News Brief

Sorrow Turns To Rejoicing

05/06/2009 | by Steve Lipman | Staff Writer

‘From mourning to joy” is a slogan in Jewish life.
In Israel, it’s an annual ritual.

Every year in spring, the Jewish State marks Yom HaZikaron, its memorial day for fallen soldiers, then, as the sun sets that night, it gives way to Yom Ha’Atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day.

Two Thousand Remember The Six Million

05/01/2009 | Steve Lipman | Staff Writer

The numbers of Holocaust survivors decreases each year, but the numbers who remember the Holocaust victims each year remains constant in New York City.
Some 2,000 people — survivors, their descendants and members of the wider Jewish community — come together every year during the week of Yom HaShoah in the sanctuary of the Upper East Side’s Congregation Emanu-El for the Annual Gathering of Remembrance, the city’s oldest and largest Holocaust memorial ceremony.

Two Thousand Remember The Six Million

04/29/2009 | by Steve Lipman | Staff Writer

The numbers of Holocaust survivors decreases each year, but the numbers who remember the Holocaust victims each year remains constant in New York City.

Some 2,000 people — survivors, their descendants and members of the wider Jewish community — come together every year during the week of Yom HaShoah in the sanctuary of the Upper East Side’s Congregation Emanu-El for the Annual Gathering of Remembrance, the city’s oldest and largest Holocaust memorial ceremony.

Remembering A People’s Losses

04/24/2009 | Steve Lipman | Staff Writer

Time doesn’t stand still every year on the 27th day of Nissan, but part of Israel does.

On Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, at the annual time established by the Knesset in 1951 to memorialize the Jewish people’s collective losses at the hands of the Nazis, restaurants and entertainment venues are closed, Israeli television carries introspective programming and most Israelis stop whatever they are doing when air-raid sirens sound throughout the land.

Haredi Groups Oppose Abuse Bill

04/24/2009 | Hella Winston | Special to The Jewish Week

Two major haredi organizations came out Tuesday against a bill pending in the New York State legislature that would extend the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse and create a one-year window during which alleged victims could file civil claims, regardless of when the abuse took place.

Alta Kocker Humor, For All Ages

04/24/2009 | Sharon Udasin | Staff Writer

Posing in a black-banded khaki-colored fedora as kitschy klezmer Muzak introduces his routine, Neil Lawner gestures loudly with outstretched arms and tells a joke about newlywed Luigi, who rode a train to Florida with his new bride Virginia, and tragically, mistook the station stop “Norfolk” for a prohibition in his marriage consummation.