The Amtrak train that hurtled off the tracks in Philadelphia left a trail of broken bodies and dreams. Among the dead are at least two Jews, both with inspiring stories. Justin Zemser, 20, was a midshipman at the Naval Academy heading back to his home in Queens, New York. Rachel Jacobs was a 39-year-old mom…
Rachel Jacobs, a CEO and Jewish community activist, was reportedly killed in the deadly crash of an Amtrak train that derailed in Philadelphia, family and friends said. Jacobs’s family sent a text message to friends saying that she died in the tragedy, the New York Times reported. “This is an unthinkable tragedy,” the Jacobs family…
The overseas aid and development group American Jewish World Service plans to lay off its community organizing staff two years after announcing a new focus on political advocacy to support its mission. Stuart Schear, the group’s vice president for communications, said that while AJWS was able to raise millions of dollars targeted for overseas aid,…
Growing up in reunified Germany, Eva Meyer remembers being overwhelmed by the Holocaust studies that were part of each school year. Meyer and her classmates were assigned to read books about the Holocaust. They heard personal stories from Holocaust survivors. They had to write essays about the Holocaust, too. Learning so intensively about the horrors…
Robert Shillman heads a publicly traded American technology company called Cognex Corp with a market value of $4 billion. He also says he is a big supporter of last Sunday’s Prophet Mohammad cartoon contest in Texas that was attacked by two gunmen who opened fire before being shot dead by police. In a telephone interview…
Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government is just starting to take shape and has yet to present a platform or guidelines. Even the ministerial portfolios are not all divvied out yet; members of Netanyahu’s Likud party are still anxiously waiting to hear what posts their leader has left for them after signing generous deals with his coalition…
(JTA) — When Jeff Wang was applying to U.S. colleges more than two years ago from his home near Shanghai, Brandeis University was a top choice. Like many Chinese students now at Brandeis, he had discovered the university on Chinese Internet forums that touted the school’s academic rankings and its high faculty-to-student ratio. Wang noted…
Pamela Geller is vowing to push ahead with another event showcasing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed — even after radical gunmen attacked the first one. “We feel compelled to hold another event to demonstrate that we refuse to be silenced by violent intimidation,” Geller, one of the organizers of the May 3 event in Garland,…
Long written off by mainstream critics as an Islamophobic crackpot, Pamela Geller is winning increasing sums from financial backers with her blood-and-thunder warnings against the religion of Muhammad. Geller is also having an undeniable impact on the national conversation about Islam. The activist, whose anti-Islam event in Garland, Texas, was besieged by two gunmen, has,…
Democratic and Republican presidential candidates have long appreciated the importance of tapping into the pool of Jewish donors, who are among the most generous political contributors in the nation. But until recently, Orthodox Jews have been an elusive target. Like their Democratic counterparts, Republican candidates chose to go after more secular — albeit more conservative…
From representing the Democrats in Bill Clinton’s 1999 impeachment hearings to defending New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez against recent corruption charges, Abbe Lowell boasts a client portfolio that places him snugly within the Beltway’s elite lawyer club. But in recent years the Jewish white-collar criminal defense attorney has taken on an anti-establishment cause. In courts…
