Gross Injustice

Binyamin Rose

For the last five years, Judith Gross has been demanding her husband’s release from prison in one of the world’s last Communist holdouts. Alan Gross was arrested while on a US-sponsored technology assignment in Cuba, but although his health and spirits are failing, Mrs. Gross has had little luck fighting the high-stakes game of political chess that’s keeping him behind bars. In an exclusive interview, she shares how even the White House won’t say why Alan can’t come home.

My Brother's Keeper

Avi Friedman

Around the world, Jewish communities are beginning to feel that the protection they enjoy from local police and civic authorities is no longer sufficient to keep their communities safe, and have taken measures to augment internal security arrangements. With each new round of Arab-Israeli violence in the Middle East, Diaspora Jews — braced for the fallout in their own neighborhoods — are defending themselves.

The triumph of Rav Mottel Katz

Rabbi Yaakov Feitman

While destruction rained down on Europe, Rav Mottel Katz and his brother-in-law Rav Elya Meir Bloch were driven to rebuild the Telshe Yeshivah on American soil — even as their families were decimated in the inferno. Rav Mottel, whose 50th yahrtzeit is this week, didn’t speak a word of English, yet managed to replant black-on-white yeshivah life in a red, white, and blue world.