Forward 50 2014
Leah Vincent, 32, became the new face of the burgeoning ex-Orthodox community this year with the publication of her feted memoir, “Cut Me Loose: Sin and Salvation After My Ultra-Orthodox Girlhood.” Vincent is just one of several formerly Orthodox authors to tell their stories in recent books. But in addition to describing her own experiences,…
Shmuel Lefkowitz, 68, leads the Orthodox fight to allow Jewish people to die according to their religious beliefs. But as the Forward showed this year, Lefkowitz’s organization, Chayim Aruchim, also believes in challenging a patient’s or relative’s wishes if those wishes contravene Jewish law. In one case, a lawyer to whom Chayim Aruchim refers cases…
Saul Zabar is not a romantic. “There’s nothing poetic about this business,” he told The New York Times in 2008. Try telling that to the crowds swarming his Upper West Side store each Friday: grandmas shoving yuppies, yuppies shoving grandmas, everyone salivating over the lox. Zabar’s turns 80 this year, and Saul Zabar, its 86-year-old…
The script could not have been written better for Cleveland Cavaliers basketball coach David Blatt. On May 18, the 55-year-old veteran coach led the Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv to an unexpected Euroleague championship over favorites, Real Madrid. On June 20, the Cleveland Cavaliers hired him to be their next head coach, fulfilling his longtime…
Eva Moskowitz is the founder and CEO of Success Academy Charter Schools, a flourishing network of charter schools in New York City that teaches nearly 9,500 mostly low-income black and Latino students. By skirting the control of the teachers union and creating highly disciplined, serious environments for students, Moskowitz’s schools have managed to outscore on…
Started an acclaimed fashion blog? Check. Founded a magazine? Check. Gave a TED talk? Check. Acted alongside Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini? Check. Hung out with Vogue’s Anna Wintour? Check. Starred in a Broadway show? Check. But celebrate her 18th birthday? That’s something Tavi Gevinson managed only this past April. At 11, Gevinson had garnered…
“Our mission is to provide the maximum number of positive Jewish experiences to the maximum number of people,” said Eliyahu Fink, 33, the rabbi of the Pacific Jewish Center in the Venice Beach neighborhood of Los Angeles. Through smart use of social media and open-minded outreach, Fink promotes a fresh take on Orthodox Judaism. Fink,…
Over the past year, Rachel Sandalow-Ash reports being called an anti-Semite, a kapo, and a self-hating Jew. But the hate has deterred neither Sandalow-Ash, 21, nor Open Hillel, the organization she leads, from their mission: opening the conversation about Israel at Hillel, the Jewish campus organization, to more critical voices. The group protests Hillel International’s…
Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire businessman, philanthropist and former New York City mayor, could have flown by private jet to Israel on July 23. But it was the middle of the Gaza conflict, just after the United States Federal Aviation Authority banned U.S. carriers from flying to or from Tel Aviv, and Bloomberg had a point…
Stopping a serious communal shande in its tracks is no mean feat — especially if you can put a cool billion bucks in your pocket at the same time. Shelly Sterling, 80, achieved both when she pressured her estranged husband, Donald Sterling, to sell the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team after he was caught on…
The revolution can take a while to organize. When Doug Seserman became head of the Denver Jewish Federation in 2002, it was struggling. A study conducted a decade later found Denver Jews actually disliked the institution that was supposed to bring them together as a community. Seserman, 51, who describes himself as “part Jewish leader…
