When it comes to climate change, there’s a powerful wind blowing these days. Not the wind coming off deadly Typhoon Hagupit, which lashed the Philippines, nor even the hot air coming from the mouths of climate deniers like incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. I’m talking about the wind in the sails of the climate…
Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum was observing the Sabbath on December 20 when New York police officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were shot and killed in their patrol car in Brooklyn by 28-year-old Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who then took his own life. After sundown, Kleinbaum, who leads New York’s Congregation Beit Simchat Torah and has been an…
Two new lawsuits aim to hold Modern Orthodoxy’s largest rabbinic organization responsible in the Rabbi Barry Freundel mikvah-peeping scandal. Both lawsuits allege that the Rabbinical Council of America and Freundel’s own synagogue were aware of inappropriate conduct by Freundel prior to the discovery that he was using a hidden camera to view women as they…
(JTA) — In the basement of one of Europe’s largest synagogues, 100 Jews are waiting to meet local film star Boris Smolkin. The crowd applauds enthusiastically as the 66-year-old funnyman, who gave his voice to Master Yoda in the Russian-language version of the “Star Wars” trilogy, sucks daintily on an electronic cigarette during a public interview…
Lox Me Tender from Jewish Daily Forward on Vimeo. Anne Rothstein stared through the counter glass, transfixed, as the knife slid through the fleshy pink salmon. “Amazing,” Rothstein said to herself. “You are amazing.” The subject of Rothstein’s praise, Len Berk, kept his eyes on the knife as it slid through the fish. Berk, 84,…
The Seesaw is a new kind of advice column in which a broad range of columnists will address the real life issues faced by interfaith couples and families. Read the discussion and vote below for what you think is the best response to this particular quandary. You can email your own questions, which will remain…
For an old Moscow hand who had the privilege to cover the last days of the Soviet Union for the Forward 25 years ago, Tunis feels a bit like perestroika. From every restaurant and hotel lobby, television screens blare commentators of all persuasions arguing passionately about politics with raised voices and rapid-fire gesticulations as the…
(JTA) — Dimly lit, the stone slab, or stele, doesn’t look particularly noteworthy, especially when compared to the more lavish sphinxes, jewelry and cauldrons one encounters en route to the room where it is installed. Indeed, in a Twitter post this fall, art journalist Lee Rosenbaum described the nearly 13-by-16 inch c. 830 BCE rock,…
A Jewish agency head who had been deeply involved with caring for migrant children was found dead with her longtime partner in what police are calling an apparent murder-suicide. Rochelle Tatrai, the president and CEO of Gulf Coast Jewish Family and Community Services, and partner Sean Ray were both found dead of gunshot wounds on…
(JTA) — For many Cuban Jews – the majority of whom now live in the United States – it has been a bittersweet week. Like countless Jews around the world, they cheered the release of Alan Gross, the American Jewish telecommunications contractor who had been held in a Cuban prison for the last five years. But…
On December 17, President Obama announced a thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations and the release of Alan Gross, an American-Jewish contractor who had been held in a Cuban jail for five years. Here’s what a few Cuban-American Jews make of the announcement, both for themselves and for Cuban Jews in general. Rosa Perelmuter What took place…
