Forward.com

The Mob From ZionA decade before Tony and Carmela Soprano started bickering in New Jersey, a high-level cocaine dealer called Ron Gonen and his wife, Honey, were at each other’s throats in a Long Island mock-Tudor with three bedrooms and a two-car garage.…Read more

A Hip-Hop Hitmaker, Straight Outta Shaker HeightsThe young guys who stop Jerry Heller in the street these days never ask if he can make them into pop icons like Elton John, or legends like Creedence Clearwater Revival. The young guys who stop Jerry Heller don’t even want to be latter-day Marvin Gayes.…Read more

Bush, War Veterans Dive Into San Diego Cross FightFor the past 17 years, a concrete Latin cross that crowns a picturesque hilltop in La Jolla, Calif., has been the object of a convoluted local legal battle between the city of San Diego and an atheist who contends that the 29-foot monument cannot stand on public land. But this month the legal tussle turned into a national fight, pitting the Jewish War Veterans against the federal government, and splitting Jewish Democrats in California.…Read more

Woman of Letters, Woman of the World‘Femme de lettres” — “woman of letters” — is how Sybille Bedford once listed her profession on a customs form, following a conceit suggested to her by Aldous Huxley years before she found success as a writer of travelogues, novels and court-trial journalism. But in truth, Bedford — a renowned novelist, journalist and biographer who…Read more

What Makes Ari RunAri Gold, the smarmy 10-percenter who pulls the strings of HBO’s Hollywood send-up “Entourage,” has it all: degrees from Harvard and Michigan Law, a former-actress wife, a $3 million house in one of the hillier enclaves of West Los Angeles, a full head of hair and a conveniently malleable sense of ethics. He is the very model of Jewish…Read more