In the three years since its founding, the dovish lobby J Street has become a household name across Jewish America. But ask Israelis about it, and they are more likely to think you are asking for directions to some thoroughfare they haven’t heard of. In polling commissioned by the Forward, only 14% of Jewish Israelis…
Jewish Community Centers, known for their fitness facilities and child care services, are increasingly becoming the target of protesters taking issue with the artistic programs they offer. In Washington, a new grassroots organization is calling on the local federation to adopt guidelines that will withhold funding from the JCC if the center’s theater puts on…
As a young boy, Julian Schnabel accompanied his parents to a grand Broadway theater to see a screening of “Exodus” — the 1960 melodrama that depicts the founding of the state of Israel. During a scene in which Jewish refugees launch into a celebratory rendition of “Hatikvah,” Schnabel recalls how moviegoers, his family included, leapt…
On a recent late-winter afternoon, the workers’ center on the second floor of a nondescript office building in New York City’s Chinatown was full and busy. Everyone had just eaten lunch; warm soup was welcome after picketing in the cold outside an offending restaurant, Saigon Grill on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. In the rear of…
Jerusalem, a city that lives both in physical space and in the imagination, has always intrigued James Carroll. It is a place rooted in history, the foundation stone for the three monotheistic religions. But it is also an idea, an aspiration to perfection, the original city on the hill. It is this central dichotomy that…
When representatives of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations — known collectively as the Middle East Quartet — arrived here for crucial meetings in March, they met, as usual, with the Palestinians in Ramallah. And, as usual, Saeeb Erekat, the indefatigable Middle East negotiator who has led the Palestinian side…
Along the broad boulevards and dignified streets of the largely liberal, Jewish Upper West Side, sweatshops don’t seem to be sprouting. From Riverside Park to Lincoln Center, from Harry’s Shoes to Zabar’s, the neighborhood appears to be a civilized place where the days of residents, working folk and visitors unspool in familiar, reassuring rhythms. To…
Garment industry sweatshops are hardly a thing of the past in New York City: They are a feature of commerce today. The New York State Department of Labor has found it necessary to maintain particular vigilance for several decades, founding the Apparel Industry Task Force in 1987 to monitor the city’s largest manufacturing sector. Today,…
Ottolenghi. In London, the very name conjures up tantalizing mounds of meringues, appealing piles of brightly cooked vegetables and the gleaming, chic emporia containing foods that proudly bear the title. Households around the city and country feature his two cookbooks, “Ottolenghi” and “Plenty,” (published in America on March 23) with coffee tables and kitchens vying…
The Union for Reform Judaism has designated a prominent congregational rabbi and critic of the URJ as its new president and the de facto leader of the Reform Jewish movement in North America. Rabbi Richard Jacobs, currently the senior rabbi at Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, NY, will succeed Rabbi Eric Yoffie as president of…
Greg Epstein looked a bit overwhelmed. The morning yoga session was over, and now he was helping a local folk singer get set to play during the potluck brunch, all the while welcoming the guests streaming into the new humanist community center in Harvard Square. And then the featured speaker arrived, a former NPR journalist…
