About Benjamin Weiner
Stop Blaming Hebrew School
My weekly unsolicited email from Shalom TV, "America’s Jewish Television Cable Network," informs me that Michael Steinhardt, philanthropist provocateur, in a recent "rare, personal interview," launched into a tirade against non-Orthodox American Jewish education. Hebrew school, argued the hedge-fund tycoon … Read More
Ada Yonath: Israel’s First Female Nobelist
Last week, Weizmann Institute scientist Ada Yonath was named a co-recipient of this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry, making her the first Israeli woman to win any version of the award (the prestige of which is actually rather astounding given … Read More
Surprise, It’s New Jewish Media
For several years, I’ve had a writing relationship with Pakn Treger, the magazine of the National Yiddish Book Center. This began a while back as a steady gig profiling celebrated Yiddish writers of the past, and offering my own brief … Read More
Jewish Organizations in the New Economy: The Boston Hebrew College (Part Two)
Read the first half of this post here. Atkins, a board member for the past six years, assumed the chairmanship last summer in a leadership shuffle that included Gordis’s early retirement, part of a move to bring more business acumen … Read More
Jewish Organizations in the New Economy: The Boston Hebrew College (Part One)
After 88 years of autonomy, money problems are forcing the Boston Hebrew College to consider a merger, a development that speaks volumes about changing patterns in American Jewish life. The Federation-sponsored College was founded in 1921 to train Hebrew teachers for a supplementary school … Read More