The Vatican’s new chief liaison to world Jewry met mixed reviews during his debut visit to the United States, thanks in part to statements on the pending canonization of Catholicism’s World War II-era pope. In what turned out to be a bumpy start, Cardinal Kurt Koch angered some Jewish and Christian leaders when he told…
Marla Gilson, a Capitol Hill presence for decades with stints working for Hadassah, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and several Democratic Party campaigns, has died. Gilson, who had acute leukemia, died Saturday after entering hospice. Last winter, hundreds of Gilson’s friends, colleagues and Jews who had heard about her illness registered as bone marrow…
One of the most high-profile convictions of an ultra-Orthodox rabbi for sexual abuse in recent times may be in danger of reversal, according to new disclosures in court records obtained by the Forward. When Baruch Lebovits was sentenced last year to up to 32 years in jail, victims’ rights advocates hailed it as a turning…
An all-out publicity effort has catapulted an online petition in support of jailed kosher meatpacking executive Sholom Rubashkin to the top of a new White House-sponsored website that promises petitioners direct responses from the administration. Following a massive campaign that included robocalls, a video by Hasidic pop star Lipa Schmeltzer and public petition-signing stations for…
My friend and I go to the same synagogue but almost never run into each other. “How come?” I was musing the other day. “Well,” she said. “I only go there to pray.” Aha! That explains it! When she’s walking out, I’m walking in. Yes, I’m one of those synagogue goers who arrive pretty much…
The scandal that led to the recent resignation of Britain’s high-powered defense minister has laid bare a seamy underside to the funding and influencing of politicians in the United Kingdom, and the donors of some of the country’s key pro-Israel groups appear to be near the center of the affair. Liam Fox, who resigned his…
When a recent online exposé revealed that women on a city-franchised bus were required to sit in the back, those who seemed to be least outraged were the women who actually ride the bus and live in the two heavily Orthodox Brooklyn neighborhoods it connects. “It never bothered me,” said Rachel Freier, a lawyer from…
Sixteen House Democrats, including 10 top Jewish members, wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging her to use her influence to preserve Jewish sites in Libya. “They are tangible evidence of a once open and tolerant chapter in its past and can serve as a visible symbol of a more hopeful future,” said…
In this week’s podcast, host Josh Nathan-Kazis is joined by Forward artist in residence Eli Valley to discuss his new comic that takes a “ghoulish” look at Israel’s missed opportunities. Then, staff writer Paul Berger gives an update on the case of Baruch Lebovits, a high-profile convicted Orthodox sex offender. Finally, Forward fellow Naomi Zeveloff…
As Gilad Shalit settles back into life in Israel, the country resounds with an uncomfortable question: What happens next time? Israel started paying high prices for its captured soldiers in the 1980s, and since then, the prisoner-swap exchange rate has been subject to hyperinflation. In the Shalit deal it was 1,027 Palestinian prisoners to one…
1937 Musical Social Spoof “Pins and Needles” Presented at Time of Occupy Wall Street It was Saturday, October 15. I had just come out of the subway at 36th Street and Sixth Avenue, en route to M&J Trimming on 39th Street to buy some buttons. I was immediately swept up by a mass of chanting,…
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