Hyman Bookbinder, the legendary longtime Washington representative of the American Jewish Committee who died July 21, was the most passionate moderate I have ever known. Fair and intense, he was fierce in his convictions, but equally committed to civility and decency. I first met Bookie, who was 95 at the time of his death, when…
Duck leg confit served with white bean cassoulet. House-made lamb bacon. Mexican-inflected California cuisine. Not the offerings you would have expected at a kosher restaurant 20 years ago, perhaps not even a decade ago. But a handful of high end, innovative kosher restaurants, primarily in the gastronomic capitals of New York and California, have sprouted…
Once a novelty, the shofar-blowing, hora-dancing Christian evangelicals are now an integral part of the pro-Israel advocacy scene. At its 5,000-strong national conference in Washington, Christians United for Israel, the large Christian-Zionist movement, made clear it is stepping up its activity on the two issues that now top the pro-Israel agenda: fighting efforts to delegitimize…
Yivo and League for Yiddish Showcase “Other Zions: From Freeland to Yiddishland” On July 6, it was a full house at the Center for Jewish History with the exhibition “Other Zions: From Freeland to Yiddishland,” sponsored by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Before the State of Israel became a reality, the Freeland League for…
In the quiet moments before Kitchen Arts & Letters opens for the day, owner Nach Waxman unlocks the door for a visitor and apologizes. “I’m sorry for the disarray,” Waxman says, his white-bearded face smiling wryly beneath a Blue Bunny ice cream cap, his trademark suspenders secured in the fashion of a man at work…
For a blue-eyed 13-year-old named Yochanan, the lure of sleep-away camp this year is a religious ceremony at summer’s end. Yochanan will have a small bar mitzvah there in August, reading from the Torah in front of his bunkmates for the first time. A second, more formal ceremony will take place in September, in Brooklyn’s…
Forward reporter Naomi Zeveloff is joined by artist-in-residence Eli Valley who has a new sci-fi inspired cartoon that pillories Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his views of American Jews. Then, Naomi speaks with opinion editor Gal Beckerman and columnist Lenore Skenazy about the killing of Leiby Kletzky and how it affects the way parents raise…
Falk, who is Jewish, denied that his criticism was antisemitic
Baby boomers are reaching retirement age, and for the Jews among them, the search is on for active and meaningful pursuits beyond the stereotypical retreat to South Florida for three decades of porch-side sunning. This, at least, is the viewpoint held by Stuart Himmelfarb and David Elcott, the brains behind B3 the Jewish Boomer Platform,…
The two tragedies occurred 1,500 miles apart and in much different circumstances, but both united a community in shock, horror and grief. In New York, the abduction and gruesome murder last week of 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky while walking home from summer day camp in Borough Park, Brooklyn, left the neighborhood’s tight-knit Chasidic community reeling from…
Taking protest against Israel’s new anti-boycott law one step forward, a member organization of American Jewry’s primary umbrella group for Israel is calling on its supporters to boycott products made in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Americans for Peace Now adopted a resolution July 19 supporting the call of its sister organization in…
