School massacres have become so commonplace that they scarcely shock us anymore. And yet, occasionally mayhem invades the sanctity of the classroom in a way that can still puncture our complacency. At these moments we’re reminded how fragile is this thing we call civilization. Such was the case February 10 in a rural schoolroom outside…
‘If you are already a dog, at least do not be a pig.” “A cantor in his old age barks like a dog and eats like a pig.” “A wife is like a dog in the house.” These and other Yiddish proverbs may be seen as objectionable today, but all reflect the complex and contradictory…
Gedalya Gottdenger’s dream is to get a degree in psychology. But unlike most 21-year-olds, Gottdenger lacks a basic education, even though he has been studying since he was a child. Gottdenger, who grew up in a Hasidic community in Brooklyn, is a product of ultra-Orthodox Jewish day schools in which, numerous students report, math and…
In this week’s Reporters Roundtable podcast, host Josh Nathan-Kazis is joined by deputy arts editor Ezra Glinter to discuss the new season of Arrested Development and its ‘talmudic’ qualities. Then, Ezra fills us in on the emergent ultra-orthodox cinema in Israel. Next, assistant news editor Larry Cohler-Esses drops by to discuss a possible reshuffling of…
Each year, tens of millions of dollars in federal Pell grants go to yeshivas, many of which focus primarily on Talmud study, a Forward review of U.S. Department of Education data reveals. The Jewish colleges take their place among many other religion-oriented schools that receive Pell grant funds. But they punch far above their weight,…
If the accusations are true, it’s hard to defend Lance Armstrong. He is accused, with supporting testimony by those close to him, of engaging in a systematic campaign to cheat in order to win cycling races, including seven Tours de France. The allegations are that he used performance enhancing drugs and evaded testing by those…
When Jacob Nathan de Leeuwe found himself returning nearly two decades ago from his home in a suburb of Amsterdam to this isolated idyll he calls “the end of the world,” it undoubtedly was the pull of his roots. De Leeuwe’s family had lived in this semi-autonomous region in the northern Netherlands known as Friesland…
No Jewish tradition is more revered, more popularly identified with Judaism than learning. And yet, strangely, the commandment to study Torah appears nowhere in the Torah. It actually originates in the Talmud. The sages inferred it from the biblical commandment to “teach it (the Torah) diligently to thy children” (Deuteronomy 6:7). They figured you can’t…
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