Shortly after being sworn in for his first term in January, Lakewood’s mayor, Albert Akerman, visited “Tent City,” an encampment of about 100 homeless people living in a densely wooded area of township land — a rare slice of open space in the fastest-growing municipality in New Jersey. Akerman, an Orthodox Jew originally from the…
Getting schoolchildren to eat green vegetables is anything but easy. Getting students in ultra-Orthodox schools to eat these vegetables as part of their school lunch could soon become impossible. Representatives of ultra-Orthodox groups have been petitioning the government, in meetings and through correspondence since last October, to exempt their schools from the legal requirement to…
Dave Leibman knows he’s a bit of an outlier in the South Florida Jewish community — or perhaps in any Jewish community. With pillowcases in tow, and bulky camouflage hunting boots on his feet, Leibman spent a recent day driving his pickup through the Everglades, hoping to nab a Burmese python, a species that can…
Proponents of metzitzah b’peh, the controversial circumcision ritual, were denied a request for an emergency stay in the enforcement of a recent New York City law that regulates the procedure. The decision was handed down by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The motion, filed by the Central Rabbinical Congress of…
The Backward is the Forward’s annual satirical Purim edition. Enjoy! More stories here… A slow-moving tragedy evolves in the Galapagos.
More stories here… “It was almost like a message from God,” said Noah, who lives in the Rockaways section of Queens. “The neighbors seem much more supportive this time around. Some of them have asked to book tickets.” Noah said that he was interviewing animals in twos for the journey, but that the job was…
Meanwhile, nearby softcore erotica store, The Hole Megillah, reports unexpectedly high foot traffic from the ultra-Orthodox. The Backward is the Forward’s annual satirical Purim edition. Enjoy! More stories here…
Located on the main stretch of Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach Avenue, among numerous Russian delis, Russian-language bookstores and a shuttered Russian travel agency, the Brighton Neighborhood Association stands out. Its window is one of the few on the block with signs predominantly in English, and it’s one of the few storefronts near the elevated tracks of…
Timbuktu, the remote and ancient Sahara Desert city that was until recently controlled by Al Qaeda-affiliated groups, is not often thought of as an outpost of Jewish life. Yet this West African town of some 55,000, in northern Mali, is still home to an estimated 1,000 descendants of Jews who converted to Islam centuries ago….
In this week’s Reporters Roundtable podcast, host Josh Nathan-Kazis is joined by Forward fellow Seth Berkman to discuss his story about a tent city in Lakewood, New Jersey a town with a large, dominant Orthodox community. Then, Naomi Zeveloff drops by to discuss her story about a professor whose professional relationship with a student devolved…
“This is a celebration of a life lived,” said David Posner, senior rabbi of Temple Emanu-El, in his invocation at the February 3 “Memorial and Celebration of an Extraordinary Life — Vladka Meed, 1921–2012,” held at the synagogue’s Lowenstein Auditorium. Vladka Meed was a leader in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising; she died in Phoenix on…
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