The Forward has been awarded 17 Simon Rockower Awards for Excellence in Jewish Journalism by the American Jewish Press Association, including 10 first-place prizes. The AJPA praised the Forward, which won for coverage in both English and Yiddish, for its “gutsy” and “hard-hitting” coverage and “gripping storytelling.” “It is gratifying to win this many awards…
Temple Beth-El, an attractive red-brick Reform synagogue, has stood for 94 years at the corner of Jackson and Council streets in a leafy section of the city of Muncie, Indiana. It’s never been a large congregation and mostly doesn’t hold services in the summer when some members are out of town and nearby Ball State…
Brooklyn’s Orthodox community is mourning the apparent suicide of 22-year-old construction worker Yakov Krausz, whose body was discovered Wednesday in an elevator motor room, the Daily News reported. His death marks at least the 26th suicide of a young adult in New York-area Orthodox community over the past ten months, according to Zvi Gluck, founder…
Rabbi Haskel Lookstein may not be kosher in the eyes of Israel’s chief rabbinate, but he is more than good enough for Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump. The New York rabbi, whose conversions to Judaism, including that of Trump’s daughter Ivanka, were recently rejected by Israeli chief rabbinate will deliver an invocation during the four-day…
Critics of Israel have claimed credit for the cancellation of a planned Tel Aviv concert by ‘Happy’ singer Pharrell Williams — but others blamed anemic ticket sales. The left-leaning Jewish Voice for Peace, which supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel applauded the Grammy-winner’s decision to cancel the gig set for next week….
Michele Bachmann said Donald Trump longs for the time when “even my Jews would say merry Christmas.” The Republican former representative spoke fondly of Trump’s “churched background” and “1950s sensibilities,” in a clip from a Saturday interview published by watchdog Right Wing Watch. “He said, ‘When I was growing up, everyone said merry Christmas, even…
A prominent African-American Zionist used social media to blast a campus group for drawing parallels between racial violence in this country and the occupation of Palestinian lands by the Israeli military. “I’m just like, wait a minute SJP. Let’s be real,” Chloé Simone Valdary said in the brief video, posted on both her Facebook and…
Consider the key card: a piece of plastic no bigger than a business card, flimsy and seemingly innocent. And yet it’s also possibly the trigger to a cascade of changes that could transform the experience of the Sabbath by making a bevy of other devices, from iPads to stoves to cars, permissible on the traditionally…
This article is part of a series of profiles of formerly Orthodox Jews. A report released last month found that though many formerly Orthodox — or “Off the Derech” — Jews struggle to find new communities and feel acceptance from their families, nearly all retain their Jewish identity. You can read more about this community…
At a senior center in South Brooklyn, the old Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet bloc can’t wait to vote for Donald Trump. “I like his honesty, that he’s against Muslims, that he’s against refugees,” said Valentina Albert, a former refugee from Moldova whose husband was Jewish. “I think that our lives, the lives of…
The ritual barrier was not approved by rabbinic authorities
