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Former New York Mayor Ed Koch, who died on Friday, was remembered by his current successor, Michael Bloomberg, as a legendary figure akin to Moses, who “restored the arc of the city’s history."

Noting that this week's Torah portion depicts Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt, Bloomberg said " Ed, in his own way, was our Moses ... He led us out of darkness and he gave us hope. And while he may not have parted the Red Sea, he did break a subway strike by standing on a bridge and shouting words of encouragement.”

The planned March 10 contested election pitting incumbent Orthodox Union president Simcha Katz against former president Harvey Blitz is not to be. (See “OU Internal Struggles Leading To Showdown,” Jan. 18)

As President Barack Obama seeks support for his sweeping gun control reforms, and states enact their own legislation -- including the nation's toughest in New York -- a faith-based coalition is promoting a national  Gun Violence Prevention Sabbath.

In a somewhat bizarre turn of events, 1980s action-film and TV icon Chuck Norris has issued an endorsement of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Israel does not directly elect its prime minister, but a nominee, generally from the majority party,  is named by the president and submitted for approval from the Knesset. Netanyahu is head of the current majority party Likud.

Norris has become something of a popular culture icon in recent years and recently returned to the big screen last year's "The Expendables 2."

Rabbi David Ellenson, the president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion for more than a decade, will step down from his position as head of the institution that includes the Reform movement’s rabbinical, cantorial and other schools in 2014.

The Jewish population in the Washington Heights/Inwood communities on the northern tip of Manhattan has soared by 144 percent since 2002, while Suffolk County, with a 4 percent decrease in Jews during that time, is the only suburban county to experience a Jewish population loss.

The Jewish population in the Washington Heights/Inwood communities on the northern tip of Manhattan has soared by 144 percent since 2002, while Suffolk County, with a 4 percent decrease in Jews during that time, is the only suburban county to experience a Jewish population loss.

It was a “modest” sum of money, said Germany’s consul general in New York, but he, staff members and friends attending a concert at his residence last month wanted to do something to help after realizing the hardship Superstorm Sandy had caused Holocaust survivors living in its path.

“We decided to ask participants for donations,” Consul General Busso von Alvensleben said in an e-mail interview. “We all contributed. With this modest token of solidarity we wish to express our sympathies with those affected by Sandy.”

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