Boots on the ground the last few hours, and the scene is more devastating and horrific than you can imagine from the photos. Today I walked for miles offering help, cleaning and bandaging cuts, handing out gloves, masks, water. Offering support to the first responders, firefighters still out there fighting flames with no sleep and…
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey condemned the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department at a press conference Tuesday morning. Floyd, an African-American died Monday evening after a white police officer knelt on his neck outside a store at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue South. Video captured Floyd telling the officers…
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is at the center of the country’s most dire protests in years. Following the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man arrested for apparently trying to make a purchase with a counterfeit bill, thousands of people have looted and burned buildings in Minneapolis and St. Paul, including a police…
Two historic Reform synagogues in New York announced Thursday that they are entering merger talks. One is embroiled in a financial crisis made more pressing by the pandemic; the other is growing, but faces a $2 million shortfall due to the economic impact of the coronavirus. In email messages sent to their congregations Thursday afternoon,…
'We are being guided by the mezuzah, not expedience'
On Monday night, Minneapolis witnessed a lynching. A white police officer murdered George Floyd, and the video left no doubt of what had happened. It’s not the first time this had happened here, but something about this murder seems to be moving through the city in a different way. Maybe it’s because of a pandemic…
It was a baked goods bombshell. On Tuesday morning, kosher-keeping Manhattanites woke up to learn that bakery items at Fairway, a beloved and beleaguered supermarket chain under new ownership after filing for bankruptcy, were no longer kosher — effective immediately. “Oy…. the Rugelach there were the best. So sad,” posted one customer on Facebook. And…
If you glopped some ketchup on your Memorial Day burgers, you may have a little-known Israeli-American initiative to thank. Chances are the tomatoes in your condiment came from California, and those tomatoes descended from genetic lines developed by a joint Israeli-American agricultural research initiative. This year, that initiative, the Binational Agricultural Research Development Fund, known…
If the name ‘Mankiewicz’ sounds familiar, you might be remembering Frank Mankiewicz, RFK’s presidential campaign press secretary who subsequently served as a President of NPR. Or Herman J. Mankiewicz, who wrote Citizen Kane with Orson Welles. Or Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Oscar-winning director, screenwriter, and producer, or screenwriter Don Mankiewicz. Dive into Wikipedia and you’ll be…
(JTA) — Aaron Rubashkin knew a thing or two about mistreatment at the hands of governmental authorities. As a child in the Russian town of Nevel, he saw his Jewish school shut down by the Soviet government in 1938. After the Nazis arrived in the summer of 1941, the Rubashkin family fled on foot, landing…
New York City’s health department has begun providing data that breaks down the city’s COVID-19 pandemic by a number of different demographic factors, including race and ZIP code. So far, the takeaways are clear— neighborhoods with more black and Hispanic residents, and/or with higher poverty rates, saw higher rates of infection and death. And, broadly…
