During the NBA playoffs, people were beginning to notice that the uniforms worn by the Dallas Mavericks seem not to say “Mavs,” rendered in all caps, but “Maus,” the title of Art Spiegelman’s 1986 bestseller, a graphic novel about the Holocaust. Louis Keene, a staff reporter at The Forward, covering religion, sports and the West Coast, decided to call Art Spiegelman to see what he thought of the Mavs/Maus mixup. “That’s funny,” Spiegelman said. “I [...]

The German government has agreed to allocate $1.5 billion in Holocaust reparations this year, setting a new record for how much the country is spending to support survivors. The increase from a total of $1.4 billion last year is due to a rise in the amount the government is paying to reimburse survivors’ medical expenses. But the sum paid directly to survivors has once again declined, reflecting the accelerating deaths of survivors. And the growth [...]

In a bittersweet ceremony held on Sunday, June 23, the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh broke ground for a memorial and a new Tree of Life building. The synagogue was the scene of a mass shooting on Oct. 27, 2018, when a gunman opened fire and killed 11 worshippers. The building will house a sanctuary for the Tree of Life congregation — one of three congregations that were meeting at the synagogue at the [...]

In a star-studded Tony Awards night, Jewish winners claimed many of the statues: Shaina Taub won for best book of a musical and best score for her musical “Stuffs.” Alex Edelman won a special Tony for his show, “Just For Us,” in which he chronicles his infiltration into a neo-Nazi meeting. Winners for directing included Danya Taymor, niece of Julie Taymor, for “The Outsiders,” and Daniel Aukin, son of directors David Aukin and Nancy Meekler [...]

In a landmark ruling this month, Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled unanimously that the government must draft ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students into the military, that no longer is there any legal framework to continue the decades-long practice to grant them blanket exemption from army service, The Times of Israel reported. The justices made clear they were not telling the state how many Haredi yeshiva students to draft or how quickly, indicating that the process could [...]