Being a dad, and especially a Jewish dad, is a role that has evolved mightily since Abraham, the first father, raised a blade to slaughter his son, Isaac. Fathers have long been God-fearing, law-abiding men, strict disciplinarians of their children. Today’s dads take on additional responsibilities and challenges. They perch at the kitchen table to…
As the international community prepares to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Durban World Conference Against Racism, the Obama administration has decided that America will boycott the event. The move, announced on June 1, won praise from a variety of Jewish organizations, but prompted surprisingly little criticism from human rights groups that in the past…
Gus Tyler, a longtime labor activist and a Forward contributing editor, who wrote the newspaper’s “Der Yiddish Vinkl” column well into his 90s, died June 3 in Sarasota, Fla. He was 99. Tyler worked for more than 40 years for the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union — serving in various capacities, including as political director,…
In this week’s Forward Reporters’ Roundtable, staff writer Nathan Guttman joins host Josh Nathan-Kazis to discuss what the recent opening of a border crossing between Egypt and Gaza means for Israel. Then Forward arts fellow Ezra Glinter unveils the Forward’s new Yiddish microsite.
Jewish Democrats are turning a spotlight on social issues — and particularly the dangers posed to Medicare and Medicaid — as a way to counter Republican attempts to use President Obama’s contentious relations with Israel to capture more Jewish votes. This strategy was first tested in late May in a New York State special congressional…
For Jewish inmates at California Men’s Colony, a penal outpost sprawled between sunny vineyards and breezy horse pastures on California’s central coast, the annual Passover Seder led by Rabbi Lon Moskowitz is usually a celebration of the spirit of freedom, if not its reality. But last April, guard shortages stemming from draconian state budget cutbacks…
The goal the statute sought to achieve is long accomplished. In fact, the country at which it was aimed doesn’t even exist anymore. But as successor government to the Soviet Union, Russia is still being sanctioned by the Jackson-Vanik amendment, a 1974 piece of legislation imposing trade penalties against communist countries that restricted free immigration….
With the 2011 commencement season in full swing, hopeful graduates, proud parents and noteworthy speakers filled the stands at ceremonies across the country. The Forward turned its attention to a group of Jewish keynote speakers that included executives, writers and a Holocaust survivor, each imparting his or her own life lessons, inspiration and spark of…
Koalas are on treetops, feasting on eucalyptus leaves, and kangaroos are bouncing around. But this isn’t rural Australia — it’s Israel. Here, visitors can travel to a different continent — thanks, bizarrely enough, to the British creator of the anthropomorphic bear Winnie-the-Pooh, A.A. Milne. Some 64 kangaroos and two koalas live at the cleverly named…
Robert Winston is a man of many titles: Baron Winston of Hammersmith, ennobled because of his status as the world’s leading researcher in in vitro fertilization treatments; Professor Robert Winston, with a chair in science and society at London’s Imperial College; Chancellor Robert Winston of Sheffield Hallam University, and plain old Robert Winston, presenter of…
This rural, laidback municipality, spread over 44,000 acres in the Galilee hills, is home to 29 Jewish villages, six Arab Bedouin villages and one of the few mixed Jewish-Arab schools in Israel. Because of this, its residents resent being called racists. But that is just how they have been portrayed frequently in the Israeli press….
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