One evening in November 2017, United States Senator Kamala Harris stood facing Jerusalem’s Western Wall. It was her third visit to Israel, but the first time she’d come with a special escort: Her husband Doug Emhoff. Though he is Jewish, Emhoff, then 53, had never visited Israel. So Harris, whom he’d married in 2014, invited…
The Forward is one of 57 libraries, museums and city agencies, contributing to a new app called Urban Archive, helping make historical materials engaging and accessible. Children take centerstage in the story of this archival image. Forward coverage reflected the cultural and political attitudes toward childhood and its games as they evolved for Jews and…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Joe Biden closed the Democratic National Convention the way he launched his campaign in April of last year: By invoking what he depicted as President Donald Trump’s callousness to racism and anti-Semitism. Biden, speaking late Thursday night to the convention made virtual because of the coronavirus pandemic, recalled the deadly 2017 neo-Nazi…
Many friends and associates of former Vice President Joe Biden are scheduled to share video testimonials about him on Thursday, the final day of the Democratic National Convention. Among them will be Rabbi Michael Beals of Congregation Beth Shalom, a Conservative synagogue in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden’s hometown. Lots of Delawareans have stories about how they…
Belarus — that strange country, locked in a previous era, and now reeling from anti-regime protests — is drenched in Jewish history, and blood. To go to the Republic of Belarus is to travel in time. It is to go to a land where few tourists enter and where foreigners require “additional special security.” Where…
With Los Angeles County banning even private schools from opening because of the coronavirus pandemic biting into the fall semester, at least four Orthodox day schools in the area have found a way to legally bring students to campus. They are calling it camp. The schools have opened or plan to open soon for optional…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Gabby Giffords, the Jewish congresswoman was shot by an assailant in the head in 2011 and who became a leader in the gun control movement, opened the third night of the Democratic convention with an appeal to elect Joe Biden president. “We can let the shooting continue or we can act,” Giffords…
Jewish nursing homes are hurting. Even as some of their clients fight the coronavirus itself, the homes are struggling with the extra financial burdens that come from preventing the virus’s spread: •Miami Jewish Health, the largest nursing home in southeast Florida, has laid off about 30 employees and furloughed another 10. Though it has received…
(JTA) – Over the past week, the reports have come fast and furious. One overnight sports camp for boys in Pennsylvania had an outbreak of COVID-19, sending eight boys back to their home communities on Long Island and several more to Baltimore, where others had contracted the virus after attending weddings or coming into contact…
With the High Holidays fast approaching, Jewish congregations and communities are rethinking how to fulfill the commandment of hearing the shofar blown at a time when the COVID-19 crisis has scattered so many worshippers. The loud blare of the shofar is meant to inspire awareness, inciting greater self-reflection and attention to God during the High…
Jewish Crown Heights residents remember microscopic details about the riots of 1991 — 29 years ago, on Wednesday. They recall the acronyms used to differentiate between the different types of ambulances that served the victims of the car crash that started it all. They remember the ins and outs of the court cases for one…
נאָך איר מאַנס טויט אין 2003 האָט זי געהאָלפֿן אַרויסגעבן זײַן לעקסיקאָן פֿון די ייִדישע שרײַבער אין ראַטן־פֿאַרבאַנד.
