The Young Jewish Conservatives’ Purim luncheon at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) had everything: a speed reading of the Megillah by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, hamentaschen, a kid from Brooklyn dressed in a red squid costume, a comedian in a Rush Limbaugh sweatshirt, and a comparison of Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar to Haman….
A ninja in moon boots. Rectangular brothers, a Rubix cube and washing machine. Many a princess. A few questionable Native American costumes, complete with feather headdress and brownface paint. Purim fell on a warm and sunny day in New York City, after weeks of snow, and the kids were out in force in the Haredi…
(JTA) — When he was a young boy, William Good memorized the first 40 chapters of the Book of Isaiah. As a reward, his father, a successful businessman and a rabbi, bought him a bicycle. In 1941, at age of 17, Good graduated from the Tarbut Hebrew high school in Vilna (now Vilnius, the capital…
(JTA) — When Italo Servi donated an amulet that had been in his family for two centuries to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts five years ago, his children had no idea the object even existed. Servi received the amulet from his mother during a visit home in 1949 while studying at the Massachusetts Institute of…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu touted his warm relationship with President Joe Biden and addressed concerns about Israeli-Diaspora relations in a private Zoom call with top leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations on Thursday. Netanyahu told the 115 participants representing the group’s 53 member organizations that Israel must be welcoming…
Scott Stringer, one of the leading candidates in the New York City mayoral race, pretended not to know the views of his close progressive allies in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement in an interview published on Thursday. Stringer, the city’s comptroller, was asked in an interview with Jewish Insider to address concerns…
Last month, Benjamin Kagan, 14, had a simple goal in mind: Help his grandparents in Florida register for a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible. “I was like, I need to stay awake,” he said in an interview this week. “We had four computers running, and we got lucky.” A Facebook group, a Google form,…
(JTA) — (Jewish Exponent via JTA) — Mary Heller Cope was passionate about public service and education — she considered them part of her Jewish heritage and identity. Cope, a longtime resident of Cheltenham in suburban Philadelphia, served on executive committees for local chapters of the League of Women Voters, American Cancer Society, American Field Service, Cheltenham…
Lowell, Massachusetts Mayor John Leahy has demanded the resignation of School Committee member Robert Hoey Jr. after Hoey appeared on a live Cable TV program on Wednesday morning, Feb. 24, and referred to a former administrator at the Lowell Public Schools as a “kike.” Hoey, who hosts the morning show “City Life” on Lowell Telecommunications…
(JTA) — Alex Kohanski began using the gender-neutral they-them pronouns on their first day of the Jewish farming fellowship Adamah in the fall of 2019. Though they were assigned a male identity at birth, Kohanski had never felt fully at home in their body. As a child, they once looked at their naked body in…
Secretary of State Tony Blinken promised during his Senate confirmation hearings last month that the Biden administration would not rush to re-enter the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and would only do so with input from Israel and other Middle East allies. So it was something of a surprise when Blinken, America’s top diplomat, told…
דאָס בוך איז גרונטיק געפֿאָרשט, לעבעדיק אָנגעשריבן — אָבער אידעאָלאָגיש באַפֿאַרבט
