On a wet afternoon in Lower Manhattan, an elderly man in a rain-drenched tweed coat strolled into the photo gallery at America’s most famous Islamic cultural center — dubbed the “Ground Zero Mosque” by its critics — and perused the portraits of New York children from 169 of the world’s 193 countries. “When you are…
It was one day after New York City police arrested scores of left-wing demonstrators during a march on Manhattan’s Union Square, and the ranks were dwindling at the protesters’ downtown encampment. A member of the group offered a weather forecast extending to the end of the week — not a minor consideration for the activists,…
Examining the grants program provides a window into Jewish organizational and political power. It is this power that allowed a small community to create and maintain a government program tailored specifically for its needs and catering almost exclusively to its members
Jewish mail-order bride. Sounds like an oxymoron, right? And for that matter, Jewish pioneer does too. But they existed. And they inspired Anna Solomon to write her debut novel, “The Little Bride” (Riverhead). She researched Jewish pioneers settling land in the American heartland and the Great Plains in the late 1800s. Enter 16-year-old Minna Losk,…
Rabbi Jacob Goldstein will lead Yom Kippur services this year dressed not in the black fedora of his Lubavitch Hasidic sect, but in full battle gear at a Combat Operating Base in eastern Afghanistan. And Rabbi Laurence Bazer won’t be delivering the sermon at Temple Beth Sholom, his Conservative synagogue in Framingham, Mass. Instead, he’ll…
“I am not sure how many people are thrilled to get out of bed while it is still dark and go to work,” Deborah Axelrod said at the Israel Cancer Research Fund’s Women of Action Evening, held September 13 at the American Museum of Natural History. Axelrod, one of the evening’s three honorees, is director…
Stung by accusations about Lithuania’s complicity in the Holocaust, the Baltic nation’s foreign minister announced a series of measures aimed at bolstering its Jewish heritage during a concert at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. The measures did little to allay the concerns of critics who had opposed YIVO’s decision to invite the minister to…
At first glance, the location seems inauspicious — one of those lonely Los Angeles corners, hard by the freeway, where nothing much happens. Actually, many Angelenos feel similarly about the whole neighborhood. They’ll tell you that Boyle Heights is “Mexican,” and that’s the beginning and end of their curiosity. But David Kipen ⎯ a writer,…
Before my daughter was born, I believed I understood rules. I was sure how I’d act, as a parent, when my child was acting out. I knew, with the great certainty of the uninitiated, what I would do with a kid and what I would not. Now I understand these things, too, but the rules…
In Utah, former governor Jon Huntsman is known in some circles as a “Jack Mormon,” local parlance for someone who might claim affiliation with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but is less than active in his local Mormon Church. And among Utah Jews, that seems to count as a definite plus. “Jews…
On a recent Sunday, Nechama Silverberg slipped into a vintage skirt at a pop-up consignment store in Brooklyn, trying on clothes as any other hip 20-year-old might, but for one difference: She carefully measured whether the skirt revealed her knees. Around her in the Frock Swap, an Orthodox clothing business celebrating its first anniversary, were…
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