By Nicholas Weiss and Anthony Weiss
In Allan Appel’s recently published novel, “The Hebrew Tutor of Bel Air,” teen nebbish Norman Plummer is drawn into a battle of wills and values when he is hired to tutor the seductive and wealthy Bayla Adler for her bat mitzvah. To better understand the book’s unique subject matter, the Forward turned to an expert: Nick Weiss, brother of former Forward staff writer Anthony Weiss, is himself a Hebrew tutor in Los Angeles as well as a film director. Anthony recently sat down with Nick in a Beverly Hills delicatessen to discuss the life of a Hebrew tutor.
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By Anthony Weiss
On September 11, 2001, Harold Ramis was in a car making its way through the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn — the heart of the Satmar Hasidic community — watching as people covered in ash from the just-fallen Twin Towers came streaming over the bridges from Lower Manhattan. “We got to Williamsburg, and the Hasidim were walking around in their
shtreimels, and I thought, what an image of religion today: the insular fundamentalism of Judaism, and the violent fundamentalism of Islam,” Ramis said during a recent interview with the Forward.
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By Anthony Weiss
A new group of émigrés from Yemen’s tiny Jewish population arrived in Israel, but the fate of a controversial plan to evacuate a larger contingent to the United States remains up in the air.Read More
By Anthony Weiss
The flagship seminary of the Conservative movement continued its ongoing shake-up as its longtime lay leader stepped down and the school announced additional measures to balance its troubled finances.Read More
By Anthony Weiss
A tide of red ink is coursing through the hallways and balance sheets of Jewish charitable organizations, leaving slashed programs, reduced allocations and large staff layoffs in its wake. But in the current economic and financial meltdown, the suites of top executives have in many cases stood on high ground, beyond the reach of the crimson lapping below.
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