Short Takes

New Name, New Project, New Orleans

04/03/2012 | Helen Chernikoff | Staff Writer

Disaster relief experts know the story. In the wake of a catastrophe like 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, a stricken city or town will be deluged with money, aid and attention that recedes all too soon when public sympathy weakens or is drawn elsewhere. Of course, there are exceptions.

Like movie star Brad Pitt, whose Make It Right nonprofit is rebuilding the city’s devastated Ninth Ward, a New York-based Jewish organization also has made a commitment to the Crescent City’s recovery.

You Can Call Them ‘Occupy Zionism’

04/03/2012 | Doug Chandler | Special To The Jewish Week

The social protests that began in Tel Aviv last July and grew into a national movement embraced by hundreds of thousands of Israelis has focused on such issues as housing, education, health care and the shrinking middle class.

But Stav Shaffir, one of 12 young adults who launched the movement, told The Jewish Week last week that something else was on her mind, as well.

For Friends Seminary, Mideast Visit With An Arab Slant

03/27/2012 | Steve Lipman | Staff Writer

Does a school trip to Israel that offers its students extensive exposure to Palestinian Arabs and limited time with Jews constitute a valid educational experience?

Some parents of Jewish students at the Friends Seminary, a Quaker-affiliated K-12 institution in Manhattan, think not.

New Generation Revives Crown Heights Play

03/27/2012 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week

She pioneered a new form of theater by imitating dozens of New Yorkers who played roles in the anti-Jewish riots in Crown Heights. In “Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities,” Anna Deavere Smith brilliantly embodied both black and Jewish subjects, from the Rev. Al Sharpton to Lubavitch Rabbi Shea Hecht.

George Burns’ Jewish Story

03/20/2012 | Stewart Ain | Staff Writer

When he was 7, something happened that turned the late comedian George Burns away from Judaism.

“His father was sitting and reading a religious book and his mother was looking out the window at an organ grinder when his father called out to his wife and died,” said Burns’ biographer Lawrence Epstein. “He was not able to deal with his father’s death, and he found it very offensive that his mother had to hire men to complete the minyan at his house so his mother could say Kaddish during the shiva. It made Judaism unattractive in his eyes.”

A Promise To Remember Triangle Fire

03/20/2012 | Helen Chernikoff | Staff Writer

This year’s commemorations of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire will be modest compared to the events marking its centennial in 2011, which included prayer services, marches in period costume and specially commissioned performances. But one group has decided to remember the workplace disaster, a 20-minute blaze that killed 146 workers, not only this year, but into the foreseeable future.