A pro-Israel group is calling on public schools in a suburban Boston district to remove “hateful education materials from their curricula.” Americans for Peace and Tolerance in a newspaper ad campaign claims the Newton schools are using five materials that “demonize Israel and America while glorifying Islam.” They include the books “A Muslim Primer,” “The…
A rabbi passed over last year for the leadership of the Reform movement thinks he might have better luck running for the U.S. Senate. Rabbi Jonah Pesner, a senior vice president at the Union for Reform Judaism, told the Boston Phoenix on January 7 that he is considering entering the special election to replace Senator…
Former Massachusetts U.S. Representative Barney Frank says he would like to fill in for Senator John Kerry, who has been nominated for secretary of state, as Congress battles over the budget and raising the debt ceiling in the next few months. Frank, who retired from Congress this week and was the top Democrat on the…
A Chabad-affiliated yeshiva in Worcester, Mass., has launched a last-ditch effort to prevent its imminent closure. The Yeshiva Academy is hoping to raise $472,000 in donations before Friday, when the building in which it is housed will be auctioned off by the Internal Revenue Service. By Wednesday afternoon, the academy had raised $35,564 in online…
Florida’s Tea Party-backed Gov. Rick Scott announced that he will refuse to implement the Affordable Healthcare Act, despite President Barack Obama’s reelection. Refusing to set up a state exchange doesn’t necessarily matter that much, since the law empowers the federal government to set up an exchange for states that fail to do so on their…
Mitt Romney is remembered by some in Massachusetts’ Jewish community as a distant figure on a grassroots level, a governor with whom their main interaction came during the effort to pass a groundbreaking healthcare reform providing near-universal coverage for state residents. Today it’s the very subject that the presumptive Republican nominee for U.S. president wishes…
Congressman Barney Frank’s joke about a hoodie and a black recipient of an honorary degree fell flat at a college graduation. The crowd gasped as retiring Jewish congressman made the crack at the University of Massachusetts graduation, which honored civil rights leader Hubie Jones, the Daily News reported. “When you get an honorary degree they…
One Jewish day school in Kansas cut its tuition in half. Another school, in Oakland, Calif., grew its endowment 15-fold. And a third, in Houston, succeeded in recruiting families from as far away as New Jersey, Venezuela and Israel. These institutions embraced bold, even risky moves in an effort to generate revenue and boost enrollment,…
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