Shul member Roberta Garris was the subject of a half-page article in the March 27 issue of The Suffolk Times. Reporter Julie Lane wrote about Roberta’s passion for quilting, and how she has turned that pastime into statements to promote peace. During the AIDS epidemic, she created a quilt to represent those losing their lives to the disease. More recently, she developed a theme based on the killing of 1,200 Israelis and the kidnapping of [...]
Mike Huckabee is not Jewish, but he makes the Jews In The News column this month because of the new position he now occupies. The former Arkansas governor was confirmed recently by the U.S. Senate as the Trump administration’s ambassador to Israel. The 53-46 vote installed a staunch supporter of Israel in a key Mideast post. However, Huckabee, an evangelical Christian, told lawmakers during a hearing last month that he would “carry out the president’s [...]
President Donald Trump has nominated Yehuda Kaploun, a Miami businessman, to serve as the administration’s new special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism. The announcement was celebrated by leaders of the Orthodox Union, but criticized by Jewish lawmakers, citing “inaccurate and disqualifying” remarks by Kaploun in connection with the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, having accused Democrats of refusing to recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization. Kaploun holds a rabbinical degree and is part of [...]
When Alan Garber, the Jewish physician and economist who now leads Harvard, wrote a letter to the community about why the country’s oldest university would not agree to the Trump administration’s demands, he spoke not just about academic freedom, but also about moral boundaries and identity. “Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard,” he wrote. The [...]
Just hours after Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family began Passover with a Seder in his official residence, an arsonist torched the room where they had celebrated. Arrested was 38-year-old Cody Balmer, who allegedly scaled a security fence and set fire to the Harrisburg, PA. home, where Shapiro, his wife and four children had celebrated the holiday earlier that night. At a news conference, the Jewish governor said that the attacker would not deter [...]
Jesse Kornbluth, whose sly chronicles of cultural excess , celebrity and author profiles, personal essays, and investigative work enlivened magazines and newspapers, died on April 17 in Manhattan. He was 79. He contributed to, among others, The New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine, Vanity Fair, Architectural Digest and New Times, an alternative biweekly newsmagazine published in the 1970s. He also worked as a ghostwriter, wrote screenplays, and wrote or co-wrote a number of nonfiction [...]
Marcia Marcus, a figurative and conceptual artist with a bold contemporary style, died on March 27 in Manhattan. She was 97. She painted portraits of the artists of her time, but her favorite subject was herself. She painted herself frequently in a variety of costumes and settings: She was a helmeted Athena, a Medusa, and a reclining nude. She placed herself in front of Masada in pearls and a red sheath.
Lenny Schultz, a wild-eyed comedian who became known in the 1970s and ‘80s for high-energy performances that he delivered with a mouthful of sound effects and a table full of silly props, died on March 16 at his home in Delray Beach, FL. He was 91. “I can’t tell a joke,” Mr. Schultz told The Orlando Sentinel in 1972, but that didn’t matter, he said. “The guys I like and the guys I identify [...]
Richard Bernstein, a former correspondent and critic for The New York Times whose deep knowledge of Asia and Europe illuminated reporting from Tiananmen Square to the Bastille, and who wrote things as he saw them in 10 books driven by intellectual curiosity, died on March 31in Manhattan. He was 80. In more than two decades at The Times, Mr. Bernstein brought deep historical knowledge, a gracious writing style, and a stubborn contrarian streak to subjects [...]
Jeremiah Ostriker, an astrophysicist who helped set off a revolution in humankind’s view of the universe, revealing it to be as vaster, darker realm than the one we can see, ruled by invisible forms of matter and energy we still don’t understand, died on April 13 at his home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He was 87. For more than four decades, mostly at Princeton University, Dr. Ostriker’s work altered our understanding of [...]
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