For moving, inspirational writing, The Shofar can recommend none batter than an article by Isabel Kershner in the Wednesday, June 11, issue of The New York Times. Check your local library for an archived copy. The story centers on Omer Shem Tov, who was 20 years old when gunmen seized him during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel. He had grown up in a largely secular home, and was captured while fleeing the [...]
The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) announced on June 23 it would allocate $10 million in emergency funding to meet the needs of Israeli Jews. The JFNA, the umbrella group for 141 Jewish federations across the United States and Canada, said that the money comes from its Israel Emergency Fund set up in the days after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attach on Israel. Since that attack, the JFNA has raised $897 million from [...]
The French National Assembly has voted unanimously to promote Alfred Dreyfus to the rank of brigadier general. Dreyfus was the Jewish army captain arrested in 1894 on false espionage charges — passing military secrets to the Germans — that were a reflection of virulent antisemitism in the French military. Dreyfus had been publicly stripped of his rank and sentenced to life in prison. He was sent to Devil’s Island in 1895. Released from Devil’s Island [...]
Alex Soros, son of billionaire philanthropist George Soros, married Huma Abedin, longtime Hillary Clinton aide and ex-wife of former congressman Anthony Weiner, on June 21 in Watermill, NY.
Hans Noë, an architect, sculptor and accidental restaurateur, best known for his meticulous revival of one of New York City’s oldest bars, died on May 11 at his home in Garrison, NY. He was 96. Although Mr. Noë designed and built both innovative houses and geometric wooden sculptures, his most visible role in the cultural life of his adopted city was as the proprietor of Fanelli Café. In the early 1970s, he began buying neglected [...]
Judith Hope Blau, a painter whose accidental detour into bagel art — necklaces, napkin rings, wreaths and candleholders fashioned from, yes, bagels — led to a career as a children’s book author and illustrator and a toy designer, died on May 4 at her home in Eastchester, NY. She was 87. She started by masking bagel puppets and bagel necklaces for her young children. She painted them with smiling faces, and sold hundreds of them. [...]
Rabbi Sholom B. Lipskar, a charismatic figure in the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement, who helped transform South Florida into a vibrant center of Jewish life, and who founded a national organization that supports Jews in prison and the military, died on May 3 in Miami. He was 78. Rabbi Lipskar was sent to Miami in 1969 by Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, the Lubavitcher rebbe. At the time, the Jewish community consisted primarily of affluent retirees who [...]
Stanley Fischer, an economist and central banker whose expertise helped guide global economic policies and defuse financial crises for decades, died on April 30 at his home in Lexington, MA. He was 81. Mr. Fischer served as head of Israel’s central bank from 2005 to 2013, as vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board from 2014 to 2017, and as the No. 2 officer at the International Monetary Fund from 1994 to 2001, when that [...]
Pierre Nova, a French scholar whose ideas about the role of memory and identity in the writing of history gained prominence both in France and abroad, and who became a kingpin in his country’s intellectual community through his influence over publishing, died on June 2 in Paris. He was 93. Mr. Nora’s major contribution to historiography was the concept of “lieux de mémoire” (sites of memory), a term he coined to describe elements of the [...]
Israel has recovered the bodies of two Israeli-American hostages who were killed, and their bodies then taken, in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack that ignited the war in the Gaza Strip. The remains were recovered and returned to Israel in a special operation by the IDF and the Shin Bet internal security agency. The army said it had recovered the remains from the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis made possible as a result [...]
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