At first glance, it looked like any other professional conference. But when Israel’s biomedical industry descended on Tel Aviv for its annual gathering May 21, there was one key difference: the gender mix. The biomed industry — which pioneers and produces medical devices, equipment and drugs — is booming in Israel, where there are more…
The 14th Street Y, one of New York’s most prominent Jewish institutions, has cancelled an event by a group advocating a partial boycott of Israel. The Y’s management told the youth wing of Jewish Voice for Peace that it was concerned about large crowds at the planned May 27 meeting, but the group believes it…
In this week’s podcast, host Josh Nathan-Kazis talks with staff writer Paul Berger about the controversial position held by the Orthodox umbrella group Agudath Israel on reporting child sex abuse. Then, Josh talks with Forward contributor Dvora Meyers about a series of blog posts debating whether Hasidic women can be considered ‘liberated.’ Finally, we say…
Police in New York say they have man in custody who has implicated himself in the 1979 disappearance of Etan Patz, the Jewish boy snatched off the streets of his lower Manhattan neighborhood. The suspect is Pedro Hernandez, 51, a former bodega clerk from Patz’s SoHo neighborhood, the Daily News reported. He now lives in…
A Hasidic rabbi’s little-known childcare network has stoked tensions throughout New York City by beating out scores of well-established groups to win a huge contract for subsidized day care programs. The network, called B’Above Worldwide Institute, is set to receive contracts worth roughly $31 million annually for 3,000 children at 42 day care centers under…
In anticipation of the May 18 New York opening of the film “Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story,” Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, and his wife, Jo Carole Lauder, hosted a reception at the Museum of Modern Art’s Ronald S. and Jo Carole Lauder Building on April 29. Among the guests were…
I’m a little embarrassed to admit it but I have a soft spot for commencement speeches. They provide a rare opportunity to hear people at the top of their game — actors, politicians, scientists, musicians, inventors — shelve their normal talking points and share a bit of wisdom they’ve acquired through their life. Since graduating…
An Orthodox parent whose child tells him he’s been sexually abused may not take that child’s claim to the police without first getting religious sanction from a specially trained rabbi, the head of America’s leading ultra-Orthodox umbrella group has told the Forward. But one year after acknowledging that no such registry of trained rabbis exists,…
It’s the battle that has confronted pro-Israel donors nationwide with a choice they hate: having to decide between two staunchly pro-Israel congressional incumbents with whom many have long, supportive relationships. But one way or another, pro-Israel donors have come down firmly on the side of Democratic Rep. Howard Berman in his death match against Democratic…
Lillian Jacobs, who was recently featured in a New York Times article for living on the same block for 100 years, has died. Jacobs, who moved to East 84th Street on Manhattan’s Upper East Side when she was 2, died Sunday on the same street at age 102. Her story was reported last month in…
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men numbering 40,000 packed New York’s Citi Field May 20 for a fiery and sometimes tearful rally about the dangers of the Internet. As bewildered-looking stadium staff looked on, oceans of men in black hats filled nearly every seat in the Queens, N.Y., baseball stadium to hear a series of polemics against the…
