Forward.com

Youth Group Prepares Outreach to Yeshiva OfficialsGay students often have a particularly difficult time in Orthodox schools. One young gay man to whom the Forward spoke — he asked to be identified simply as Chaim, since he is not out of the closet to most of his friends and family — recalled his experiences at a yeshiva in New York. The school’s rabbi, he said, used to pepper his lectures…Read more

Workshops Challenge the Deafening Silence Around Gay IssuesThree years ago, a study conducted by the LGBT Education Collaborative about how Jewish schools deal with sexual diversity — one of the first studies of its kind — found that many educational institutions maintain a “deafening” silence on the subject.That is beginning to change.Mosaic: The National Jewish Center for Sexual and Gender…Read more

Film Examines Court Jews Who Dominated BasketballIn Miami there are men whose memories burn with images of athletic glory long-relegated to private collections of black-and-white news reels — images of swooping majestic passes back and forth, baskets swishing with grace, running up and down a court of giants. These men possess the story of how Jewish Americans, most of them the children of…Read more

How the Democrats Lost the Youth VoteOn Election Day, I and my fellow “Gen Yers” were expected to carry John Kerry to the White House, but by late evening it was obvious we had failed to vote in numbers large enough to deliver the election for the senator. “The youth vote is bunk,” conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg declared gleefully. The thing is, it’s not…Read more

Seders on Rosh Hashanah? A Calcutta StoryIf you’ve never heard of a Rosh Hashanah Seder, you aren’t alone, but Rahel Musleah is trying to change that. The tradition, which Musleah summarizes in her new children’s book, “Apples and Pomegranates: A Rosh Hashanah Seder” (Kar-Ben), with illustrations by Judy Jarrett, comes from her native India, where it was long practiced by the…Read more