New York News

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.

Widening The Conversation

01/22/1999 | Jonathan Mark | Associate Editor

Shtick Treatment

01/21/1999 | by Steve Lipman  | Staff Writer

It’s mid-morning in mid-Manhattan, and a former Hollywood comedy writer is working the crowd.
“Yossi,” asks Mort Scharfman, “you were in the armed forces?”
“Sure,” says Yossi, a veteran and proud of it.
“Ours?”
Yossi, an American veteran, shakes his head in mock disgust. The crowd groans.
Scharfman, MSW, is rolling.

Y.U. May Close Its Boys High School

01/15/1999 | by Stewart Ain | Staff Writer

Yeshiva University is considering closing its 80-year-old Modern Orthodox boys high school in Washington Heights, once the primary feeder for its undergraduate college for men with which it shares a campus.
Faced with a choice between financial pragmatism and a proud tradition of Torah education, Dr. Norman Lamm, Y.U.'s president, will have to decide later this year whether or not to phase out the school over several years.

Between The Suns

01/15/1999 | Jonathan Mark | Associate Editor

Man in the street interviews are a staple of the news business. Every day, just about every newspaper or broadcast is stopping somebody, somewhere, for his or her point of view on anything at all. Random wisdom is so respected that William F. Buckley once quipped that, when it comes to government, heíd prefer taking his chances with an America led by the first 2,000 names in the telephone book.