Adelson, Raisman in top 5 on Forward 50 list of influential Jewish Americans

Published on November 13, 2012

The Jewish Daily Forward's annual list of the 50 most influential Jewish Americans featured Republican Party mega-donor Sheldon Adelson and Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman in the top 5.

Pollard reportedly offered to spy for Australia

Published on September 20, 2011

Jonathan Pollard, the Jewish American jailed for spying for Israel, reportedly first offered classified information to Australia.

Jews must never use the term ‘shvartza’

By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
Published on May 8, 2008

About a year ago I wrote a column about how the word "shvartza" must be retired forever. It is an insulting, offensive, and derogatory term that has no place in the mouths of people committed to ethics.

Ziman and Lee hold hands, pledge friendship

By Tom Tugend
Published on May 1, 2008

A highly charged controversy between two self-described "passionate" advocates, one African American, the other Jewish, appears to have ended on Thursday (May 1), with pledges of mutual friendship and future cooperation.

‘Mixed’ marriages lose stigma among Iranians

By Karmel Melamed
Published on December 13, 2007

If Arash Saghian's recent marriage had taken place in the late 1980s or early 1990s, he would likely have faced ostracism from Los Angeles' Iranian Jewish community. The family of the 25-year-old businessman might have also frowned upon the match, all because his spouse Maya was Ashkenazi.

Kushmet

By Rob Eshman
Published on November 8, 2007

And so, my two favorite playwrights find themselves on opposite sides of a longstanding Jewish divide. "All sound creative art is rooted in a ghetto," the critic Ludwig Lewisohn once wrote. Once out of that ghetto, the roots bifurcate, and we Jews have fashioned two strategies for survival. For the Mamets, salvation lies in toughness and certainty, the People of the Butch. For Kushner, our promise is in compromise and doubt.

Am I Blind?

By David Suissa
Published on September 27, 2007

Does the American Jewish community take a "myopic" view of Israel? A local Jewish leader, known for his progressive views, believes that it does.

Many aging Shoah survivors are living a new nightmare

By Marc Ballon
Published on November 22, 2006

Moscovitz is one of the tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors living in abject poverty in the United States. These witnesses to the 20th century's worst atrocity are enduring a second nightmare, often struggling just to feed and clothe themselves.Their wartime experiences, which included malnutrition and physical and psychological abuse, have made them prone to costly medical and mental problems as they age.

A Read on Life

By Tom Teicholz
Published on August 18, 2005

Lately, I've been thinking about two novels I recently enjoyed: "The Other Shulman" by Alan Zweibel (Villard, $23.95), and "Joy Comes in the Morning" by Jonathan Rosen (Picador, $14).

Teens Build a Bridge Beyond the Past

By Ellie Kahn
Published on May 27, 2004

On April 19, 12 German teenagers left Heidelberg, flew west for about 6,000 miles, disembarked at LAX, and entered the lives and homes of 12 Jewish American teenagers. None of the 24 teens knew quite what to expect.

During their two-week stay in homes of Kol Tikvah congregants, the German students visited local high schools, attended Shabbat services, took part in a Yom HaShoah program, tried a range of new foods and looked everywhere for Tom Cruise.

Second Take

By Gene Lichtenstein
Published on May 30, 2002

This is a Los Angeles story, moreover one with a Hollywood ending. But it is also partly a Jewish American tale.

It is the story of 20 months in the early adult life of Frances Kroll Ring, written in the form of a memoir, "Against The Current." "Last Call," on Showtime last Saturday evening, starred Jeremy Irons as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sissy Spacek as his wife, Zelda, and Neve Campbell in the role of the young Ring. It recounts how Ring, then 22, not long departed from the Bronx for Los Angeles, took a job (her first) in 1939 as secretary, typist and general all-around life manager for Fitzgerald. He was trying, not very successfully, to embark on a novel about Hollywood, "The Last Tycoon," when she began working for him.