More than a dozen Orthodox Jews have come forward to complain they were scammed by a ‘fake frum’ con artist in New York City who tricked them into giving him substantial sums of money with tales of bad fortune. The fraudster, who often approaches his targets near rail stations as the Sabbath nears, proffers panicked…
The tendentious exchange between President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu these last few days underscores how differently each man views the third party in the on-again, off-again Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. That would be Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. So diametrically opposed are Obama and Netanyahu in their public assessment of the Palestinian leader that there…
A huge merger may turn the son of a Philadelphia Jewish entrepreneur into one of the most powerful Americans in the media industry. Brian Roberts, 54, chairman and CEO of Comcast, a cable and broadband provider that announced on February 13 its intention to take over Time Warner Cable in a $45 billion deal, seeks…
A 91-year-old Holocaust survivor was struck and killed by a school bus as he crossed a street in a Maryland suburb of Washington. Elia Miranski was using a walker when the bus hit him in Silver Spring near Washington D.C. on Wednesday, the Silver Spring Patch news site reported. He died later that day in…
The rabbinical school of Yeshiva University is withholding the ordination of a student who held a partnership minyan for his wife in their home. Rabbi Menachem Penner, acting dean of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, or RIETS, sent a letter to the student ordering him not to participate in partnership minyans “nor create a…
A loudspeaker blares protest calls and a steady crowd buzzes in the background as a young Ukrainian Jewish girl talks into the camera, live from Kiev’s Independence Square. “I want to let you know that lots of people who study Hebrew together with me are going to Euromaidan after classes every single day,” she said,…
The Israeli government tentatively agreed to a deal that puts a right-wing organization in charge of the Robinson’s Arch area of the Western Wall. Under the draft agreement, the government transfers control of the Jerusalem Archaeological Park and Davidson Center to the City of David Foundation, Haaretz reported. The foundation runs the City of David…
(JTA) — In the coming months, six young Jews with disabilities will start paid internships at major Jewish federations through a pilot program. If successful, the program will expand to communities throughout North America. In the fall, Manhattan’s first Jewish day school for children with special needs will open. Meanwhile, the Foundation for Jewish Camp…
(Haaretz) — Alice Herz-Sommer, the Jewish pianist from London and survivor of Theresienstadt, died Sunday at the age of 110. After the passing of Sommer, whom the media described as the world’s oldest Holocaust survivor, the unofficial title passes to Yisrael Kristal, an Israeli confectioner from Haifa, who celebrated his 110th birthday last September. Yisrael…
Ultra-Orthodox mental health professionals are pushing back against efforts to restrict so-called gay “conversion” therapy, a controversial practice that aims to curb or reverse patients’ same-sex attraction. Amid a growing wave of legislation banning conversion therapy for teenagers, a group known as Nefesh has joined with the ultra-Orthodox umbrella group Agudath Israel of America to…
One night in January, an Orthodox Jewish real estate developer brought a handgun to a planning board meeting in a small upstate New York town. The gun was on the waist of one of the two uniformed security guards accompanying Shalom Lamm, who may be the most hated man in the town of Mamakating. The…
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