In 2008, a small but significant change took place on the mailbox of the Tel Aviv apartment where Sonia Peres, wife of Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, lived quietly, far from the elegant presidential mansion in Jerusalem, until her death January 20. Neighbors — and eventually, the press — noticed that suddenly, about a year after…
Back in 1991 Chen Yiyi was, as he puts it, a “bored” law student at Peking University. At the time, China was in the process of formalizing relations with Israel, and the Chinese Education Ministry and Israel’s Foreign Ministry selected his university as the site of China’s first Hebrew course taught by visiting Israeli teachers….
The controversy over what is dead according to Jewish law is no longer an intramural question among Orthodox rabbis on either side of the Atlantic. In Britain it is now being played out in public. As in the United States, the emotional question of organ donation is the battlefield. The most recent round of arguments…
Among the volunteers who joined a sewing circle to remember the victims of the Triangle Waist Company fire 100 years ago, the talk around the table jumped from details of the historic blaze to an eerily similar fire that erupted in a garment factory in Bangladesh in December. Several Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition members…
If you’re an English-speaking parent on this planet, chances are you’ve heard of the intense hue and cry over “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” (Penguin Press), a new “mom-oir” by Yale Law School professor Amy Chua about her quest to raise, for lack of a better word,” perfect” children. If you happen to be…
This week, the Reporters’ Roundtable discusses the newly invigorated push from Israel to spring convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard from the American prison where he’s incarcerated and the long awaited fracturing of Israeli’s Labor party. Washington correspondent Nathan Guttman and staff writer Gal Beckerman join host Josh Nathan-Kazis. Subscribe to Forward podcasts on iTunes
In this podcast, Jon Kalish traces the inception and production of the feature film “Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish,” which debuted at the New York Jewish Film Festival. Young Jews who left Brooklyn’s chasidic communities comprise its cast of first time actors. Read more about “Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish” in the Forward here and…
A long-running feud between Israel’s equivalent of the Red Cross and its American fundraising affiliate is coming to an acrimonious end that is expected to result in the Israeli group increasing its influence over the American-based charity. Magen David Adom, Israel’s leading provider of emergency medical help and blood services, is expected to renew its…
A recent series of public statements and letters has landed the campaign for the release of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard its greatest achievement in 25 years: a powerful bipartisan roster demanding clemency for Pollard, the American convicted of spying for Israel and sentenced to a life term. Two former senior officials with Republican administrations —…
Sholom Rubashkin has never lacked for passionate defenders, but he surely never thought the ACLU would one day be among them. The former executive of the now-defunct Agriprocessors kosher meat company is serving a 27-year sentence without chance of parole after being convicted last June of bank fraud in a case that began with a…
In the context of Israeli politics, it is the most incendiary charge made thus far against human rights groups and other left-wing nongovernmental organizations: that some of the money that funds their work comes from Arabs — or even from terrorists. As the Knesset steams ahead with plans to probe the country’s human rights groups,…
