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A Veteran Washington Jew-Watcher Looks Back, and Forward
For 24 years, James Besser has been watching Jewish politics from up close. As the unofficial dean of the Washington Jewish media corps, the veteran reporter of the New York Jewish Week, who retired June 22, has been uniquely positioned to observe how the world of Jewish politics has changed and how, in many senses,…
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Esther Broner, Activist, Author, Mother of the Women’s Seder, Is Dead at 83
She was our spiritual leader. She made room for us at the table by creating a whole new one — a Seder table at which women’s voices were heard. She encouraged us to ask the Four Questions of Women and to recite women’s plagues, of which there were always more than 10. She honored our…
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The Jewish Woman with Journalism’s Biggest Job
That Jill Abramson, the next executive editor of The New York Times, is Jewish does not distinguish her from many in the long line of top editors in whose footsteps she follows. Including her, four of the paper’s last six executive editors have been Jewish. Yet, as the country’s most influential newspaper faces the critical…
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Decline of Jews On Capitol Hill Could Mean a Loss of Power
One of the possible consequences of New York Rep. Anthony Weiner’s Twitter-gate affair is another decline in the number of Jewish representatives in Congress. The massive overrepresentation of Jews on Capitol Hill, long a source of pride for the community, has been shrinking in recent years and could drop in the coming election cycle from…
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With Celebs and Money, Limmud FSU Bends the Rules To Win
With more than $1 million in funding and with conferences in Israel, America, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine and, soon, Moldova, Limmud FSU may have achieved the impossible: a way of making Jewishness attractive to young Russian-speaking Jews around the world. But in order to succeed, the 6-year-old organization has had to bend Limmud’s rules — some…
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Papers Reveal Secret Struggle To Display Washington’s Letter
The mystery surrounding President Washington’s famous 1790 letter guaranteeing religious liberty in America continues. As the Forward revealed last week, Washington’s letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, R.I., disappeared from public view almost a decade ago, after the B’nai B’rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum, where the letter had been displayed for half a century,…
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Jewish Seat Threatened By Growing Latino Bloc
The formation in June of a Jewish-Latino congressional caucus heralded hopes for a new era of cooperation between the two minority groups. The alliance was inspired in part by the recognition of the greater political influence that Hispanic Americans are bound to wield as their population rises. But in Los Angeles, that demographic surge looks…
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A Gay-Friendly Israel Is Complicated for Jewish LGBT Congregations
Like many synagogues, Congregation Beit Simchat Torah — New York’s only lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender synagogue — takes its members on a mission to Israel. Many other American synagogue missions focus on the Jewish state’s political and security challenges, and spend significant time touring Israel’s holy sites. But the recent two-week trip of CBST…
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Speed Dating Among the Senior Set
Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match. And make it fast. Risa Demato, site director for the Weisman Delray Community Center, heard the call and she answered it. Quickly. “A lot of people came to me and said, ‘You need to have a singles group,’” says Demato, who launched a weekly series of senior speed-dating events…
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Forgotten History
When most of us think of Jewish heritage travel, places like Jerusalem or the Warsaw Ghetto come to mind. Yet, from the pre-Inquisition sites that dot Spain, to farming villages in South America, hundreds of forgotten or under-visited Jewish sites exist across the world. When we put out the call for recommendations of our readers’…
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Jews and Latinos Form a Pragmatic Congressional Alliance
Changing demographic realities are pushing Jewish activists to seek a political partnership with Latinos, America’s fastest-growing minority group, for help in supporting the U.S.-Israel relationship. At the same time, Latinos are seeking stronger Jewish support for immigration reform. But it remains to be seen just how, when and to what extent each side may be…
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