After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy By Noah Feldman Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 272 pages, $24. * * *| Last month, the Bush administration announced that it had selected an unknown 32-year-old Jew to advise the Iraqi people in the writing of their constitution. When the news first broke, The New York…
When Rabbi Sherwin Wine steps down from his pulpit next week, he’ll thank his colleagues, his family and his friends. But he won’t be thanking God. Wine caused eyes to roll 40 years ago when he created Humanistic Judaism, a movement that celebrates Judaism as a culture rather than a religion, and places its faith…
The death of Gregory Peck on June 12 sparked extensive media commentary on how his film performances epitomized the best, most accepting, aspects of American culture. While almost all of the appreciations began by praising his Oscar-winning performance as Atticus Finch, a Southern lawyer defending an African-American man accused of raping a white woman in…
Clash of Jewish Civilizations: “It is undeniable that the State of Israel is in economic crisis and that the country’s bloated budget must be slashed,” Moshe Schapiro writes in the May issue of The Jewish Observer, a publication of Agudath Israel of America. “The charedi community accepts that reality. But when one sees where the…
Like many people, Sarah Wildman and Ian Halpern thought the process of getting married was a form of corporate genuflection. The notion of all that spending and accumulating — the typical wedding now runs upward of $22,000, according to bridal-magazine publisher Condé Nast — made them both a bit queasy. But, they wondered, what if…
Statement Sparks Fight Romania’s recent declaration that there was no Holocaust on its territory during World War II has strained relations with Israel. Romania’s ambassador to Israel, Valeria Mariana Stoica, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem this week to stress that Israel takes a “grave view” of the Romanian government’s statement, which it…
Tax cuts are not a Jewish issue. So says Stephen Hoffman, the president and CEO of United Jewish Communities, the central coordinating body of Jewish welfare federations across North America. “How Congress decides to assemble the revenue of the United States is not a Jewish issue,” Hoffman recently told the Forward. “The Jewish issue is…
Some people are lucky enough to get married at the governor’s mansion, but the rest of us, wedding planner in tow, trudge from one catering hall, hotel ballroom or synagogue to another — and then another — in search of the perfect setting for our nuptials. Blessed with a multitude of possibilities and a plethora…
Headline coverage of the new demographic study released this week by UJA-Federation of New York trumpeted its findings on poverty and migration, including the fact that the Jewish population within New York City had dropped below 1 million for the first time in a century, which The New York Times called a “city milestone.” Some…
A distant relative (the mother of my wife’s elderly uncle) — whom I have never met — recently died. My wife informs me that unless I travel to pay a shiva call, I will henceforth be looked at askance by her extended family. I have a very taxing job and have limited free time for…
The presidential campaign of Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman is trying to turn some of the concerns about his candidacy voiced in the Jewish community to his advantage in a fundraising pitch. “When Al Gore made me the first Jewish American to be nominated to a national political ticket, some people questioned whether I was the…
הערט אַן אַרטיקל וועגן אַ באַליבטער מעשׂה פֿון אַ באָבע מיט די אייניקלעך און אַ צווייטן אַרטיקל וועגן חסידישע מעשׂיות.
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