A New York Minute

When mega-philanthropist Michael Steinhardt founded the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education in 1996, it was a heady time for day schools. Today, the recession seems endless, enrollment of non-Orthodox Jews is declining and even some Orthodox Jews are questioning the affordability, if not the importance, of day schools.

Ed Koch, the three-term mayor of New York (1978-‘89), will be honored by Beit Morasha, the Jerusalem-based educational center, on Jan. 25 for “public service, leadership and commitment to the State of Israel and the Jewish people” at a special event and dinner at Guastavino’s in New York City.

Beit Morasha will inaugurate the Edward I. Koch Center for Public Policy and Jewish Ethics at Beit Morasha’s Robert M. Beren College, which supports research and advanced seminar programs on the connection between public policy and Jewish values.

Two generations ago John Howard Griffin was a household name in the United States, admired in some places, hated in others. His fame/notoriety grew out of his landmark book, “Black Like Me,” which documented six weeks the white native of Dallas had spent traveling around the Deep South, with chemically darkened skin, posing as an African-American (known then as a Negro) laborer.

Rabbi Emily Rosenzweig of Mt. Vernon was sworn in here this week by the JWB Jewish Chaplains Council as a military chaplain, becoming the first woman rabbi from New York to serve in that capacity.

Ordained in 2006 by the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles, Rabbi Rosenzweig is now one of nine women rabbis — plus another 60 male rabbis — serving as chaplains in the armed forces, according to the JWB.