It was on December 28, 2008, soon after Israel launched its punishing military campaign in Gaza, known as Operation Cast Lead, that Rabbi Brant Rosen hit the “send” key for a blog post that he believed could well pitch him out of his pulpit. “We good liberal Jews are ready to protest oppression and human-rights…
Standing in front of an empty coffin carrying signs reading “I can’t afford to die,” leaders of the Washington D.C. Jewish community staged a protest outside the offices of the Federal Trade Commission urging it to block expected rate hikes following a planned merger of two funeral conglomerates. “Our point of concern is that the…
(JTA) — George W. Bush granted Messianic Jews a brief shining moment in the spotlight last week – and then just as quickly sent them back into the shadows. The Messianic Jewish Bible Institute in Dallas had advertised Bush as the keynote speaker at its annual fundraiser on Nov. 14, prominently featuring the former president’s…
Everyone’s heard of derivatives, options and futures, but the details of how they might save or destroy civilization are so daunting that the simple facts get lost. Let’s get down to business: A derivative is a financial security (tradable itself) whose value is based on that of an underlying asset. In other words, instead of…
From call options to put options, forwards to futures, we break derivatives down and answer all the questions you were afraid to ask. Derivatives: financial securities whose value is based on, or derived from, that of an underlying asset. That asset could be money, bonds or agricultural produce — or anything. Derivatives can be used…
It’s a financial dogfight for the ages. When billionaire investor and CEO of Pershing Square Capital hedge fund William Ackman short-sold $1 billion in stock of Herbalife, the Los Angeles-based nutrition company, he drew the ire not just of the company, but of other fellow hedge funders who saw Ackman as taking his legendary arrogance…
(Haaretz) — Looking for your loved one’s headstone? Shelly Furman Asa has created a Google Street View for cemeteries. Ido Kenan: What are you looking for in cemeteries? Shelly Furman Asa There are many things that have been done in connection with the commemoration of soldiers, Holocaust victims and so on. But we don’t have simple…
(JTA) — For most of the seven years Tova Kinderlehrer lived with her young family in Pittsburgh, she wished she were somewhere else. Her son wasn’t doing well in school, her husband’s construction career had stalled and Kinderlehrer, though part of a “massive” urban community, felt isolated. She dreamed of escape. In 2011, Kinderlehrer and…
When you undergo a traumatic experience, especially at a young age, you remember details of that experience for the rest of your life. And so it was for so many on the day of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy: Friday, November 22, 1963. I was an eighth-grader at Akiba Hebrew Academy, in Merion,…
The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany received a $4 million grant from The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation to provide emergency assistance to Holocaust survivors in North America. The Baltimore-based Weinberg Foundation announced the grant on Monday. The Weinberg Holocaust Survivors Emergency Assistance Fund (Holocaust Survivors Emergency Fund) of the Claims Conference underwrites…
There are two things that every Jewish baseball fan knows about Ryan Braun. First, the Milwaukee Brewer leftfielder is the best Jewish ballplayer in the majors today. Second, as a result of his self-inflicted tsoris, Braun faces the gargantuan challenge of winning back his fans when he returns to baseball next spring, following his 65-game…
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