JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

And now for some local Jews

By Uriel Heilman · September 16, 2008

Two for Tuesday.

• Jews are moving back into Harlem, including – of course – Chabad, reports the New York Daily News.
• Also in the News, New York's only known black Chasidic rapper (how many of them are there outside the Big Apple?), Y-Love, talks about being, well, a black Jewish rapper.
• A teenager's suicide has rattled L.A.'s Persian Jewish community, polarizing the wealthy and insular community and challenging its commitment to Persian Jewish traditions and American justice, the L.A. Times reports.
• Also in the L.A. Times, novelist Philip Roth talks about his latest book, "Indignation."
• The spat between a Boston-area mosque and The David Project, a pro-Israel group, is fading as regular worship at the mosque gets under way, the Boston Globe finds.
• Also in the Globe, a Jewish U.S. Army chaplain reviews his 15 months of service in Iraq: "I wore a yarmulke everywhere, a strange sight in a place like Iraq. I ate strictly kosher food: lots of salad, cup o' soups, dried salami, dehydrated camping meals, and more tuna than most people eat in a lifetime. I fasted on all the fast days and celebrated every holiday in the Jewish calendar - a few of them twice."
• Newfound Sabbath observance compelled Jewish blogger Leah Koenig (jcarrot.org) and her boyfriend to go on a 5-mile Shabbat march to attend a Saturday wedding. She wrote an essay about her trek in The New York Times' Sunday Magazine.
• Also in the Times, a Queens synagogue finds a happy ending after its stolen Torah scrolls were recovered by police.