A landmark conviction of a prominent member of Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox community for sexual abuse faces possible reversal following the indictment of man charged with having bribed a witness to testify against the abuser. On April 13, Samuel Kellner, 49, was arraigned in a Brooklyn court on multiple counts of grand larceny, perjury and criminal solicitation….
A challenge to the tax-exempt status of Jewish National Fund’s American arm introduces a new wrinkle into an ongoing debate over how the Internal Revenue Service should treat charities whose foreign operations run counter to public policy of the United States. A coalition of anti-Zionist groups has claimed in its challenge that JNF ethnically discriminates…
It was November 29, 1947, and the United Nations was about to vote on the resolution that paved the way for the establishment of the State of Israel. The story is well known: The Zionists achieved the necessary two-thirds majority by the skin of their teeth. But some details are still emerging. Recently Suzy Eban,…
Just weeks before starting his year as a fellow at Yeshivat Hadar, an egalitarian Judaic learning program for adults, Itamar Landau moved in with his girlfriend. The fellowship demanded that Landau keep kosher and observe the Sabbath. The couple agreed to separate milk and meat in their shared kitchen and to refrain from activities such…
Stanley Siegelman was never at a loss for words — and they always rhymed. Over the past decade, Stanley, who died of cancer on April 11 at the age of 87, regaled Forward readers with his light verse, first as a contributor to this newspaper’s “Der Yiddish Vinkl” column, more recently with his online “Siegelmania”…
Toward the end, as he lay dying, pretty much all I wanted to do was make him laugh. I called him every week with a line or a joke or a story he might find funny. I plied him with levity. And laugh he often would. Even so, I suspected that as I tried to…
’Twill come, I know, as no surprise. (I speak, of course, of my demise.) The signs abound, for all to see: A curtailed life expectancy. My breath is short, my sighs are long, The heart beats sound (to me, all wrong.) Self-pity I will not embrace, But these are facts that one must face. My…
Editor’s Note: NBC has canceled “The Paul Reiser Show.” Paul Reiser began our conversation by asking about the family. “I might as well lead with the Jewish,” he said. “We’re talking on the phone. Why be Presbyterian?” Family is important to Reiser, and it is a recurring theme of any conversation with him. During this…
News At BYU Seder, Mormons, Dip, Eat, Sing Their Own ‘Dayenu’ By Gabrielle Birkner 300 Goats and Sheep, 20 Slaughterers, One Willful Rabbi By Nathan Jeffay Opinion From the Civil War to Our Seders, a Song of Redemption By Aurora Mendelsohn Going From Egypt, Hoping for Elijah’s Coming By Leonard Fein Leaving the Door Open…
Tel Aviv became Teen Aviv last night, as most of the adult population took cover and girls from across the country headed for Hayarkon Park to see Canadian heartthrob Justin Bieber. The 17-year-old sensation sang and danced for an hour-and-a-half as his fans sang along and screamed. They hung on his every word, jumping, chanting,…
In this edition of the Forward Reporters’ Roundtable, host Josh Nathan-Kazis speaks with Gal Beckerman, a staff writer, about Jewish Voice for Peace’s campaign for acceptance within the Jewish community and with Gabrielle Birkner, director of digital media, about the tradition of Passover Seders at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. <strong>Subscribe to Forward podcasts…
