Susan Nussbaum, a playwright and novelist whose work reflected her concerns for the rights of people with disabilities, died on April 28 at her home in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago. She was 68. Sher began using a wheelchair after she was hit by a car at age 24 and soon became an integral part of Chicago’s burgeoning disability-rights scene. Incensed by a lack of accessibility in the city for theater people with disabilities, she [...]
Ben Roy Mottelson, an American-Danish theoretical physicist who shared a Nobel Prize for revealing how the motion of protons and neutrons could distort the shape of the nuclei of atoms, died on May 13. He was 95. Dr. Mottelson was awarded the Nobel in physics in 1975 along with James Rainwater, a Columbia University physicist, and Aage Bohr, a Danish scientist whose father, Niels Bohr, was awarded the Nobel in physics in 1922. The three [...]
Shul member Tom Byrne makes the “Jews in the News” column this month with an announcement that he will appear as Sigmund Freud in a dramatic reading of a new play by Jerry Levin, a member of North Fork Reform Synagogue. The reading will be held on Sunday, June 12, 4 p.m., at the Peconic Community Center on Peconic Lane. Admission free; vaccination required; masks appreciated; registration required at northforkreformsynagogue.org/. In the playwright’s imagination, Freud, [...]
Joshua Cohen, an American novelist, won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel, The Netanyahus. The book imagines a college job interview in the 1950s for Benzion Netanyahu, academic and father of the future Israeli prime minister. The novel explores themes of Jewishness and diaspora as Netanyahu’s fatalistic view of Jewish history bumps up against that of the narrator, an assimilated American-Jewish professor. The Pulitzer committee described the novel as “...a linguistically deft [...]
Shuly Rubin Schwartz began her work as the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary nearly two years ago, but it wasn’t until May 17, 2022, that the Conservative Movement flagship formally celebrated Schwartz’s appointment, which makes her the first woman to lead the 136-year-old seminary. In a speech delivered at the seminary’s Manhattan home, the chancellor remarked on her own Conservative Jewish upbringing and the inspiration of her mother, an executive director of a Jewish [...]
This just in: Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people of the year. In the U.S., he has an over 70% approval rating — a hero and an everyman.
Élizabeth Borne, whose family fled the Nazis in Poland in 1939, has been named the new Prime Minister of France, the first time in 30 years that a woman has held the position. Borne will replace Jean Castex in the role, the Elysée Palace said in a statement o May 23. Borne formerly served as minister of the environment, transportation and labor. Her appointment follows President Emmanuel Macron’s reelection on April 24. Borne, 61, was [...]
Rendering of architect Daniel Libeskind’s design for the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, the site of the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history. On Oct. 27, 2018, a gunman entered the synagogue and opened fire, killing 11 congregants and wounding 6 others. The new design plan was revealed by Lifang Vision Technology.
For those interested, an entire genre of storytelling about leaving insular religious communities exists. Only a few years ago, Tara Westover’s knockout bestseller, Educated, told of her escape from her fundamentalist Mormon family in rural Idaho. In the Jewish world, a spate of stories about leaving various threads of the Orthodox religious world caught fire first with Deborah Feldman’s memoir in 2012, Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots, which later became a Netflix [...]
Are you musical? Can you sing, carry a tune? The shul wants you. How would you like to learn new tunes for the Friday night service? Lend your voice to enrich our Shabbat service? Join our Training Meet-Up, headed by shul member Chuck Simon, who will teach participants on Zoom or in-person this summer. This is your opportunity to learn new skills and share in building a musical community in our shul. Ability to read [...]
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