Tuesday, May 13th 2025   |

Jews in the News

5 delightfully Jewish things from Dr. Ruth’s New York Mag interview

By GABE FRIEDMAN

(JTA) —Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the 87-year-old sex therapist and TV host, has been in the news this week for a controversial statement on sexual consent. However, she’s also been on the interview circuit to promote her new memoir, “The Doctor is...

Citing the Talmud, Dr. Ruth questions sexual consent requirements. Is her reading correct?

By JULIE WIENER

NEW YORK (JTA) — Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the octogenarian therapist and TV host, is famous for her frank and open talk about sex. But she’s being called out for her recent comments about sexual consent — and...

Meet the L.A. attorney whose successful restitution effort inspired ‘Woman in Gold’

By TOM TUGEND

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — When attorney E. Randol (Randy) Schoenberg saw himself portrayed on the big screen by hunky Ryan Reynolds in the movie “Woman in Gold,” he immediately spotted a difference.

“Obviously, I’m not the sexiest...

Transgender teen comes out in emotional ceremony

By Drew Himmelstein

(j. weekly) — In the middle of the school day on March 13, the community at Tehiyah Day School in El Cerrito, Calif., gathered to give a boy his name.

The boy in question was a bit...

In France, new chief rabbi embraces change

PARIS (JTA) — The first thing Haim Korsia did after becoming chief rabbi of France was give his new office a thorough cleaning.

Next he redecorated to give the space a more modern look, placing his 30-inch model...

At 97, Holocaust survivor and mandolin player Emily Kessler gets her Lincoln Center debut

By RAFFI WINEBURG

For Emily Kessler, a Holocaust survivor, the prospect of performing at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall is less worrying than figuring out what to wear for the occasion.

“I came to the conclusion,” she said, in an...

A time to kvell: ‘Menschkins’ celebrates its first anniversary and beyond

By JACOB KAMARAS

(JNS.org) —  While this past Rosh Hashanah marked the 5775th birthday of the world on the Jewish calendar, one humor-infused Jewish family of seven (including the dog) marked a single year down and some serious catching up...

Margo Howard dishes on her four marriages, three of them Jewish

By JULIE WIENER

NEW YORK (JTA) — When your mother is the world’s most famous advice columnist, you wouldn’t think you’d have to learn any lesson the hard way. But Margo Howard — daughter of the late Ann Landers and...

Twenty years on, the real and radical legacy of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach

By MAAYAN JAFFE

(JNS.org) — He was part hippie, part yippie, part beatnik, and part New Age,”wrote Elli Wohlgelernter in a Jerusalem Post eulogy in 1994, following the Oct. 20 passing of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach.

Twenty years later, more robust...

After Harvard, Alan Dershowitz plans an active – and combative – retirement

By ANTHONY WEISS

CHILMARK, Mass. (JTA) — Alan Dershowitz’s house is a bit of a mess.

Most of the rooms in his Martha’s Vineyard home are cluttered with half-unpacked boxes filled with items from his Cambridge house, which he and...