Louise Nevelson designed a work of art and of worship. Now, as its congregation downsizes, it is seeking a museum home.

Louise Nevelson, the storied American sculptor, created “The White Flame of the Six Million,” a 50-foot-long, 11-foot-high bimah sculpture incorporating a Torah ark and serving as a Holocaust memorial, for Temple Beth-El in Great Neck, New York, where it has remained for more than 50 years. Now, due to demographic change in suburban Long Island, […]

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YIVO studied a living Yiddish culture. What happened when that world was nearly destroyed?

When YIVO was founded in Vilna in 1925, its mission was to study a living people. The Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut was meant to be a national university for Jews scattered across Eastern Europe and, increasingly, the world. Its scholars studied Yiddish language and literature, but also Jewish sociology, psychology, history and contemporary life. YIVO was […]

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Protesters in Toronto: ‘We will honor all our martyrs’ after 3 years of Gaza war

TORONTO – Hundreds of protesters marched through Toronto’s downtown core via Yonge Street Saturday afternoon, chanting more loudly as additional people joined the demonstration. “We will honor all our martyrs, all our children, sons and daughters!” and “In my lifetime I will see Palestinians living free!” the crowd yelled in unison.  Separated by metal barricades […]

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Europe sees fragmented pro-Palestinian protests three years after Oct. 7

Pro-Palestinian protests commemorating the third anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel were competing for attention with other domestic issues across Europe. Demonstrations of solidarity with Palestinians on Wednesday faced arrests or restrictions in Germany, Britain and the Netherlands. In France and Spain, they were overshadowed by mass protests over education and housing.  Turnout […]

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Chicago Jewish theater drops Naomi Ragen play, citing fears of repercussions for working with the Israeli writer

Naomi Ragen, the New York-born Israeli novelist and playwright known for her portrayals of Orthodox Jewish women in crisis, says the cancellation of a planned Chicago revival of one of her plays represents a “return to McCarthyism” in the American cultural scene. Ragen, 77, has revealed that plans by a Jewish arts company in Chicago […]

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In Britain, ‘Jewish Greens’ chief mulls quitting party after ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion passes

The head of the Jewish Greens said she may leave the Green Party of England and Wales after it adopted a policy that defines Zionism as racism and calls for a single democratic state “in all of historic Palestine.” Vivien Lichtenstein, a 29-year member of the Greens who worked on Israeli-Palestinian peace initiatives since the […]

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