A Year of Curses and Many Blessings
Bringing Sholem Asch to Broadway 90 Years On In May, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel spoke with the Forward about her new play, “Indecent,” which had just opened at Manhattan’s Vineyard Theater. “I’m interested in trying to rediscover the innocence we had as a people before the entire paradigm changed,” she said. With “Indecent,”…
Most Likely He’ll Go His Way (To Sweden, for a Nobel Prize) As of press time, there was one thing that nearly everybody in America knew and another that only one person did. What everybody knew was that the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to an American-born Jewish singer-songwriter, memoirist, poet and occasional…
The Orthodox Marketing CEO With a Heart of Gold Sarah Hofstetter, 42, is CEO of 360i, an ad agency whose clients include Coca-Cola, Nestlé and Capital One. She’s also an Orthodox, Sabbath-observant mother of two — a feat in an industry known for providing clients with 24/7 attention. In addition to juggling work, kids and…
Creating the Gefilte Manifesto Gefilte fish is undergoing an unlikely artisanal revival, mainly thanks to Liz Alpern’s Gefilteria culinary venture and her new book, “The Gefilte Manifesto: New Recipes for Old World Jewish Foods.” Like Bogie and Bacall or Will and Grace, Alpern, 32, and Jeffrey Yoskowitz, her partner-in-gefilte, are usually mentioned in the same…
Ivanka Trump – The Jewish Trump Card Donald Trump’s now Jewish daughter, Ivanka Trump, used to seem like a different kind of Trump. Sure, Ivanka, 35, worked for her dad at the Trump Tower in NYC. And sure, just like her father, Ivanka capitalized on the Trump name, spinning off the Ivanka Trump lifestyle brand…
Building a New Generation of Leaders America’s large Jewish organizations are facing a challenge. In the next decade, most of their senior leaders will retire, and no one is sure where the next generation will come from. That’s where Gali Cooks, the head of Leading Edge, has stepped into the breach. Leading Edge’s mission is…
In the fall of 2013, there was fear in the air in Orthodox Brooklyn. Power was shifting in the district attorney’s office, and Orthodox leaders worried that the borough’s new chief prosecutor, Ken Thompson, wouldn’t be a friend. “He said he’s going to target the Jewish community,” New York City Council member David Greenfield said…
(JTA) — At 6:30 Wednesday morning, Oklahoma City Rabbi Abby Jacobson received a text from one of her teenage congregants expressing sadness at the presidential election results — and fear. “She said, ‘I’m sorry for texting you, rabbi, but I can’t say any of this at school,’” related Jacobson, the spiritual leader at the Conservative…
Steve Bannon, the right-wing media provocateur who turned Breitbart News into a haven for white supremacy, the so-called “alt-right” and anti-Semitic tropes, is poised to play a key role in the incoming administration — setting off a firestorm of criticism from Jewish leaders and anti-hate groups. Bannon, who ran Donald Trump’s victorious presidential campaign, was…
This election has taken a toll on everyone. Each week seems to bring new revelations and scandals. Stressful, yes. Scary? Maybe. And taxing on our spiritual lives? Gary Shaffer worried that was the case. Shaffer leads weekly classes in Mussar, a 19th century Jewish spiritual practice focused on ethics at one of Brooklyn’s largest Reform…
An open letter from American Jews pledging solidarity with immigrants and Muslims during the Donald Trump administration has attracted more than 21,000 signatures in the past 24 hours. The letter, drafted and posted online by the Jewish social justice group Bend the Arc, promises support to “everyone who is threatened by the President-Elect and his…
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