“They say 20,000, and I say where?” tour guide Claudia Kravetz says of Chile’s Jewish population as we drive through the intersection of Las Condes and La Dehesa streets in Santiago’s Lo Barnechea neighborhood. With its wide, palm-tree-lined boulevards, reminiscent of Los Angeles, the area is nicknamed Little Israel for its concentration of synagogues. The…
In this week’s podcast, the panel looks at whether or not Osama bin Laden should have been put on trial, like the Nazi lieutenant colonel Adolf Eichmann was, back in 1961. The second topic is the potency — or lack thereof — of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement on American college campuses. Forward editor…
Breathing a huge sigh of relief following some very close calls, Alabama’s Jewish community is mobilizing in response to a series of tornadoes that killed more than 250 people in the state and scores of others across the South. There were no reported deaths in the Jewish community, and the Birmingham Jewish Federation, said that…
Israel’s first large-scale foray into Holocaust-era Jewish property restitution is ruffling some feathers within the Jewish establishment and among Eastern European countries. The government of Israel, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency for Israel, recently announced the launch of Project HEART, the most robust attempt yet to document and pursue Jewish assets lost during World…
One of the world’s largest and most valuable private Judaica libraries is up for sale, again. To the consternation of Judaeophiles and scholarly libraries around the world, public access to the Valmadonna Trust Library — or even knowledge of its whereabouts — was feared to have been lost last December, with the selection of an…
Kaya Stern-Kaufman is graduating from rabbinical school this spring, but she says she will not always be called “rabbi.” Instead, the 47-year-old mother of two will also use the title “rabba,” making her the first woman to specifically choose this Hebrew feminized version of “rabbi” as a preferred moniker. Just what this will mean, however,…
News of the killing of Osama bin Laden sent many out to the streets and glued many others to TV screens. But for some in the Jewish community, the news offered an opportunity to revisit an event that touched them individually more than it did most others. Bereaved Jewish families who lost loved ones in…
An Israeli diplomat issued a stark warning to a roomful of Jewish communal professionals at a major Jewish convention last fall. The campaign to impose boycotts, divestment and sanctions on Israel, he said, amounts to putting “a practical warhead on the tip of an ideological rocket.” The Israeli official, a public diplomacy officer with the…
Laura Taishoff never intended to stay in New Orleans beyond her year with Avodah, the national Jewish service corps. “I decided to stay because I felt really comfortable here,” the Katonah, N.Y., native said. “I felt like I was developing here Jewishly more than I ever had anywhere else, and I knew that I had…
A million answers have been given (and a million jokes cracked) around the Passover question “Why is this night different from all other nights?” But this year, my Passover truly felt different. This year, for the first time since I became a vegetarian — nearly 11 years ago — I ate meat at the Seders….
Updated May 4, 2011, 6:30 p.m. EST Kaya Stern-Kaufman is graduating from rabbinical school this spring, but she says she will not always be called “rabbi.” Instead, the 47-year-old mother of two will also use the title “rabba,” making her the first woman to specifically choose this Hebrew feminized version of “rabbi” as a preferred…
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