Rabbi Brian Lurie, who recently replaced Naomi Chazan as president of the New Israel Fund, has spent most of his professional life at the heart of the American Jewish establishment. Nonetheless, he is a rebel, a nonconformist, a Jewish communal leader “on the cutting edge,” as former Forward editor J.J. Goldberg puts it, especially in…
“Welcome to my building,” joked Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Carl Bernstein, who moderated a discussion about the U.S. Supreme Court and health care on July 19 at the Manhattan headquarters of AllianceBernstein. Sponsored by The Common Good, the event’s featured panelists included Susan Blumenthal, rear admiral and former U.S. assistant surgeon general, and Jeffrey Toobin, senior…
When Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann and a group of colleagues called for a probe into “security concerns” over the employment of several Muslims in top government positions, Democrats and Republicans joined in condemning the call and in accusing those behind it of Islamophobia. Yet, shining the spotlight on the issue of Muslim Americans in…
In this week’s podcast, host Josh Nathan-Kazis is joined by Forward Editor Jane Eisner and Washington correspondent Nathan Guttman to discuss Mitt Romney’s recent trip to Israel. Then Ezra Glinter reports back on the giant celebration of Talmud reading in New Jersey. Finally, John Connelly, a Forward contributor, calls in to discuss how a small…
The British ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould said on Thursday that anyone who cares about Israel, should be concerned about the erosion of international support for the country. Speaking on Channel 10 news on Thursday evening, Gould said, “Israelis might wake up in 10 years time and find out that suddenly the international community has…
Aly Raisman fell just short of winning a medal in the women’s gymnastics competition at the Olympics after losing a tiebreaker and finishing in fourth place. American Gabby Douglas won the gold. Sixteen-year-old Douglas took the Olympic Games by storm on when she won the all-around gold medal ahead of Russian Victoria Komova. “I feel…
The University of California, birthplace of the 1960s campus Free Speech Movement, is now considering a proposal that would ban certain forms of speech as a result of a report on Jews and the Israel debate at its schools. The July 9 report, issued by an advisory panel to UC President Mark Yudof, concluded that…
“It all comes down to Aly Raisman,” the sportscaster declared, as U.S. women’s Olympic gymnast Alexandra (Aly) Raisman took to the mat during the team final competition. A string-heavy version of “Hava Nagila” flooded through the arena as she began to flip. The floor routine was executed with near perfection, and as Raisman landed her…
The gathering of 90,000 Jews at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium on August 1 is the culmination of what could be seen as the world’s largest book club celebrating the completion of one of the world’s longest books. For the past seven and a half years, men — and some women — around the world have…
A flood of money brought in by prominent national political action committees has become the norm in this year’s U.S. Senate race in Ohio, which pits first-term incumbent Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, against Republican Josh Mandel, the state treasurer and a Jewish Iraq war veteran. Because of the state’s swing role in recent presidential elections…
Four-time gold medalist Jason Lezak, competing in likely what is his final Olympics, helped the American swim team qualify for the 4×100-meter freestyle relay finals. Lezak swam in the morning preliminaries on Sunday but did not compete that evening in the finals, when the U.S. took the silver medal. For Lezak it was his eighth…
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