National News

Goldman Sachs salesman and Maccabiah medalist Greg Smith, who created a scandal in financial circles with his unflattering behind-the-scenes look at life on Wall Street in a New York Times article a half-year ago, is in the news again.

Based on the article, Smith made received several fat offers for a book, “Why I Left Goldman Sachs: A Wall Street Story,” that was released on Monday by Grand Central Publishing.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) put his arm around the much older Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) and challenged him to a physical fight during a heated debate.

The two Jewish Democrats, pitted against each other in a suburban Los Angeles district because of redistricting, have fought a bitter and expensive race.

The debate Thursday at Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley grew heated when Sherman sought to push back against Berman's claims of leadership on a number of bills popular in the district.

At a time when denominational walls seem to be growing ever higher, the new religious guidebook from the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly is meant for all “contemporary Jews,” not necessarily just Conservative ones.

In the weeks after Sukkot, a staff meeting at the Shorefront Y in Brighton Beach will begin with a dozen employees of the Brooklyn facility looking at a few posters.

For Rachel and Joel Silverman — a two-career couple in Atlanta — Hebrew school used to be yet another item on the family’s already crowded to-do list.

Monday through Friday, the working parents needed after-school care for their daughters. Then on Sundays, when the adults were home and eager for unstructured family time, they had to shlep the kids to Hebrew school.

Is it suddenly not the economy, stupid, but foreign policy?

With only 34 days left before Election Day, and after a campaign dominated by a sputtering economy, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney launched a new line of attack this week, leveling a strong critique of President Barack Obama’s policy in the Middle East.

But will it move voters in the Jewish community, for whom domestic and social issues tend to be paramount?

JTA has identified eight congressional races of particular Jewish interest and four others featuring potentially viable Jewish contenders.

Top eight congressional races to watch:

U.S. Senate: Hawaii: Mazie Hirono (D) vs. Linda Lingle (R)

Adam Greenberg, a baseball player who was hit in the head by a pitch during his first major league at-bat for the Chicago Cubs in 2005, struck out in his second ever appearance in the major leagues.

In the aftermath of Aly Raisman's glittering triumph at this past summer's Summer Olympics in London, a different kind of Jewish sports hero is now making headlines.

Matt Bycer is like any other 33-year-old attorney who wakes up at the crack of dawn to exercise.

Except that rather than sweating to a P90X regimen, Bycer, in a T-shirt, shorts and cowboy hat, lugs 170 buckets of water across his backyard in Scottsdale, Ariz., to water his etrog farm.