True story. About a decade ago, a Jewish businessman — Siberian born, but Brooklyn raised — ran into Mel Brooks at the Joe Allen restaurant in Manhattan’s Theater District. “Vos macht a yid?” the man asked Brooks in Yiddish. “How’s it going?” Taking on a Yiddish intonation, Brooks replied. “Shhh …” he said. “I’m not…
A brawl in a Williamsburg, Brooklyn grocery store has led to three assault charges and a wave of anger from some activists in the neighborhood’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. According to the local news site DNAinfo, the June 9 fight started when the Hasidic managers of the Central Market grocery store told a teenager that he…
When it comes to moves against BDS and the Anti-Defamation League, it’s complicated. Like most of the mainstream Jewish community, the ADL views the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel as deplorable. In fact, said the group’s national director, Jonathan Greenblatt in May, “At its core BDS is an anti-Semitic movement. It is…
Moshe Yaalon, the recently deposed Israeli defense minister, declared his candidacy for prime minister today in a surprise announcement in an address to the annual Herzliya Conference, Israel’s prestigious annual security seminar. “The state of Israel and citizens of Israel see a leadership today that’s ceased to function,” Yaalon told a stunned audience that repeatedly…
Whole Foods CEO John Mackey is standing by his friend Marc Gafni, a controversial New Age guru and former rabbi accused of abuses of power through his career, including molestation of a teenage girl. Mackey until recently sat on the board of Gafni’s think-tank, Center for Integral Wisdom. Activists have been pushing Mackey to publicly…
American charities are raising more than they did before the Great Recession, but Jewish federations across the country are floundering, according to a new study published June 14. The annual study, called Giving USA, found that American individuals, foundations, and companies gave $373 billion to charities in 2015, more than ever before in real or…
“Dear Rabbi Brenner,” the letter written in January 1970 began, “As the final seconds of 1969 ticked away on New Year’s Eve, my husband and I looked at one another and, without saying a word, both knew exactly what the other was thinking, and that was, ‘How differently things would look if it weren’t for…
As many Jewish groups jump on board a push for laws to penalize businesses and groups boycotting Israel, the Anti-Defamation League, long considered a pillar of the Jewish establishment, is not just standing back — it has been opposing the tide. And now, it’s taking flack for this. In a press release calling ADL’s opposition…
At a press conference just hours after a Muslim gunman murdered 49 people at a gay club in Orlando, Florida, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations described the separate struggles for equality being waged by gays and Muslims as “profoundly linked.” “Homophobia, transphobia, and Islamophobia are interconnected systems of oppression and we…
Fox News host Geraldo Rivera shamed the 49 victims killed in Sunday’s mass shooting in Orlando, implying they did not adequately “fight back” against the attacker. “If you can’t hide and you can’t run, there are two choices. You stay and die, or you fight. For God’s sakes, fight back,” Rivera said on Fox News….
ORLANDO — Central Florida’s Jewish community started laying the groundwork for interfaith cooperation with Muslims Monday as the nation reeled in grief and anger after an anti-gay gunman killed 50 people in the worst-ever mass killing in recent U.S. history. Rabbi Steven Engel of the Congregation for Reform Judaism, the largest synagogue in Orlando, and…
