Amar’e Stoudemire’s official Twitter account name is @Amareisreal but it mind as well be AmareIsrael. From his Twitter feed we learn that the basketball star is now in Jerusalem, Israel searching for his Jewish heritage. The 2003 Rookie of the Year has apparently learned that he has Jewish roots (born in Lake Wales, Florida his…
I have it on good authority that Chelsea’s wedding this Saturday night at Astor Mansion in Rhinebeck, NY will be co-officiated by both a rabbi and a Methodist minister. But who’s officiating at their wedding should really matter a lot less than how they will be as a married couple. At the first meeting with…
I’m hesitant to write about Chelsea Clinton’s upcoming wedding to Marc Mezvinsky, who was raised in Conservative Judaism, because I want to respect the private lives of the bride and groom. However, when the bride is the daughter of the 40th President of the United States, I suppose she is classified as a celebrity and…
Within hours of the publication of yesterday’s 50 Most Influential Rabbis list by Newsweek Magazine, I began to hear complaints about this list. On Twitter and Facebook, as well as in the blogosphere and in person, people complained about the idea that a mainstream magazine like Newsweek (which is for sale if anyone’s interested) would…
When Leona Helmsley, the NYC hotel operator and real estate investor known as “The Queen of Mean,” died she was mostly talked about as a billionaire who donated a large portion of her fortune to her dog. However, her Charitable Trust (The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust) has recently announced grants totaling…
Cross-posted at Jewish Techs What do Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg, blogger Emily Gould, and the 10th-11th century scholar Rabbeinu Gershom have in common? They all articulated their views about privacy. Zuckerberg was criticized last month for Facebook’s new privacy settings. Over 500 million worldwide users of Facebook had more of their information made public because…
Here is the complete video of Rabbi David Nesenoff (RabbiLIVE.com) asking Helen Thomas her views on Israel. Watching it, one gets the idea that Helen Thomas has always held these opinions, but can no longer keep them to herself now that the almost 90-year-old has lost her filter and says whatever she’s thinking. Listen carefully…
In May 1996 I sat in the Breslin Center arena in East Lansing as I watched my then girlfriend (now wife) graduate from Michigan State University. A year prior I watched President Bill Clinton speak to the crowd at Spartan Stadium for MSU commencement. The speaker at this graduation was none other than Helen Thomas,…
As tensions between the United States and Israel seem to intensify, it looks unlikely that President Barack Obama will be able to broker a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. So, I was thinking of who might be the best negotiator to sit down with Bibi Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas. Jerry Seinfeld seems…
Corey Haim is not the first Jewish teen actor from the 1980s to die tragically and certainly not the first child actor to overdose. River Phoenix, whose maternal grandparents were Jewish emigrants from Hungary, died of a drug overdose on Halloween morning in 1993. Now, teen heartthrob Corey Haim has died of a drug overdose…