News

Venerable Bialystoker Home Closing Under a Cloud

The planned closing of a venerable Lower East Side nursing home founded by a coalition of the neighborhood’s storied landsmanshaftn, or Jewish mutual aid societies, has sparked protests and allegations of self-enrichment and mismanagement by the home’s board. The Bialystoker Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, founded 80 years ago by immigrants from the Polish city…

Jews in the News: August 31

Last Ethiopian Jews Finally Make Exodus to Israel

In the half-light of dawn, 16 families huddle on benches in the early morning chill, waiting patiently for their journey to a new and unimaginable life. They sit in a courtyard, hidden from the view of friends and relatives who have come to say farewell, behind the modest local offices of the Jewish Agency for…

Conservative Synagogues Crack Open Door to Intermarried Families

In June, after a year of internal discussion, Temple Beth Hillel-Beth El, a Conservative synagogue just outside Philadelphia, made a tiny amendment to its constitution: It redefined household membership to apply to families with one Jewish parent as well as those with two. Though the amendment impacted a small number of intermarried congregants —some 10…

Jews in the News: August 29

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Looking for Love, She Found a Jewish Partner and Faith

My fetish for Jewish men and my conversion to Judaism are like the chicken-egg question. Or, as my tribe would say, the tarnegolet-baitzah question. Which came first? My desire to sleep with a Jew or to become one? Growing up as a gentile blondie in Kentucky, foot-washing Christians at public school said Jews killed Jesus…

Talking Peace Is Only Language He Understands

When a series of terrorist attacks killed eight Israelis around the southern Israeli city of Eilat, Gershon Baskin knew immediately that the deaths had the potential to escalate into a full-blown conflict between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist group that rules Gaza. And he saw himself as one of the few individuals who could do…

Yid Lit: Carmela Ciuraru

For as long as there have been authors, there have been secret identities — pseudonyms — used by writers to unlock creativity, hide identity, or simply to become someone else. Carmela Ciuraru became interested in the literary pseudonym and recently published a book on the topic, “Nom de Plume.” In it, she profiles famous and…