New York News

Frank Words

11/06/1998 | by Eric J. Greenberg | Staff Writer

Rabbi Rene Samuel Sirat, Europe’s chief rabbi emeritus, wasn’t pulling any punches. The 68-year-old former chief rabbi of France, who is Orthodox, used his recent visit to New York to assail the current state of Orthodox Judaism — particularly for its continuing mistreatment of women, the peace process, and “strangers” within its community.
Rabbi Sirat, a respected educator, also said that the Jewish community could learn a thing or two about repentance from the Catholic Church.

On The Attack

11/06/1998 | by Lawrence Cohler-Esses  | Staff Writer

The defeat of Republican Sen. Alfonse D’Amato Tuesday was also a big defeat for controversial campaign strategist, Arthur Finkelstein, the reclusive D’Amato protege who has made one-note attack ad on “liberals” his specialty.

Similarly, Democratic Rep. Charles Schumer’s triumph over D’Amato heralds the rise of newer campaign guru, Hank Morris, a feisty strategist who specializes in helping Democratic centrists repulse the often disabling liberal label.

Recalling A Shattered Past

10/30/1998 | by Steve Lipman | Staff Writer

For Karl Richter, the most vivid memory of November 1938 is the Jewish hospital in Mannheim, Germany. Rabbi of the city’s synagogue, he walked there with his wife on the morning of Nov. 10, after a night of anti-Jewish riots. The beds were full. “There were lots of people. Some jumped out of windows — with broken arms and legs.”

Buffalo Unites Against Killing

10/30/1998 | by Steve Lipman | Staff Writer

The death notice in the Buffalo News for Dr. Barnett Slepian last week advised that his funeral service would be limited to immediate family and friends.
Nearly 1,000 mourners came to the service in a Jewish chapel in a Buffalo suburb.
“It was packed,” says Rabbi Robert Eisen, in whose synagogue Slepian, 52, an obstetrician-gynecologist who performed abortions, worshiped last Friday night. The doctor was fatally shot in his home shortly after returning with his wife from services.

The Politics Of Family

10/30/1998 | by Eric J. Greenberg | Staff Writer

Some kids growing up in south Brooklyn in the 1960s had heroes such as Mickey Mantle, John F. Kennedy or The Beatles. For Madison High School graduate Chuck Schumer, it was his grandfather Jacob, a Polish immigrant.
“My real hero is my grandfather,” Schumer said fondly during a recent interview.
It was a quiet, touching moment, free of the increasing nastiness of the campaign trail, in which Schumer, the veteran Democratic Brooklyn congressman, is locked in a contentious, too-close-to-call battle to unseat longtime Republican U.S. Sen. Alfonse D’Amato.

Who Got What At Wye?

10/23/1998 | Jonathan Mark | Associate Editor

The front page of The New York Times “Week In Review” section (Oct. 25) offered a sensitive appreciation of the Israeli team’s performance at Wye Plantation: “Yes, they were making it hard with their near walkouts and last-minute demands.