A government program tailored to provide security grants for Jewish institutions is facing deep cuts and changes that will eliminate the advantage those institutions had in bidding for the federal grants. Guidelines issued on February 17 by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security eliminate a built-in preference for religious groups that was among the reasons…
Ultra-Orthodox reactions to a High Court of Justice ruling overturning the Tal Law, which exempts tens of thousands of yeshiva students from military service, ranged yesterday from utter indifference to prophecies of Armageddon. The High Court ruled on Tuesday that the law, which allows full-time yeshiva students to defer army service, is unconstitutional, and the…
It’s no secret that Jews and Jewish-themed movies have heavily influenced American filmmaking. This year, stalwarts such as Woody Allen and Steven Spielberg have been nominated for Academy Awards, as were the Israeli film “Footnote” and the Polish Holocaust movie “In Darkness.” In addition to celebrated directors, actors and screenwriters, there are plenty of artists…
Shmuley Boteach wants to be the first rabbi elected to the U.S. Congress. The onetime Chabad emissary is perhaps best known for his books about sex and for his celebrity ties. But now he is taking his message about Jewish values to New Jersey’s electorate, in the process raising questions about how the outspoken public…
One could say it was bacteria that caused Jew Pond to emerge from the miasma of history. In the summer of 2010, an algae bloom forced the closure of a small swampy pond near the center of Mont Vernon, a storybook New Hampshire town of 2,400 people. And so it was that “Jew Pond” was…
It was a Friday night in February at Manhattan’s Central Synagogue, and Eric Schneiderman should have been pleased with himself. The New York State attorney general had just had one of the most important weeks of his career: The previous day, he and other state attorneys general had announced a settlement with big banks over…
In this week’s podcast, host Josh Nathan-Kazis talks with Forward staff writer Paul Berger and opinion editor Gal Beckerman about new revelations concerning Alan Gross, a Jewish American aid worker who is serving a 15-year prison sentence in Cuba. Then, Forward fellow Naomi Zeveloff stops by to discuss an about-face for the hawkish Israel advocacy…
A child sex abuse scandal in Australia’s Jewish community has spilled into America, as a pending extradition, arrests in Australia and a slew of cover-up allegations put that community’s response to molestation under scrutiny. Australian police are seeking to extradite convicted child molester David Kramer, currently in jail in Farmington, Mo., on suspicion of having…
The legendary Vilna partisan Vitka Kempner Kovner died on February 15. Widow of the poet and partisan leader Abba Kovner, she was born in the Polish town of Kalisz in 1920 and escaped from there to Vilna when the Germans invaded Poland. Vitka Kovner was among the founding members of Abba Kovner‘s partisan organization, the…
“Russian Transport”: An American Dream Derailed “Russian Transport,” a new play by Erika Sheffer and presented off-Broadway by The New Group at the Acorn Theatre, deals with a scenario that could not have been imagined at the time of Soviet Jewry’s “Let My People Go!” movement of 1967–1989. In the play, Diana (Janeane Garofalo) and…
Those Reform Jews fortunate enough to have met Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut even once never forgot him. He was a tall, imposing, self-confident figure who spoke impeccable, precise, German-accented English that commanded attention in every setting — in classes, at conferences and in public debates. On February 9, the Reform movement and, more broadly, American…
