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The Forward
How do you write a meaningful eulogy?
We have all been to funerals. It is one of the last sacred spaces in our world when we are not disturbed. Phones are off and we give our full attention. Without question, the most meaningful aspect of the service are the eulogies. The rabbi, family and close friends reflect on the life of the...
Legal scholar Noah Feldman on the 10 Commandments, Christian nationalism and the Jewish future of church and state
(JTA) — One week after Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed legislation requiring that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public classroom in the state, nine families — including three Jewish families — filed suit in federal court saying the law was unconstitutional. The law and the challenge set up an important church-state test, especially...
What would Biden’s potential replacements mean for Israel?
In the wake of President Joe Biden’s dismal performance in this week’s presidential debate, there is agitated talk of finding a way to replace him as the Democratic nominee for president. If that occurs, it could have profound implications for Israel. That’s because Biden has been a pro-Israel president — to a degree that is...
Trump’s lies are more dangerous than ever — does Jewish law have a solution?
Thursday’s debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump made one thing clear: American citizens must figure out how to define and react to a lie, with a particular emphasis on reaction. Two of America’s most seasoned journalists, Dana Bash and Jake Tapper — both of whom happen to be Jewish — failed...
The Jewish Sport Report: This Jewish hockey star will be a top-10 NHL draft pick
(JTA) — Hello! Our lead story this week is about Zeev Buium, a top-ranked prospect in tonight’s NHL Entry Draft. Buium is coming off a NCAA national title with Denver and is expected to go in the top 10 tonight. But first, we need to talk about Zach Hyman. Again. The Edmonton Oilers fell just...
Tens of thousands crowd Tel Aviv park for first Nova concert since Oct. 7 massacre
(JTA) — Almost nine months after Hamas terrorists stormed the Nova music festival, killing more than 360 revelers and abducting 40 others to Gaza, tens of thousands of people gathered in Tel Aviv’s HaYarkon Park on Thursday evening for what organizers dubbed a “healing concert.” The concert was the first official event held by the...
As calls for NYC mask ban gain momentum, Jewish and Black advocacy groups announce their support
(New York Jewish Week) — Jewish and Black advocacy organizations came together to announce their support for a ban on masks at protests in New York State, linking contemporary antisemitism by masked attackers to past actions by hooded members of the Ku Klux Klan. Calls for a mask ban have gained momentum in recent weeks,...
The messy truth behind a viral video showing violence around anti-Israel protest at an LA synagogue
LOS ANGELES – Hours after the ruckus outside Adas Torah died down on Sunday, Melissa Nathan, who lives two blocks away, was sent a video message showing a confrontation between a man in a kaffiyeh and someone walking his dog in front of her apartment building. An alarming message was overlaid on the video: “Wannabe...
Some imagine a ‘President Josh Shapiro.’ Here’s what he said about Biden after the debate.
The morning after a debate that even many Democrats called disastrous for Joe Biden, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro went on a speaking tour to forcefully defend the president. Shapiro, who enjoys relatively high approval ratings in his swing state, and has made many Jews proud by publicly embracing his Judaism, sits on many Democrats’ shortlists...
Biden’s rabbi and I debate whether it’s time for the president to step aside
The first Jewish text that came to mind watching President Joe Biden’s painful performance in last night’s debate was Ecclesiastes, the scroll we read on Sukkot, which this year falls a few weeks before the most important election in our lifetimes. Its essential message is: There is a time for everything. The debate made clear...
A rabbi barred an anti-Zionist congregant from his synagogue. Then he had second thoughts.
(JTA) — Three weeks after Oct. 7, the Chicago rabbi David Minkus was leading his congregation in a Shabbat service when he noticed that someone had covertly slipped anti-Zionist leaflets inside the synagogue’s prayer books. “It was completely shocking,” Minkus recalled months later. “It’s just weeks after Oct. 7, the pain and the shock were...
Sigmund Freud understood the uncanny sensation we all felt watching the Trump-Biden debate
After last night’s presidential debate, many Americans now feel caught in a nightmare from which they cannot awake. (That many other Americans do not want to wake from this nightmare of course makes all this yet more nightmarish.) It is a nightmare that commentators started to wring their hands over during the debate, twisted more...
Why unions are having a renaissance
What do performers at Disneyland, editorial staff at the publisher Dotdash Meredith and players on Dartmouth’s men’s basketball team have in common? They all have recently chosen to join a union. (And that’s just the D’s.) Kidding aside, working people get it: We can accomplish things together that would be impossible on our own, which...
In Israel, a new habit: Attending funerals of fallen soldiers you do not know
JERUSALEM — Some of the 2,000 mourners who crammed around the fresh grave on Mount Herzl’s northern slope one recent day had gone to school with the 21-year-old soldier being buried there, Sgt. Eliyahu Moshe Zimbalist, whom they called Eli Mo. Others grew up with his mother in Teaneck, New Jersey; worked with his dad...
So, what do the lox-slicing knives at Zabar’s talk about when they think no one can hear them?
Every Thursday when I arrive at Zabar’s, after I don my gloves and apron, I proceed to a rear refrigerator. There, in a narrow, cold space behind the tray of salty lox, is where I hide my three knives, wrapped in paper and aluminum foil. One day as I readied them for another day of...
Meet Zeev Buium, who could be the NHL’s next Jewish superstar
(JTA) — As Zeev Buium prepared to take the ice with the No. 4-ranked University of Denver last fall, he had the jitters expected of any 17-year-old in his first Division I game. But he also had something else on his mind: The Pioneers’ first game fell on Oct. 7 — and Buium’s parents and...
Remembering Kinky Friedman, the only country star who bought his clothes from Hadassah
The songwriter and novelist Kinky Friedman, who died June 26 at age 79, exemplified the essential abiding mystery of Jewish identity. Born Richard Samet Friedman in Chicago to parents of Russian Jewish origin who moved to Texas to run a children’s camp, he acquired his nickname at the University of Texas at Austin from his...
Video: Thirteen-year old bakes baklava in Yiddish
Baklava, a dessert made of phyllo pastry filled with chopped nuts and soaked in honey, is said to have originated in the Turkish and Greek regions. Sender (aka Alexander) Glasser, who speaks Yiddish at home, knows that this dish isn’t part of his Eastern European heritage. But he thought it would be cool to show...
Trump used the debate to court a major Israeli-American donor. Palestinians will pay the price
If you had trouble understanding former President Donald Trump’s answers to questions about Israel’s war with Hamas in his debate with President Joe Biden, that’s for a good reason: He wasn’t talking to you. The audience for his answers wasn’t viewers, Israelis or the Palestinians, and certainly not the moderators. It was Dr. Miriam Adelson....
What Biden and Trump said about Israel — and Hitler — during the first presidential debate
Two Jewish journalists, CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, moderated the first 2024 presidential debate Thursday night, and neither asked President Joe Biden or former President Trump about rising antisemitism. But the debate touched on other topics of particular interest to Jewish voters. Here are a few, plus one Jewish comedian’s take on the spectacle....
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