Short Takes

Indie Minyan Movement Grapples with Day School Cost

04/24/2012 | Julie Wiener | Associate Editor

With recession-battered parents concerned about affordability, and with cheaper alternatives like summer camp and Hebrew charter schools in vogue among philanthropists, it makes sense that the so-called “value proposition” — making the case for why a day school education is worth the money — has become a buzz phrase in the Jewish day school world.

Morning At Churchill Downs, Thanks To Maximilian Hirsch

04/24/2012 | Eliza McGraw | Special To The Jewish Week

When the 138th running of the Kentucky Derby is broadcast May 5 on NBC, you can lay a pretty sure bet that there will be pre-race feature stories showing the Derby hopefuls working out in the pre-dawn mist, flecks of light peeking through the darkness.

You can thank Maximilian Justice Hirsch for that.

Hirsch bore an outsized Texas name and went on to an outsized career as a racehorse trainer.

An App That’ll Chant Your Haftarah Portion

04/17/2012 | Julie Wiener | Associate Editor

Two new mobile apps are poised to revolutionize bar/bat mitzvah preparation, and possibly the whole practice of learning to chant Torah.

This week, Rabbi Charlie Schwartz and Russel Neiss — Jewish educators, techies and friends — released PocketTorah, which enables users to read and hear every Torah and Haftarah portion from virtually any Android or Apple device.

The Counting Of The Omer, Beatboxing Included

04/17/2012 | George Robinson | Special To The Jewish Week

The playing of musical instruments during the Omer period is frowned upon.

The Museum of Jewish Heritage is looking to increase the number of younger people who cross its threshold.

Why not turn a restriction into an opportunity?

Letting His Hair Down For Tzedakah

04/10/2012 | Helen Chernikoff | Staff Writer

Gil Adler isn’t a rebel — he just looks like one, with that crazy mane. Appearances to the contrary, he’s a licensed accountant and he served on a reconnaissance unit in the Israeli Defense Forces.

And oh, yeah, he’s growing his hair to make wigs for child cancer patients, and in memory of a childhood friend who died of cancer.

The friend, Eitan Shapiro, died of non-Hodgkins lymphoma just two months after his graduation from Frisch, a yeshiva high school in Paramus, N.J., in 2002.

Medium Paper, Large Insult

04/10/2012 | Stewart Ain | Staff Writer

Is the comparison of an Israel defender to a Hitler apologist fair game, or an offensive characterization that pushes free expression too far?

Rutgers University believes one of its school newspapers crossed that line last week and has launched a bias investigation into what it calls an “offensive parody” of a student whose pro-Zionist views have made him the subject of ridicule and threats.