Rabbi Moshe Lewin, right, shows a Torah scroll to Muslim representative Najat Benali, with pink head covering, and to Father Jason Nioka, a Catholic priest, as other religious leaders look on. The presentation took place in Interreligious Hall at the Olympic Village at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell
It’s hurricane season 2024, and the venerable World Meteorological Organization has announced the names of this year’s Atlantic Basin storms. Those with generators sitting at the ready can sit back smugly with a “bring-‘em-on” look on their faces. But for the rest, it’s time to lay in a supply of flashlight batteries, candles, lanterns and some extra cans of tuna and jars of peanut butter to feed the family in case of a blackout. [...]
Barbara Streisand kicked off a virtual “Jewish Women for Kamala” fundraiser on August 15. “It’s been said that Jewish women are known to speak out and tell you what they think, and I’m one of them,” Streisand said. Organizers said 35,000 people tuned into the 90-minute event. Speakers at the event included U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada, comedian Judy Gold, and actresses Shaina Taub and Emmy Rossum.
Rabbi Michael Beals, who is known as “Joe Biden’s rabbi,” delivered the benediction on opening night of the Democratic National Convention. The evening’s program was running long, but at 11:20, six hours after Rabbi Beals and his wife Elissa has been inside the convention hall, he stepped to the stage and, for his first time at a political convention and his first time using a teleprompter, delivered the closing prayer. Rabbi Beals is the spiritual [...]
Bette A. Prashker, a pioneering woman in the book business who published the feminist classics Sexual Politics by Kate Millet and Backlash by Susan Faludi, died on July 30 in Alford, MA. She was 99. The list of authors Ms. Prashker discovered, championed or positioned for best-sellerdom as a top editor and executive at Doubleday and also Crown included Isaac Asimov, Erik Larson, Dave Barry and Dominick Dunne.
Don Buchwald, a talent agent who elevated shock-jock radio personality Howard Stern to satellite radio, died on July 22 at his home in North Egremont, MA. He was 88. In late 1985, after WNBC fired Mr. Stern, Mr. Buchwald negotiated his move to WXRK-FM, known as K-Rock. Over the next 20 years, Mr. Stern’s popularity swelled, and his show was syndicated to stations nationwide. But it was Mr. Buchwald’s negotiating in 2004 that led to [...]
Walter Shapiro, a political columnist whose career included stints as a presidential speechwriter, stand-up comic, professor, author and, as a recent college graduate, congressional candidate, died on July 21 in Manhattan. He was 77. He began his career in journalism at Congressional Quarterly and went on to write for Washington Monthly, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, USA Today, The New Republic and Esquire. He later wrote for Salon, Yahoo News, Politics Daily and Roll Call. [...]
Francine Pascal, as former soap opera scriptwriter from Queens who conjured up an entire literary universe in her long-running and best-selling ”Sweet Valley High” series of young-adult novels, died on July 28 in Manhattan. She was 92. Within a few years of its debut in 1982, “Sweet Valley High” had taken over the young-adult book market. In January 1986, 18 out of the top 20 books on the young-adult best-sellers list were “Sweet Valley High” [...]
Manfred Kirchheimer, a filmmaker who was draw to stickball, jazz, subway graffiti, gargoyles of old buildings, and the memories of aging immigrants, and who earned a reputation as a master of nonfiction cinema, died on July 16 at his home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He was 93. Mr. Kirchheimer often wrote, produced, directed, photographed and edited his movies. He got funding from nonprofit sources, and he earned a living as a freelance [...]
Ina Jaffe, a NPR correspondent for about 40 years, the first editor of “Weekend Edition Saturday” and a contributor to “All Things Considered,” died August 8 in Los Angeles. She was 75. She covered national elections since 2008. In 2010, she received a Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association for her reporting on California’s disciplinary three-strikes law, which imposed harsher penalties for what were often minor or nonviolent criminal offenses. In 2011, her [...]
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