The Forward 50: 2008 Jews of the Year

By Jeremy Gillick

The Forward has published its annual list of America’s 50 most important Jews: the Forward 50.

Winners include Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s newly appointed Chief of Staff, about whom you can read here.

There’s also Morris Allen, a Conservative Rabbi from Minnesota who helped re-invent kashrut as a moral rather than merely legal imperative, just as Agriprocessors, America’s largest kosher meat producer, sunk deeper and deeper into sin, exploitation and eventually, bankruptcy.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, founder of the new, liberal Jewish, Israel lobby group J-Street, is at the top of the list too. Although this choice is perhaps more a reflection of the Forward‘s editorial stance than of Ben-Ami’s success, the creation of a viable alternative to AIPAC is, at the very least, a major symbolic accomplishment. And it could become much more than that. Here’s what Moment columnist Eric Alterman had to say about J-Street back in July.

This Week’s Links

• Indiana Jones, err, archaeologists discovered a 2,600 year-old bulla bearing the name “Gedaliah ben Pashur” in the City of David. It may or may not be the key to a secret compartment with killer mummies.  [JUF]
• You’re my hero! Israeli firefighters, during what was obviously a very effective training exercise in France, saved a girl from drowning. [Ynet]
• Israeli had a shot at Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, but chose to nab Adolf Eichmann. [JPost]
• How did Jews feel about slavery in America? [MyJewishLearning]
• Some vandals in Pennsylvania were planning on lighting a swastika of flames in the driveway of Congregation Beth Am Israel in Penn Valley, PA. [Exponent]
• The Reform movement has accepted the Hekhsher Tzedek, an initiative Conservative Jews passed in response to the ongoing AgriProcessors saga. [Failed Messiah]
• “We were freaking out about whether we’d be able to return for school.” Hear how displaced Jewish students at Tulane made do after evacuation for Hurricane Gustav. [Hillel]
• “Please stop at the gate and say hello (peace) to the guard.” Israeli signs and bumper stickers can be quite, quite glib. [DovBear]
• Are comics really that Jewish? [MixedMultitudes]
• A “Peace Team” of Israelis and Palestinians will compete together at this year’s Australian Football League International Cup. [Ha’aretz]
  
• Most Americans believe in divine intervention. I didn’t write that. [CNN]

Photo by view from 5’2″.

—Benjamin Schuman-Stoler

This Week’s Links

• Lindsay Lohan is looking to convert to Judaism in order to get closer to her girlfriend. Says her father, “She’s explored the Church of Scientology, she tried Kabbalah, and now this. I think it’s just another phase. But either way, she’s involving God in her life, and I’m happy about that.” [E]
• Dr. Efraim Zuroff writes about Australia extraditing World War II war criminal Karoly (Charles) Zentai to Hungary as an “unprecedented, historic victory for Holocaust justice in Australia.” [JPost]
• Israel finally medaled at the Olympics—a bronze in sailing. [Xinhua]
• Photos of some of the “campus style” housing for Agriprocessors workers are unsettling. [Failed Messiah]
• Have you swam in the Mediterranean recently? How ’bout those jellyfish?! The “cockroaches of the open water” are getting more intrusive. [Just Engage]
• Was Kafka a pervert? [TheFilter]
• “Choosing a religious school program for your child is a true commitment, spiritually as well as financially.” A useful primer on picking a Hebrew school. [MyJewishLearning]
• Around 40 swastikas were found on bales of hay in Washington state this week. [JTA]
• Mazel Tov! Students and fellow Hillel-goers from Duke University are married. [Hillel]
• Hebrew University is the 65th best college in the world. [Ynet]
• Matisyahu expresses himself in music and poetry and…Kenneth Cole commercials? [The Telegraph]

Photo by dlisbona.

—Benjamin Schuman-Stoler

The Onion Mocks Agriprocessors

The Agriprocessors saga continues, with serious implications for Jews everywhere. No matter how sobering and grave the fallout continues to be, though, The Onion had no problem taking it up in the most recent edition of “American Voices“:

Is 57 the number of child labor violations it takes to make something kosher?

(Hat tip Mixed Multitudes.)

—Benjamin Schuman-Stoler