(JTA) — Rabbi Moshe Tendler, an expert in Jewish law and medical ethics, died Tuesday at age 95. A dean of the rabbinical school and a professor of Jewish medical ethics and biology at Yeshiva University, Tendler was considered an expert in issues of Jewish law and medical ethics. But he was most famous for…
This is an excerpt from “I Am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl” (2004), edited by Judea and Ruth Pearl. Ruth Pearl died July 20, 2021 at the age of 85. Growing up as a Jewish child in Baghdad left me with recurring nightmares of being chased by a knife-wielding…
Ruth Pearl, who died July 20 at the age of 85, fought a thousand battles in her lifetime. She didn’t look like a warrior— barely five feet tall, rail thin with cropped brown hair and a soft voice that quavered, especially as she fought respiratory problems in later life. But when I first met her,…
Malkah Schulweis did not fit the mold of rebbetzin that prevailed in mid-century American synagogue life . Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis, recognized as one of the great American rabbis of the 20th century, used to tell me that he never delivered a sermon, published an article, or embarked on an initiative, without it first passing…
The shortest job interview I ever had was with the most powerful woman in the world, Naomi B. Levine, who died today at age 98. Naomi was Senior Vice President for External Affairs at New York University, and I was a young rabbi hoping to serve as executive director of the Edgar M. Bronfman Center…
Dr. Harold Bornstein, the Jewish doctor who cared for President Trump and his family has died. Bornstein rocketed to fame during Trump’s election campaign for signing a letter which claimed “unequivocally” that despite being the oldest president in American history, Trump would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” In addition to being…
Max Bendich, a 29-year-old American soldier, arrived in Paris just after its liberation from Nazi occupation in 1944, determined to find whatever Jews were left in the city. He took the metro to the historically Jewish neighborhood of Le Marais and, wandering through eerily empty streets, stumbled upon an empty German barracks with people staring…
In a small apartment in Brooklyn Heights, no more than a room and a bit, Yitzhak Buxbaum worked, rested, taught and dined. He and his wife, Carole Forman, hosted friends and followers in that cluttered apartment, with manuscripts-in-progress scattered about and Hasidic paintings on the walls. Sitting there with him, as I did so many…
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