Down a gritty dead-end alley in ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn, past a loading dock and a couple of dumpsters, a set of stairs leads up to a small room with bare walls and a dozen computers. The plaque on the door at Kollel L’Horauh calls the room a library. As a library, it has received $135,000 in…
Max Kampelman, who died on January 25 at the age of 92, was lauded often as one of the great men of our times for his role as chief U.S. arms control negotiator in the Reagan administration. He won no less praise for his diplomatic role in enabling the emigration of hundreds of thousands of…
When I was a little girl, there were things as clear as sunlight, as the sea God had split just for the Jews. One of those things was that dogs were despicable creatures. They were scary and dirty, with teeth like knives, and paws with claws, ripping flesh off bone, the way they’d done to…
All of New York City’s Democratic mayoral candidates and a handful of congressmen have asked a public college in Brooklyn to withdraw its political science department’s co-sponsorship of a panel discussion on the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel. In a January 31 letter, the congress members and mayoral candidates decried the department’s…
The Jewish Big Easy is back — and the Super Bowl proves it. New Orleans Jews are eagerly trumpeting Super Bowl XLVII as a means to showcase their rebuilt community, almost seven and a half years after it suffered a devastating drop in population following Hurricane Katrina. “We were impacted by Katrina just like everyone…
Ido Aharoni Touts “Borat” at Friends of Bezalel Gala Honoring Leonard Polonsky “A win-win situation in politics in Israel means I win twice!” joked Ido Aharoni, Israel’s consul general in New York, at the January 24 Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design gala that honored financier, philanthropist and renaissance man extraordinaire Leonard Polonsky. Surprising the…
Edward Irving Koch, New York City’s long-serving, charismatic, controversial 105th mayor and arguably the most visible American Jewish official of his day, passed away this morning at age 88 from congestive heart failure. His three epitaphs, chosen several years before his death, expressed the centrality of Judaism to his identity. The first quotes the murdered…
About 10 years ago, Jason Lieberman stopped wearing tefillin. This was not an act of rebellion — Lieberman’s cerebral palsy simply made it too difficult for him to put them on. Seven years later, Lieberman, 34, who serves as treasurer of Matan, which provides Jewish education programs to special needs children, sought help from his…
In this week’s Reporters Roundtable podcast, host Josh Nathan-Kazis is joined by Forward Fellow Seth Berkman to discuss why Orthodox mohels are refusing to present consent forms to parents before performing metzitzah b’peh — the controversial practice of suctioning blood following circumcision. Then, assistant managing editor Larry Cohler-Esses talks with Josh about the federal program…
The leading association for mohelim who practice a risky oral blood suctioning technique in their circumcisions has vowed not to cooperate with New York City’s new health regulations governing use of the technique, known as metzitzah b’peh. Brooklyn mohel Rabbi Avrohom Cohn, chairman of the American Board of Ritual Circumcision, said his group would not…
When my Sicilian father-in-law converted to Judaism at the age of 60, he said he felt “a strong pull toward home, as if I always had a Jewish soul.” Several years earlier, Joe had survived colon cancer and several complicated surgeries. His long recuperation gave him time to read, and to think. His second wife…
די „שלום־עליכם לעקציע“ וועט מען קענען הערן אויפֿן אָרט אָדער דורך דער אינטערנעץ.
