(JTA) — Rabbi Stephen Lerner, who as the founder of the New York-based Center for Conversion to Judaism brought over 1,800 students to the practice of Judaism, died on Jan. 27 of COVID-19. He was 80. Lerner founded the program for Jews by choice in 1981. He and his wife, Dr. Anne Lapidus Lerner, an…
Last week, I reached out to Tamara Pearl for a statement while working on a story about Pakistan’s shocking Supreme Court order to release the man who masterminded the kidnapping and murder of her brother, journalist Daniel Pearl, 19 years ago. In our short exchange, I told her to give her parents my best because…
A former employee at Combined Jewish Philanthropies in Boston filed a suit for employment discrimination in Massachusetts Superior Court Friday, the second such case this week. Matthew Lebovic, the former associate director of campus services, is suing CJP and three of the nonprofit’s leaders for what he alleged in the complaint was disability discrimination and…
One of them married Nicky Hilton, Paris’s sister. Another is an environmental activist in Santa Monica, California who crossed the Pacific Ocean in “Plastiki,” a craft made of recycled plastic bottles. Another tragically died just two weeks ago at age 57. They invest, run business interests, donate generously to a variety of causes, and not…
This is an adaptation of our weekly Shabbat newsletter, sent by our editor-in-chief on Friday afternoons. Sign up here to get the Forward’s free newsletters delivered to your inbox. And click here for a PDF of stories to savor over Shabbat and Sunday that you can download and print Even without the pandemic time-warp, it…
Elie Klein and Barry Wendell have little in common other than both being Jews who grew up in Baltimore. Klein is 40, works for a non-profit and now lives in Beit Shemesh, a commuter town halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Wendell is 71, semi-retired and lives in Morgantown, W.Va. But the two men –…
Punxsutawney's synagogue closed in the early 1980s
The White House on Thursday condemned “spurious accusations” after recent media publications implictly accused Palestinian-American and Jewish-American staffers of racism and dual loyalty. “We are appalled by recent spurious accusations against our staff,” Emily Horne, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, said. “We welcome oversight and scrutiny, but there is no justification for false…
An employee at Boston’s Combined Jewish Philanthropies filed suit in Massachusetts Superior Court Wednesday, alleging that the nonprofit Jewish federation discriminated against him for his religion and sex, and retaliated against him for taking parental leave. Zachary Kogan is suing CJP and Kimberlee Schumacher, the vice president of partnership and services, whom Kogan said in…
Ed Stafman’s move to Montana would have been a perfect opportunity to start hunting again. As a kid, he had tracked game on Long Island with his father, but dropped the hobby when he relocated from Florida to Big Sky Country 13 years ago. But Stafman quickly learned that a fringe benefit of serving as…
Elliott Abrams was in his State Department office when the Jan. 6 insurrection broke out at the Capitol. Because the office was in a secure location without cell phone service, Abrams, then the Trump administration’s special representative on Iran, was not aware of what was happening. When he learned of the assault that Trump supporters…
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