New York News

Lauder’s Ties To Bibi Raise Questions

01/29/1999 | by Lawrence Cohler-Esses and David Makovsky | Staff Writer

The question to international businessman Ronald Lauder was clear and succinct: “Did you give money to Benjamin Netanyahu for his election campaign?”

Lifeline To The Lonely

01/22/1999 | by Stewart Ain | Staff Writer

For seven years Bertha Laufer, an intelligent, articulate, retired New York City English teacher, lived in a non-Jewish nursing home in the Bronx and would help some of her nurses with their high school equivalency courses. But none of her relatives lived in New York and as the years went by, she became lonelier and lonelier.
"She wanted someone to talk to her about books and ideas," recalled Laufer's niece, Rabbi Nancy Fuchs Kreimer of Philadelphia. "She could quote Milton and Shakespeare by heart and there was no one for her to talk to."

Y.U. High Works To Save Itself

01/22/1999 | by Stewart Ain | Staff Writer

The board chairman of Yeshiva University's boys and girls high schools expressed confidence Tuesday that his board would raise the $1 million in pledges the university has sought before allowing the schools to become independent.

Council’s Jews To Reinvigorate Caucus

01/22/1999 | by ADAM DICKTER | Staff Writer

The City Council’s Jewish Study Group, founded in response to a rash of Jewish concerns in the early ‘90’s, will take on a higher profile in coming months, says its founding chairman, Councilman Herbert Berman (D-Brooklyn).
“We are planning a whole series of meetings to reinvigorate” the group, which has been virtually inactive since shortly after its inception, said Berman. “It’s important that members be educated as to the problems facing the Jewish people in city, state, federal [issues] and Europe and Israel.”

A Unique Spirit

01/22/1999 | by ADAM DICKTER | Staff Writer

It was the third day of the Crown Heights riots in 1991, and a sense was growing among the besieged Lubavitcher community that members may have to take matters into their own hands. A meeting was planned that night between some of the community’s leaders and then-Mayor David Dinkins. Frustrated that violence against Jews seemed unabating while police were taking minimal steps to protect the chasidim, Rabbi Jacob Goldstein took a decidedly unorthodox tack: He urged chasidic businessmen who were licensed to carry firearms to attend, and to bring their weapons.