of a transcript that appeared in the magazine. Billed as an opportunity to talk about Islam and its contemporary relationship with the West, the November 13 panel discussion was…
Like a bottle of fine Bordeaux or a ripe brie, Paris’s kosher scene has come of age. When Polish Holocaust survivors Joseph and Helene Korcarz opened their eponymous bakery in 1948, it was one of only a handful of kosher eateries, which were relegated primarily to the narrow streets of Le Marais, the city’s historic…
By virtue of the Rhodes Scholarship he was awarded in November, Daniel Helmer is scheduled to study at Oxford University this fall. Before he heads to England, however, he is going to Iraq. Helmer, a 22-year-old from Colts Neck, N.J., was an academic overachiever as an undergraduate. He was also a member of the gymnastics…
Sepharad By Antonio Muñoz Molina, translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden Harcourt, 384 pages, $27. * * *| There is something utterly annoying, even infuriating, about “Sepharad,” the second novel by Antonio Muñoz Molina — a Spaniard born in 1956 — to be translated into English. Originally written in Madrid in 2000, “Sepharad”…
Mikhail Ekshtut is a warrior. His mom is a worrier. So when the Air Force Reserve called Ekshtut up to active duty in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, he had a problem. One of the relatively few Orthodox Jews in the American military, Technical Sergeant Ekshtut hesitated to commit an untruth. But he also guessed…
For its 89th season, the Folksbiene Yiddish Theater is presenting Leon Kobrin’s comedy on immigrant life — “The Lady Next Door” (in Yinglish, “Di Next-door-ike”). The Folksbiene is the only professional Yiddish theater in America, and its performances and future plans are particularly significant to the Yiddish cultural world. This year, for the first time,…
Adam Berman was incorrectly identified in the December 26, 2003, article “There Was a Chasid Who Had a Farm.” He is the executive director of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in Connecticut.
Last week, more than 200 Jews gathered in downtown Manhattan for New York’s annual gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) community Chanukah party, pausing to look back at a watershed year and looking ahead to the challenges of the next. Although the party was at the same place and time as last year’s, there was…
