Forward 50 2013
John Ruskay is leaving them wanting more. After 15 years heading the UJA-Federation of New York — one of the largest charities in the Jewish communal constellation — Ruskay, 67, has announced he will retire in mid-2014. The announcement comes with his standing still high in the eyes of New York Jews. That’s something of…
Despite continued opposition from his right flank, in 2013 Avi Weiss witnessed the coming of age of two of the groundbreaking Orthodox institutions he created. This summer, Weiss presided over the first graduation ceremony of female clerics at Yeshivat Maharat, and smoothly passed the reins of his flagship rabbinic school, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, to a…
The puffs of white smoke had barely cleared from above the Sistine Chapel before we started learning about Pope Francis I. We learned that Francis, 76, is a profoundly humble man who insists on carrying his own bags and riding the bus home. We also learned that he plans to bring a breath of fresh…
While working in the library as a college student, Sarah Bunin Benor stumbled upon references to Judeo-Italian and other Jewish languages she’d never heard of before. This discovery inspired her to become a sociolinguist and study Jewish languages around the world and close to home. Her book, “Becoming Frum: How Newcomers Learn the Language and…
This has been quite a year for debut novelist Francesca Segal, the 33-year-old author of “The Innocents.” Her book won the National Jewish Book Award for fiction, the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, the 2013 Harold U. Ribalow prize, and was longlisted for the 2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction. The novel reimagines Edith Wharton’s…
Hundreds of alumni from Yeshiva University High School for Boys knew that their former administrator, Rabbi George Finkelstein, behaved inappropriately with students during the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. But only one of those students, Mordechai Twersky, battled to ensure that the allegations saw the light of day. Ignored for decades by Yeshiva University’s presidents Rabbi…
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum stands out as a notable collaboration between the Jewish community and the federal government: It is a national museum, mandated by Congress and located on the National Mall, with a triple mission of commemorating the death of European Jews, preventing future genocides, and serving as a top Holocaust research…
Political scientist Wallace Stanley Sayre once said: “Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low.” When it comes to Jewish studies professor Ruth Wisse, the politics have certainly been fierce, but the stakes have hardly been low. Wisse, 77, is the Martin Peretz professor of Yiddish…
What was Jewish about Angelina Jolie’s decision to have her breasts surgically removed? Everything. The Hollywood superstar stunned million of fans with the stark and eloquent announcement that she had chosen to proactively undergo the procedure to reduce her risk of contracting breast cancer. Jolie, whose mother died from breast cancer, explained that she took…
David Coleman, president of the College Board, finds himself at the heart of the latest culture wars, entangled in the struggle between conservatives and liberals over the role of government in education reform. Coleman, 43, is widely referred to as the architect of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, a set of academic goals that…
When Solon Beinfeld, co-editor-in-chief of the new Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary, was on a Fulbright scholarship in Paris in the 1950s, Yiddish wasn’t part of his graduate work. But having been raised in a Yiddish-speaking home, Beinfeld couldn’t help but gravitate toward the city’s Yiddish-speaking community, and especially to its Medem Library, named after the Bund…
100% of profits support our journalism
