(JTA) — Like many Americans, Ari Augenbaum, Trey Owens and Narine Hovnanian closely watched the protest movement that followed the death of George Floyd during the summer of 2020. Floyd’s death sparked familiar discussions among the friends about the history of race and oppression in the United States. The three restaurateurs, who run a popular…
(JTA) — For decades, dozens of Orthodox rabbis would gather in a New York City synagogue on the morning before Passover and, one by one, sell millions of dollars worth of bread, pasta and other leavened products to one man. That man, a real estate agent named John J. Brown, acted as the linchpin of…
TEL AVIV (JTA) — The murder of Diana Raz was almost too horrific to describe. Raz, 35, an Israeli couples counselor who helped women in abusive relationships, got into an argument with her husband, Amir, on Feb. 5, according to the police indictment against her husband. Amir, a police officer, proceeded to tie up three…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — For years, the annual AIPAC conference has culminated with thousands of Israel supporters knocking on their congressional representatives’ doors here to deliver three policy requests. Last year, the conference in early March ended with anxiety about whether COVID-19 had spread after some of the country’s first cases were detected among attendees. And…
(JTA) — Like the comic superheroes they invented, the Jewish creators of the characters often had secret identities – at least different names. Superman creators Joe Shuster and Jerome Siegel used the pseudonyms Joe Carter and Jerry Ess. Bob Kane, born Robert Kahn, created Batman. Jack Kirby, the pen name of Jacob Kurtzenberg, concocted Captain…
Andrew Yang promised he would not take action on secular education in yeshivas. Eric Adams visited a Brooklyn yeshiva to learn about how it teaches science, math and English. Ray McGuire hosted a roundtable with rabbis in which he boasted about his comfort level praying at the Western Wall. These are just a few examples…
More personal than American politics and more sensitive than religious observance, Israeli politics can make for a potent cocktail
When Julie Levey, 18, started Princeton in the fall, her roommates were her three younger siblings and parents. Talking about her experience with Jewish life “on campus,” Levey was tempted to stay positive, grateful. She wanted to describe a paradise of Jewish learning, prayer and community, to say it’s been everything she had hoped for…
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born and raised in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn; now, a statue of her will carry on her legacy in her home borough, unveiled on Friday for an invited audience of approximately 30, largely judges and members of city government. The bronze likeness stands just inside the doors of CityPoint, a…
(JTA) — In 2007, Leo Rechter, testified at a U.S. congressional hearing urging action to speed up the public opening of Nazi war records held at Bad Arolsen in Germany. Then the long-serving president of the National Association of Jewish Child Holocaust Survivors, or NAHOS, Rechter told legislators that the voices of thousands of Holocaust…
As calls mount for embattled Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York to step down amid allegations of sexual misconduct, Jewish groups are seeming reluctant to express an opinion. In particular, Orthodox groups, who have expressed their fair share of criticism of Cuomo in recent months, have remained on the sidelines. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and…
דאָס בוך איז גרונטיק געפֿאָרשט, לעבעדיק אָנגעשריבן — אָבער אידעאָלאָגיש באַפֿאַרבט
