More in ‘New York City’

In the early morning hours of a winter day in 1877, the blackest sheep of my family arrived at a police station on Manhattan’s West 30th Street to file a complaint. My cousin, a belligerently drunk 29-year-old named Washington Nathan, had just been kicked out of a bar on Sixth Avenue. Washington wore an elegant ...

You’re darn right latkes deserve their own year-end list. This writer has partaken of four of the five selections, and can seriously recommend the Ukrainian East Village mainstay Veselka (their cheese blintz complements their latke nicely), as well as the Park Avenue Winter selection (a bit precious, but the size and density are appealing). Experience ...

This week, New York City’s Department of Transportation abruptly removed a 14-block stretch of bike lane that ran along Brooklyn’s Bedford Ave., a major thoroughfare that at this particular stretch goes through an ultra-Orthodox enclave. The lane had been hotly contested between the well-organized cyclist community and the Williamsburg neighborhood’s Satmar Hasidim, who complained about ...

“New York bagels versus Montreal bagels” is one of those Beatles-vs.-Stones-type questions for which the answer “either one” is simply unacceptable. The New York Times’s City Room blog delves in to the debate, exposing what makes these two delicacies so different, and trying to settle, once and for all, which is better. For the tragically ...

This week’s Jewish Week notes that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg received three-quarters of the city’s Jewish vote in his surprisingly narrow third-term victory last week, representing a huge increase in his Jewish tally since his first reelection, in 2005, which the paper pegs at 53 percent. This means that “extensive spending on campaign offices ...

• Admission to religious private schools in England has become so competitive that some families are resorting to synagogue attendance to get their kids in. [Financial Times]
• Israel took a break from its busy schedule of refuting charges of committing war crimes and withholding water from Palestinians to deny involvement in the blood diamond trade. ...

• New York City’s once-formidable Jewish vote “is declining in both significance and cohesiveness,” even as two-thirds are expected to vote for Mayor Michael Bloomberg. [Forward]
• Israeli officials believe Iranian nuclear negotiators are not interested in legitimacy, but in playing for time. [JPost]
• Though China previously voted to endorse the Goldstone Report at the U.N. ...

• New York City’s Hebrew-language charter school is off to a good start. It’s skirted controversy, poached kids from neighboring religious schools, and one black, non-Jewish parent says it offers more diversity than the local public school [Jewish Week]
• Nearby in Brooklyn, an ultra-Orthodox yeshiva is so low on funds it has sold space on ...

• Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons of KISS, “both sons of Jewish refugees who instilled them with vigorous work ethics,” have emerged, post-the group’s apparently premature farewell tour in 2000, with an album full of “odes to teamwork.” [Reuters]
• Later this month, Jewish women from around the world will “tackle” Israel’s Negev for a week ...

• A supermarket chain in Israel is committed to “maximizing the shopping experience”—not with low prices or expanded merchandise, but with in-store synagogues. [Ynet]
• Why aren’t Jewish Democrats grabbing the kind of city-wide political offices in New York that they once held? Shrinking demographic? Low turnout? Switching parties? Or maybe Jewish interests dovetail enough with ...