In a reflection of the increasing role the U.S. Department of the Treasury is playing in clandestine operations, America’s “sanctions guru” was sworn in on February 9 as the country’s second-in-command spymaster. David Cohen, whose appointment as deputy director of the CIA was announced in January, will be the highest-ranking Jew now in the spy…
It is no exaggeration to say that Jerome Koenig, who passed away on Sunday, February 1 — two months short of his 85th birthday and two days before he and his wife Shulamith celebrated their 53rd wedding anniversary — was a man of integrity, wisdom, insight and humility. He was an exciting, loving human being…
Does the New York Jewish federation’s network of charities have a corruption problem? New York’s Jewish not-for-profits are falling like dominoes. Scandals have rocked some of the most prominent agencies in UJA-Federation of New York’s network in recent weeks, with one agency announcing in February that it would shut down, another losing its executive director…
(JTA) — One of the top agenda items these days for Rachel Timoner, associate rabbi at the Leo Baeck Temple in Los Angeles, is trying to get a train built along the I-405 freeway stretching from the North San Fernando Valley to the city’s international airport. It’s the community project her Reform congregation has chosen…
An Israeli army officer who was on a helicopter with NBC news anchor Brian Williams during the Second Lebanon War said his reporting “was representative of the experience.” “The general descriptions Williams gave were accurate,” Jacob Dallal, a reserve major in the army’s media liaison office, told Bloomberg in a phone interview Monday. Williams, who…
Standing on an improvised stage and wrapped in the black, red and gold German flag, Rotem Ahituv stared out at thousands of protesters spread below him and offered the demonstrators a kind of absolution that only someone like him could give. “I am Jewish,” he told the crowd. “My family has lived here in Germany…
If you’re wondering if any reality TV shows are really real, I can tell you about one of them: Mine. The show is called “World’s Worst Mom,” which refers to me, not the 13 overprotective moms I visit. I swoop in like the Supernanny, except instead of dealing with out-of-control brats, I deal with parents…
The collapse of one of the largest Jewish charities in the United States is raising concerns about the future of the Jewish social service ecosystem. The massive New York-based social service charity known as FEGS said on January 30 that it would shut down, just seven weeks after it revealed a stunning, previously undetected $19.4…
The controversy surrounding a monument to honor Poles who saved Jews during the Holocaust has taken yet another turn, as Simcha Rotem, a prominent survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, has reconfirmed his support for the project, days after signing a letter protesting its location. Rotem said that he supports locating the monument on the site…
It was ironic, to say the least, that it took coming to an oil-rich Arab emirate to get me to lead my first Rosh Hashanah service. Forty-five years ago I had earned Conservative rabbinic ordination from New York’s Jewish Theological Seminary. But this was the first time I had ever used it. I had turned,…
The elevator doors in a tall building next to New York’s Central Park opened to an immaculate, spacious office. There were at least 15 women sitting quietly on white couches, next to a table offering coffee and tea. They appeared to be in their 30s; some seemed optimistic, others worried, a few joyful. Most of…
