Concert pianist Andras Schiff said that he has been threatened with having his hands cut off if he returns to Hungary. Schiff, who has been an outspoken critic of the right wing government of Viktor Orban and its relationship with the anti-Semitic extremist Jobbik Party, told the BBC in an interview published Monday that “things…
In the decades since a bunch of British Jews created Limmud, its model of volunteer experts offering a pluralistic smorgasbord of Jewish teachings, arts offerings and performances has turned into a worldwide movement. But through all these years, the chief rabbi of the United Kingdom has never attended Limmud in the country where it all…
A settlement agreement announced by New York state’s attorney general reveals drastic efforts to reform New York City’s largest Jewish poverty agency following a $7 million insurance fraud. The Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty has fired or reassigned two additional top executives in the ongoing fallout of the fraud uncovered at the organization, according to…
Something drastic is happening at Yeshiva University. Financial data reviewed by the Forward indicates that Y.U.’s long-running fiscal crisis has taken a more dramatic turn than at any time in its recent history. This past spring, there were signals that the half-decade of economic free fall at Y.U. was finally easing. The board gave raises…
Columbia law professor Ariela Dubler has been appointed as the new head of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School. Dubler, who is vice president of the school’s board, will succeed Roanna Shorofsky, at the helm of the liberal school that is considered one of New York’s leading Jewish educational institutions, Under Shorofsky’s tenure, Heschel expanded to…
Santa! Santa! The name is joy itself to children all over America…. Except if they happen to be Jewish. Then, it’s a bit more problematic. “I’m Jewish, but went to a church-run nursery school,” said Michelle Suconick, a 20-something publicist living in Brooklyn. “Our teacher would tell us stories about how Santa goes all over…
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke from Jerusalem recently to Reform Judaism’s large biennial conference via Jumbotron, the 5,000 Jews gathered here offered only pro forma applause as he restated his commitment to a two-state solution for Israel’s 46-year occupation of the West Bank. But then, Netanyahu turned to the issue of religious pluralism…
(Haaretz) — As a certified sex educator who runs a side business out of her home selling dilators and vibrators to the ultra-Orthodox and secular alike, Beverley Damelin was certain she had seen and heard it all. That includes the case of an elderly ultra-Orthodox woman who recently summoned Damelin to Bnei Brak so she…
What possessed a small-town Jewish immigrant family to defy the demands of the anti-Semitic corporate owner of their car dealership franchise? And not just any corporate owner, but Henry Ford Sr. In 1916, my grandfather, Max Barish, along with his brothers and father, opened a Ford dealership in Sioux City, Iowa. The business provided them…
An admirer of Romania’s pro-Nazi leader during World War II withdrew his candidacy for a slot on the country’s constitutional court amid protests by Jewish groups. Lucian Bolcas, a former leader within the nationalist Greater Romania Party, announced his withdrawal on Monday shortly after meeting with Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta. “I do not wish…
(JTA) — What do you get when you bring together 5,000 of the Reform movement’s faithful for a conference in sunny San Diego in mid-December? Four days of singing, learning, schmoozing and worrying at a gathering that seemed equal parts pep rally and intervention session. For pep, there were the spirited prayer services, the morning-till-night…
