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Was Dead Man Too Jewish To Be Cremated?
When Martin Mendelsohn died in September, his brother’s plans to have the remains cremated ran into some surprising opposition: The Hasidic owner of the dead man’s retirement home sued to have the body buried instead. Philip Schonberger, who runs the Evergreen Court Home for Adults, in Spring Valley, New York, thought Mendelsohn’s brother, Steven, was…
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Meet Barack Obama’s Jewish Flack Catcher
It’s almost Hanukkah, and Matt Nosanchuk knows what to expect when his phone rings with a Brooklyn-area number on the screen. Almost for sure, it’s another Jewish community leader concerned about not having yet received an invitation to the White House’s annual Hanukkah reception. Navigating the jockeying among Jewish leaders for access to this seasonal…
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Jews Are Still the Biggest Target of Religious Hate Crimes
When it comes to religious hate crimes, Jews and Jewish institutions were the biggest targets in America again last year, hands down. But when it comes to hate crimes overall, the single biggest motivation by far was not religion at all; it was race—a situation that has prevailed for years. Those are two of the…
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Slain Messianic Jew Was Outspoken Admirer of Israel — and Jews
(JTA) — While America puzzles over the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, many American Jews are puzzling over an additional element: the religious identity of victim Nicholas Thalasinos. Pictured on his Facebook page wearing a scarf-style tallit prayer shawl, Thalasinos, who was killed along with 13 others in Wednesday’s shooting at a center for…
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Donald Trump Stumbles in Pitch to Republican Jews With Stereotype-Filled Spiel
There are many ways to woo a Jewish political audience, and Donald Trump ignored them all. Instead of usual applause lines, The Donald chose to invoke borderline anti-Semitic stereotypes and bypassed Middle East policy softball questions that are dear to this audience. “You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money,” Trump…
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Holocaust Survivor Reunited With Polish ‘Big Sister’ — 70 Years Later
When Michael Hochberg met the woman who helped saved his life during the Holocaust, he embraced her and whispered in Polish, “What a great surprise,” and then called her a pretty flower. He handed her a bouquet of tangerine roses. She replied back in the same language: “I didn’t expect it would happen.” Hochberg, who…
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Is ‘Chained’ Wife Tamar Epstein’s Remarriage Kosher — Even Without Orthodox Divorce?
Tamar Epstein, the prominent “chained woman” whose right to remarry under traditional Jewish law was long stymied, may have finally found two Orthodox rabbis willing to help her wed again. But her fate in the broader Jewish community — and the fate of any children she may have — is anything but ensured. Epstein, who…
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Will Ezra Schwartz Murder Cause Schools To Rethink Security in Israel?
As violence rises in Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, parents of American Jewish students studying there say that they are relying on the security protocols of the programs to which they have entrusted their children. It is not yet clear, however, whether such protocols were followed by Yeshivat Ashreinu, the school the American teenager…
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Why Were 2 Homeless Men Found Dead at Brooklyn Jewish Elementary School?
Just after midnight at an Orthodox Jewish elementary school in Brooklyn, Elliott Gordon found a man turning blue on the floor of the chapel. Gordon had been sitting in a filthy dormitory room upstairs when he heard a voice in the hallway say that a man named Moshe had collapsed. It was Gordon’s first night…
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Meet Peter Gold, the Hero Medical Student We Can All Be Thankful For
It’s perhaps no surprise that Peter Gold rushed to a woman’s aid when he spotted an armed attack unfolding on a darkened New Orleans street last week. After all, helping people is in the Tulane University medical student’s blood: His dad, uncle, and grandfather are all doctors. “I’m sure he would do the same thing…
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Suburban Philadelphia High School Gets $8M Gift
The Kohelet Yeshiva High School in Merion Station, Pennsylvania, has received an $8.6 million gift. The gift announced last week from the Kohelet Foundation includes $7.5 million in unrestricted funds to be used for operational expenses at the school over the next five years, as well as $1.1 million to fund the high school’s new…
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