(Reuters) — Israeli lawmakers are pressing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to lift what they call unjustified secrecy over opaque – and rising – funding for settlements on West Bank land Palestinians want for a state. Unpublished official data reviewed by Reuters suggests state spending on settlers rose by a third after Netanyahu took office in…
A Federal Communications Commission commissioner has proposed sweeping reforms to the E-Rate program, a school and library technology subsidy that was the subject of two Forward exposes this year. The proposed changes to the program, announced by Republican FCC commissioner Ajit Pai at the American Enterprise Institute on July 16, would entirely reshape how the…
A federally backed program subsidizing Internet access for low-income students has committed more money to schools in the heavily Orthodox Jewish town of Lakewood, N.J. in recent years than to schools in any other municipality in the entire state. Yet after several years of participating in the E-Rate subsidy program, Lakewood’s schools report having far…
A powerfully reported story published in last week’s edition of the Forward by our Josh Nathan-Kazis detailed how ultra-Orthodox groups in New York City were exploiting a federal program meant to help poor schools and libraries. The article has prompted two glaring questions. Why is a program that dispenses $2.5 billion a year of our…
Down a gritty dead-end alley in ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn, past a loading dock and a couple of dumpsters, a set of stairs leads up to a small room with bare walls and a dozen computers. The plaque on the door at Kollel L’Horauh calls the room a library. As a library, it has received $135,000 in…
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