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
-
Bush Plans To Privatize the Rebuilding of Iraq
Although the war in Iraq is not yet over, it appears that our ever-provident president already has a set of ideas on how to rebuild the land once ruled by Saddam Hussein. A recent Wall Street Journal headline proclaims: “Bush Has an Audacious Plan To Rebuild Iraq Within a Year.” The Journal comments: “The U.S….
-
Conservatives Taking a Page From Orthodox Prayer Book
Spurred in large part by the growing popularity of an Orthodox publisher, leaders of Conservative Judaism are set to release the movement’s first prayer book with extensive built-in commentary. Movement rabbis acknowledge that a main impetus for commissioning the new commentary, titled “Or Hadash” and set to be released April 15, was the growing phenomenon…
-
CAMPAIGN CONFIDENTIAL
Former Colorado senator Gary Hart certainly looks like he’s serious about running for president. Hart, who has been giving foreign policy addresses around the nation as he tests the waters for a run, appeared at the Westchester County (N.Y.) Democratic Committee’s gala dinner March 20, where he spoke briefly about the war in Iraq. There…
The Latest
-
MORE THAN CHILD’S PLAY
Inspired by the life of doctor, teacher and author Janusz Korczak (1879-1942), Jeffrey Hatcher’s “Korczak’s Children” is a play about and for children, based in part upon the orphanage Korczak founded in 1912, which was moved to the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. Korczak’s ideas about children’s empowerment would help lay the foundation for…
-
When ‘All the Rest’ Was the Rage
If all the rest is commentary, as Hillel the Elder once said, there once was a time when “all the rest” was all the rage. It has been 58 years since the founding of Commentary magazine, a small Jewish journal devoted to society and culture that eventually landed in some of the most influential mailboxes…
-
IN OTHER WORDS…
Gleanings From the Media Continental Divide: It’s not just London Bridge that seems to be falling down these days in Europe, judging by articles in several European newspapers translated and reprinted in the April issue of World Press Review. “Europe is cracking,” Leopold Unger writes in the February 11 issue of the liberal Polish daily…
-
The Jews of Old-Time Medina
Nathan P. Baker of Walnut Creek, Calif., has a query about the city of Medina in Saudi Arabia, the second-holiest site of Islam after Mecca. “I was quite surprised,” he writes, “to learn that it was a Jewish city, called Yathrib, long before the time of Muhammad. Could you furnish me, please, with the dates,…
-
A Brooklyn Boy Whose Childhood Dreams Stop Here
It’s a typical morning at Borough Hall in downtown Brooklyn. Politicians are meeting and greeting, children are dancing jigs and an impressive amount of Irish coffee is being consumed at 9 a.m. The borough’s stentorious president, Marty Markowitz, a smiling, roly-poly man, is wearing a tall striped hat that seems plucked from the pages of…
-
Spousal Lectures, Schnapps and Other Glories Celebrated by Unlikely Klezmorim Group
It was nearly 8 p.m. when the klezmorim danced their way in to greet the crowd, hoisted their instruments on stage and proceeded to make a l’chaim on the berry-flavored schnapps that awaited them in a tall, elegant bottle. The musicians didn’t look like Old World incarnates in their sleek black ensembles, nor did they…
-
Wooden Synagogue Project Abandoned
BERKELEY, Calif. — A Modern Orthodox congregation that hoped to build a replica of the wooden synagogue of Przedborz, Poland, has reluctantly abandoned its dream after failing to garner national financial support for the project. Instead of re-creating the famous 17th-century structure destroyed by the Nazis, Congregation Beth Israel will spend the $2 million raised…
-
Wallant Worthies Are Instantly Recognizable
Literary awards come and go, but some just stick around quietly separating young writers with promise from those dripping with glitz — especially these days, when hype and hard cash are being thrown at writers in the under-30 class. All of which makes the Edward Lewis Wallant Book Award worth celebrating as it approaches its…
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward A whites-only, no-Jews community says it’s found a legal loophole. A Jewish lawmaker in Pennsylvania wants to close it.
- 2
Culture Why do Jews eat Chinese food on Christmas?
- 3
Opinion What if Donald Trump puts his name on the US Holocaust Memorial Museum?
- 4
News Ben Shapiro is mounting a last stand against right-wing antisemitism. It’s not going well.
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Trump, hosting Netanyahu in Florida, says next phase of Gaza ceasefire plan will begin ‘as quickly as we can’
-
Opinion It’s a classic trick of liars and crooks — and it’s shaping Israel’s response to war and disaster
-
Fast Forward Mikveh unearthed beneath Western Wall plaza shows evidence of Temple’s destruction
-
Film & TV We need to talk about that honey scene in ‘Marty Supreme’
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism