Gabrielle Birkner
By Gabrielle Birkner
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Life Sana Krasikov Takes Top Rohr Prize
The winner of the Jewish Book Council’s $100,000 Sami Rohr Prize, announced today, is Sana Krasikov, right, for her short story collection “One More Year” (Spiegel & Grau, 2008). The Book Council also announced that its $25,000 Sami Rohr Prize Choice Award would go to Dalia Sofer, the author of the novel “The Septembers of…
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Life What Would Pope Benedict Watch?
Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jews may have beef with El Al, but Pope Benedict XVI apparently doesn’t. As the Forward is reporting, the Rabbinical Transportation Committee — an organization tasked with representing the mass transit interests of Israel’s Haredi community — is urging traditionally observant Jews to shun El Al — citing the national air carrier “immodest”…
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Life To Iran, With Love — And Geopolitical Challenges
To commemorate the festival of Nowruz — marking the beginning of the Persian New Year — American President Obama and Israeli President Shimon Peres have each recorded friendly messages, embedded with challenges, for the people of Iran. Obama, in his statement, also available with Farsi subtitles, said: The United States wants the Islamic Republic of…
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Life Just Be Glad Your Last Name Is Not Madoff
New York’s other B. Madoff — Ben, not Bernie; pronounced MAD-off, not MADE-off — has been a target of some of the rage directed at the admitted Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff. Listed in the Manhattan phonebook, Ben Madoff, no relation to Bernie, has received dozens of angry calls — several of them anti-Semitic in nature…
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Life Madoff Scheme Brings to Light Jewish Artifacts
Since Bernard Madoff’s December arrest, victims of his Ponzi scheme have been selling off not only their real estate and their jewelry, but also their Judaica, according to a New York-based auctioneer. Jonathan Greenstein, whose eponymous company auctions off “rare antique and artisan Judaica” told The New York Post’s Page Six that Jewish artifacts that…
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Culture And on the Seventh Day, He Plotzed
If it hadn’t been for a cousin’s protracted bat mitzvah, Slate editor David Plotz might never have picked up the Hebrew Bible. But to pass the time until the Kiddush, he scooped up the translation from the seatback of the synagogue pew, and opened it at random. He happened upon the story of Dinah’s rape…
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Life Did Madoff Wear a Yarmulke to Court?
In this courtroom sketch of Bernard Madoff, the admitted Ponzi schemer appears to be wearing a white yarmulke (and davening). Rest assured, neither is true. The sketch shows him reading the following statement before Judge Denny Chin of U.S. District Court: Madoff’s Statement to the Court Your Honor, for many years up until my arrest…
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Life Thanking Mr. Madoff
As the world focuses on the misdeeds of Bernard Madoff, who pleaded guilty Thursday to operating a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, at least one person — granted, not one of his defrauded investors — is singing his praises. Writing on The Big Money, Chadwick Matlin has gone so far as to pen an open letter of…
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