Forward Association

Solving the Mystery of Washington’s Famous Letter

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:39 -0400

How Did It End Up in a Suburban Warehouse?

During a lecture in England last December, Jonathan Sarna, America’s foremost scholar of American Jewish history, said he did not know the whereabouts of one of American Jewry’s most important documents: George Washington’s letter to the Hebrew Congregation, in Newport, R.I. Upon this yellowed piece of 18th-century rag paper is a short but powerful statement from the first president of the United States reassuring one of the original colonial congregations that his nascent government guaranteed religious liberty for all.

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Al Schwimmer, Father of Air Force

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:39 -0400

Al Schwimmer, a New York native whose actions were described by David Ben-Gurion as the Diaspora’s most important contribution to the survival of Israel, died June 11. He died on his birthday at age 94 in Tel Aviv. He used his contacts and experience as a World War II flight engineer for the U.S. Air Transport Command, and similar civilian service for the former TWA, to smuggle some 30 surplus war planes to the nascent Jewish state in 1948.

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Rainbow Flags Aflutter, Orthodox Groups Enter a Float in Gay Pride Parade

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:38 -0400

Despite Landmark First, Not Everyone in Israel’s Gay and Lesbian Orthodox Community Feels Like Celebrating

Pride parade, an unexpected soundtrack filled the air: Hasidic music. Despite the suspicions of some marchers, it wasn’t an act of protest by Orthodox groups. Rather, the music was coming from a float designed by a group of Orthodox gay and lesbian Israelis.

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Will Weiner’s Jewish District Hit The Political Chopping Block?

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:37 -0400

The Forest Hills Jewish Center, a prominent Conservative synagogue in central Queens, occupies a large, sand-colored building next to a Chevrolet dealership on Queens Boulevard, a busy thoroughfare that cuts through the community’s hulking brick housing complexes.

On a recent Friday night, about three dozen congregants gathered in a small, carpeted room inside the Jewish Center, singing along with Hazan Henry Rosenblum as he forcefully chanted the Sabbath liturgy. Rabbi Gerald Skolnik, a bespectacled man with a mop of curly, grey-brown hair who has led the congregation for 27 years, leaned back in a chair against the wall, singing quietly with his congregants.

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New Hasidic Radicals Bellow Down Tel Aviv’s Streets

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:36 -0400

Tel Aviv — The monotonous din of traffic permeated the air on Tel Aviv’s Sheinkin Street on a recent Friday afternoon, when, suddenly, a large white cargo van whipped around the corner, blasting music from a pair of huge roof-mounted loudspeakers. A few people walking on the crowded sidewalks stopped to stare as five bearded young men wearing white-knit, tassel-topped yarmulkes leaped out, dancing to the thud of electronic bass beats. Some people smiled. Soldiers driving past waved out the windows and cheered. A cyclist cut through the group, her face set in a grimace. A man screamed above the din that his baby was sick.

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When a Synagogue Program May Be an Illegal Hostel

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:34 -0400

Owners Say They Are Teaching Tolerance. New York City Lawyers Call It a ‘Sham’

The MacDougal Street Synagogue in New York City doesn’t have a sanctuary or a rabbi. It doesn’t run prayer services or perform weddings. And it doesn’t have a congregation. It does, however, operate budget hostels in six buildings in Manhattan. Or it did, until the New York City Department of Buildings closed four of them, calling the hostels “illegal” and citing fire safety and zoning violations. The synagogue claims that the hostels are part of a program designed to teach tolerance to visitors to New York City. But legal documents filed by the city’s attorneys call those claims a “sham.”

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Major Effort To Promote Day Schools Shows Mixed Results

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:33 -0400

When the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education was founded in 1997, it had commitments of $18 million from a dozen leading Jewish philanthropists, and it had lofty goals: to create 25 new Jewish day schools and to double the percentage of non-Orthodox students who attend all Jewish day schools.

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