Religious leaders and elected officials in New York City denounced two recent attacks in Brooklyn — against a deli and a JCC executive. A news conference was held Tuesday at Brooklyn Borough Hall three days after dozens of teenagers were caught on tape vandalizing a Hasidic Jewish-owned deli in the Crown Heights neighborhood. The store…
The Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty is considering hiring Rabbi Moshe Wiener, head of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Coney Island, to replace departing CEO David Frankel, the Forward has learned. Frankel’s surprise departure, which the Forward first reported August 20, comes just a year after the former Wall Street executive replaced Met Council…
It was not quite 6 a.m. on July 13, 1981, when the phone rang in Rochel Vail’s upstate summer bungalow. Her friend’s frantic husband was on the line. His wife was in labor, and his car had broken down. Would Vail drive them the three hours to the hospital in New York City? “Sure!” she…
A Brooklyn baby was named Eyal Gilad Naftali in memory of the three murdered Israeli teens. The name was announced at the baby’s bris on Monday, according to the NRG news website. He is the son of Yankee and Bina Teitelbaum, who live in the Crown Heights neighborhood. Reports that circulated on social media saying…
History tends to treat the largely cordial relationship between African-Americans and Jews as a thing that ended around 1991, in Crown Heights. But in 2013, hip-hop was one place where Jews and African Americans got along just fine. Some of the most talked about releases in hip-hop this year were recorded by Jewish artists: Drake,…
An incoming New York City councilwoman said the wave of so-called knockout attacks is caused by tension between blacks and Jews. Councilwoman-elect Laurie Cumbo, who was elected to represent the Crown Heights neighborhood and will take office next month, made the statement in a Facebook post on Tuesday calling for a zero-tolerance policy toward the…
The preamble to the U.S. Constitution — which speaks of preserving justice, domestic tranquility, general welfare, liberty and, not least, a sense of national unity — could read like a CliffNotes version of the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman debate. Taken together, these words suggest that the feds have a duty to intervene. But how? I’d argue…
● Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde Rebecca Dana Amy Einhorn Books, 288 pages, $25.95 “Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde,” Rebecca Dana’s chronicle of the time she spent sharing a Crown Heights apartment with Cosmo, a martial arts enthusiast and spiritually confused Hasid, is a study in contradictions. Take, for instance, the odd-couple pairing…
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