News
- For Many Jews, Stem-Cell Ruling Puts Progress at Risk
A wide spectrum of Jewish groups is voicing outrage against a judge’s surprise halting of federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research and are asserting a crucial Jewish stake in reversing the ruling.
- Yid Lit: Rachel Shukert
In her new memoir, “Everything is Going to Be Great,” author and performer Rachel Shukert travels to Europe after college to “escape the weight of [her] own expectations,” which involves no small measure of drinking, gallivanting and sleeping with (non-American) boys.
- Piyutim, Poetry In Conservative’s New Prayer Book
How awesome is God? Not at all, not anymore, according to the new Conservative High Holy Day prayer book, Mahzor Lev Shalem, the movement’s first new prayer book since 1972.
- Are Direct Talks the Last Chance for Two-State Solution?
Officials from all sides are striving to keep expectations low for the new direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, a reflection of the disillusioned mood the parties bring to the table. But the instinct to minimize the significance of the upcoming talks masks what some see as a dramatic reality at this point in the long-stymied Middle East peace process.
- Survey Says Young Jews Do Care About Israel
Peter Beinart’s essay in The New York Review of Books last spring painted a picture of young American Jews as alienated, increasingly disengaged from the Jewish state and what he called the “illiberal” policies of its current government, and “less willing to grant Israel an exemption because its survival seems in peril.”
- Kosher BBQ Lovers Try Not To Overcook the Brisket
“Kosher” and “barbecue” are two words that don’t normally fit together in one sentence, but the oldest Orthodox synagogue in Memphis has found a way to make it work by focusing on beef and beans.
- Barak Sees a Jerusalem Divided
Israel would be willing to divide control over Jerusalem as part of a peace deal, Defense Minister Ehud Barak told an Israeli newspaper.
- Nitzavim and Va-yelekh: The Anniversary Celebration
This weekend, my husband and I went away for a night to celebrate our ten year anniversary. I was initially apprehensive about going. It would be our first overnight outing away from the kids since our first child was born six years ago. My son had been on sleepovers before, but my three-year-old daughter had not. We reserved a hotel room near my in-laws, so that if the kids refused to sleep, we could pick them up and bring them to the hotel.
- When Would Israel Attack Iran?
The prospect of Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is very much in the news. Jeffrey Goldberg recently published a controversial article in The Atlantic citing what he called a “consensus” view among current and former Israeli decision makers that “there is a better than 50 percent chance that Israel will launch a strike by next July.” Meanwhile, Iran and Russia are activating the Bushehr electric power reactor, spurring super-hawks like former American U.N. ambassador John Bolton to urge Israel to attack immediately.
- Conversion Crisis or Marriage Problem? — An Exchange
This summer, Israel-Diaspora relations were roiled by a fierce debate over the Rotem bill. The bill’s stated aim was to ease the path to conversion for the hundreds of thousands of Israelis from the former Soviet Union who are not considered Jewish under Halacha and, as a result, cannot legally marry in Israel, where religious authorities have a monopoly on marriage. Many Diaspora leaders, however, feared that the bill would undermine the status of non-Orthodox Jewish movements — and their converts — because it explicitly granted control over conversion to Israel’s state rabbinate.
- Abraham and Sons
It’s no secret that services on the first day of Rosh Hashanah are much better attended than those on its second day. But what the second day of the Jewish New Year lacks in attendance, it makes up for in narrative drama. In synagogue that day, we read Genesis 22, which recounts the binding of Isaac, a chapter that shapes the way we understand our relationship with God and, potentially, with one another.
- Boycotted, Bothered and Bewildered
Israel entered disturbing, unfamiliar territory this summer in its struggles against boycotts and economic warfare. After nearly a decade of noisy but largely toothless campaigns to isolate it on the international stage, Israel now faces a concerted effort by Palestinians under its rule to isolate the Israeli settlers living among them in the West Bank.
- September 10, 2010
Kaifeng’s Jewish Renaissance: Your August 20 article “Israel’s Keenest Yeshiva Students” focuses on the Kaifeng Jews studying for conversion in Israel. But the real news is that the Jewish descendants — or Jews, as they see themselves — are organizing again as a community in Kaifeng.
- 5770
This is the time of year for review, reflection, repentance. For practicing Jews, that happens on a personal level during the lengthy and, one hopes, meaningful recitation of prayers that weave through Rosh Hashanah and conclude with Yom Kippur’s demanding fast. But there’s another level upon which this yearly assessment can take place: That of the community, and the world. It’s a useful exercise to examine both the excruciatingly slow pace of human change and the occasional progress that emerges from that hard slog.
- Exiting Iraq
After President Obama finished his Oval Office address, declaring an end to the combat mission in Iraq, one of TV’s talking heads grumbled that what was wrong with the president was that he seemed to love the troops but hate the war. Actually, that strikes us as what is right about the current occupant of the White House. Saying he “hates war” is overly simplistic, though.
- Freedom From Facts
The Glenn Beck “Restoring Honor” rally is over, and both Abraham Lincoln, whom Beck sought to take hostage, and Martin Luther King Jr., whom Beck sought to emulate, remain intact.
- A Select History of the Elect
If the Torah is to be believed, divine election is a series of mounting responsibilities and burdens. When God first talks to Abram, it is to announce to this obscure, aging tribesman that he will sire a “great nation” that will inherit the land of Canaan. Later, to mark this promise, Abraham must circumcise every man in his household (try explaining that to the servants). Finally, he must prove his fealty with his willingness to sacrifice his own son.
- Poetry
Poetry by Yossi Huttler
- Jews’ Houses Ain’t Castles: They’re Shuls
Chuck Meyer of Ewing, N.J., writes to ask why a Jewish house of worship is known as a synagogue.
- The Sacred and the Profane
A little girl on a kibbutz is born pregnant and believes that her baby will be the Messiah. A Haitian-Jewish student comes to school on Purim in Muslim garb… with a bomb strapped to his chest. An image of the Virgin Mary appears in a synagogue before the High Holy Days.
- Bel Kaufman Dancing the Tango at 99
“On May 10, 2011, I will be 100!” Bel Kaufman said in amazement during our August 26 lunch at Shun Lee West. “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel. I have never been 100.” The Berlin-born, Russian-speaking granddaughter of Yiddish humorist writer Sholom Aleichem, vibrant in a turquoise ensemble, recalled the evolution of her 1965 best-seller, “Up the Down Staircase” (Prentice Hall), which was made into a film by the same name in 1967.
- Barak: Israel Willing to Divide Jerusalem
Israel would be willing to divide control over Jerusalem as part of a peace deal, Defense Minister Ehud Barak told an Israeli newspaper.
- Deconstructing Honey Cake
‘Honey cake is not so much loved as revered,” Arthur Schwartz writes in “Arthur Schwartz’s Jewish Home Cooking: Yiddish Recipes Revisited” (Ten Speed Press, 2008). Truer culinary words have never been written. Honey cake is a symbolic super food and an undisputed fixture on many Rosh Hashanah tables. But just as with fruitcake, which routinely is served and goes uneaten on Christmas, honey cake’s inclusion in the Rosh Hashanah meal is based more on tradition than on taste.
- What Does a Holiday of Renewal Mean for One Who Is Basically New?
On an August weekend blissfully free of this summer’s scorching heat, I attended a wedding in Manhattan, the marriage of a childhood friend. The event was beautiful. My sister, her husband and my parents were all there, and while my parents played a role in the ceremony, my partner, Ian, and I were asked to be part of the community as only celebrants. In other words, we were merely expected to dress up, enjoy the food, shower the couple with well wishes and wipe away the expected tears.
- September 10, 2010
100 Years Ago in the Forward: Tragedy struck in Brooklyn when a new mother threw her baby out of a fourth-floor window, killing the infant. Esther Jaffe of East New York was standing by the back window of the apartment that she shared with her husband and aunt, holding her 6-month-old baby