Religion
The mayor said that the public system that’s failing to educate Black and brown kids should be “duplicating” what the Jewish religious schools are achieving. But his administration is battling to keep evaluations of 26 such schools under wraps.
The lawsuit filed last week, which Whitehead calls ‘frivolous,’ is the latest legal challenge facing the longtime mentee and friend of Mayor Eric Adams.
Three neighborhood mosques received permits to play Adhan calls outside during Ramadan, with one more permit pending for the area’s oldest mosque.
That’s not quite a done deal yet, but it would be a welcome change for families whose kids were marked absent from school to celebrate this year and those whose kids missed some of the celebration to be in school.
The mayor has vowed many times to Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and Jain families that kids would get a day off from school to observe. So far, they’ve seen no light.
The Department of Education says that releasing documents detailing the findings of a probe into the standards at religious schools would derail an ongoing investigation.
Urban Dove, a charter school relocated to a building owned by a historic synagogue, has won over wary neighbors. But a fatal shooting of a student last year reignited persistent opposition.
The plea on behalf of Nachemya Weberman, who has only served nine years of a 50-year sentence, appears to be the only time District Attorney Eric Gonzalez intervened for someone convicted of a sex crime.
A slate of Mayor Eric Adams recent staff choices, two for faith-based jobs and one for the office of immigrant affairs, have problematic histories for the LGBTQ community.
Despite global spiritual leaders encouraging the jab, one Brooklyn rabbi said any colleague of his who rejects an exemption request “isn’t Jewish.”
Erick Salgado, a Brooklyn pastor who has spoken publicly against same-sex marriage, is going to be in charge of outreach for the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs.
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A Jewish school in Brooklyn recently told parents it will stop teaching secular studies to eighth graders, according to a new complaint filed by an education advocacy group.
Mayor-elect Eric Adams has vowed to give a public school day off for the festival of lights, and Rep. Carolyn Maloney is proposing a national holiday. But this year, Diwali falls on a parents-teacher conference day for hundreds of thousands of students.
The exposure of the NYPD’s sprawling surveillance program is seen as a turning point for many in the Muslim and South Asian communities — a moment that galvanized neighbors to organize and become more civically engaged.
Pastor Felix Gross last year thought he had been swindled out of his congregation’s property by developers just looking to make a buck. But they shook hands, buried the hatchet — and opened the new worship space for the flock.
As more religious communities succumb to financial woes worsened by the pandemic, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer offers an “Action Book” for congregants trying to avoid selling out their spiritual homes.
Hopes for broader immigration reform rise as restrictions on visits from Yemen, Iran, Syria and other nations dissolve by order of the new president. Families are now planning reunions.
The Hopper Home women’s shelter shares a wall with the historic Middle Collegiate Church on Second Avenue. After a Dec. 5 fire left 22 residents with almost nothing, church members made sure they got what they needed.
A developer promised space for Evangelical Church Disciples of Christ when it sold two lots for a city-backed affordable housing project. Five years later, the apartments are rented and the church operates elsewhere.
People have built altars across the New York City to remember lost loved ones. This year, the traditionally Mexican celebration takes on additional resonance.
The transit officials have begun acquiring over a dozen properties. But potentially displaced residents likely have been given a reprieve by the agency’s financial collapse.
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