Two annual events in the Jewish community took place this week — the North American Jewish Day School Conference and the start of Jewish Disabilities Awareness Month. Perhaps not coincidentally, despite the fact that the Day School conference is the largest in history with more than 1,000 educators and supporters gathering in Washington, it does…
If you ask me (and, if I had to guess, many of my peers), there is nothing worse than Hebrew school. In the world of fun Jewish activities, with Yom Kippur fasting being a one and hooking up with Israeli soldiers on Birthright a 10, attending Hebrew school is a lowly three. On Sundays, when…
A controversial in-depth study that clears Palestinian Authority school textbooks of the charge that they demonize Jews and Israelis has become an orphan, virtually upon its release. Since Yale University psychiatry professor Bruce Wexler, Bethlehem University professor Sami Adwan and Daniel Bar-Tal of Tel Aviv University rolled out their study’s results February 4, the Council…
In our Brooklyn neighborhood, it’s said you should put your kid on a waiting list for child care while she is still in the amniotic sac. And when it comes to preschool, don’t hold your breath — unless, that is, you’ve got good connections. When it was our turn, I attended workshops on applying to…
Controversy quickly engulfed a new study that said Palestinian textbooks do not incite hatred for Jews with Israel blasting the report — with some members of the report’s advisory panel claiming they were blindsided by its release. Bar Ilan University Talmud professor Daniel Sperber, a member of the panel, slammed the decision to release the…
In 1962, a straight-A University of Alabama student named Melvin Meyer became a lightning rod of controversy when he published an editorial in the Crimson White, Alabama’s student newspaper, that countered the bigotry that was roiling the American south at the time. Meyer, a Jew from Starkville, Miss., was responding to the escalating tensions in…
A landmark State Department-funded study has cleared the Palestinians of demonizing Jews in school textbooks but contends that both Israeli and Palestinian teachers use classroom materials that distort the history of the Middle East conflict. The study, described by its authors as the first scientific analysis of incitement in Israeli and Palestinian textbooks, contradicts a…
In January 2012, Irit Pinkus was shocked to learn that her daughter’s Jewish day school would close at the end of the semester, leaving her and the parents of the school’s other 150 students with a tough decision: where to place their children next year. It’s a decision faced by an increasing number of families….
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