Election Day in Ohio was a closely watched event, driven by a controversial referendum on a new law limiting union rights for teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public employees. The law was handily repealed, helped by the state’s highest voter turnout in 20 years for an off-year general election. And that exciting swell amounted…
My 84-year-old dad has gone around the corner to get a newspaper and hasn’t come back. Two hours he’s missing now, my mom is telling me over the phone, and she’s worried. Her voice comes in wheezing gulps, the Flatbush accent deepening as it does at times when she’s anxious. He’s wandering the flat grid…
American Friends of the Israel Museum Gala Celebrates 1 Million Visitors in 2011 Addressing the 500 guests at the American Friends of Israel Museum gala, held at Cipriani 42nd Street on October 24, AFIM President Stephen Lash said: “Tonight we celebrate “Art Next Next Art,” highlighting Contemporary art at the Israel Museum and signaling our…
An organization of Modern Orthodox rabbis that performs alternative religious wedding ceremonies for non-religious couples can continue to register the couples. The Tzohar organization can register the married couples in the community of Shoham, where the head of the organization serves as chief rabbi, while a new bill proposed to loosen restrictions on where marriages…
In this week’s podcast, host Josh Nathan-Kazis is joined by Forward news editor Larry Cohler-Esses and Forward fellow Naomi Zeveloff to discuss the fallout of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s recent gaffe when he was caught calling Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu a “liar” to Barack Obama. Then the group turns to Naomi’s recent story about the…
The national umbrella organization for Jewish philanthropic federations has abolished its historic commitment to fund the Jewish community’s two largest overseas recipients by using a fixed longstanding formula. The move, taken by the Jewish Federations of North America at its annual General Assembly conference, will force the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Jewish…
More than 100,000 people attended the funeral for Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, head of the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem, who died Tuesday at the age of 68 after suffering cardiac arrest at his home. He had also suffered from Parkinson’s disease. According to Israeli news sources, the packed funeral in Jerusalem, caused disruptions to the…
Negotiations between Lithuania and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research may be close to re-establishing YIVO’s presence in Vilna 70 years after the Nazis looted and largely destroyed its holdings. But just where those negotiations stand appears unclear following an announcement in the group’s newsletter and a follow-up statement from YIVO’s executive director and CEO,…
I did not grow up in a house bathed in the scent of freshly baked bread. My mother, an otherwise gifted cook, chose not to fuss with yeast or starters, which means memories of steaming-from-the-oven challah, rye bread and babka are not woven into my childhood nostalgia. And yet the hunger for baking must burn…
Iran has been working toward building a nuclear weapon since 2003, according to a report released by the International Atomic Energy Agency and obtained by Haaretz on Tuesday. The report, which was handed over to the 35-member states of the IAEA Board of Governors, details a series of tests, acquisition of materials, and technology that…
Canada’s foreign affairs minister, John Baird, reacted swiftly last month when word reached him that the Palestinian Authority’s envoy to Ottawa had promoted a YouTube video in which a Palestinian girl urged sympathizers to “destroy the Jews.” Linda Sobeh Ali’s re-Tweet of the video, Baird made clear, had ended her credibility as a diplomat in…
