Tag Archives: Yale University

Jews of the Week: Sarah Hughes and Dylan Moscovitch

World-Class Figure Skaters

Sarah Hughes, with former president George W. Bush

Sarah Hughes (b. 1985) was born in New York to an Irish-Canadian father and a Jewish mother. She began ice skating when she was just three years old. By 1988 she won the US Junior Championships in figure skating, and the following year took silver at the World Junior Championships. After strong performances at a number of other events, Hughes qualified for the 2002 Winter Olympics, and graced the cover of TIME Magazine. Despite being just 16 years old, and the underdog, she won the gold medal at the Olympics in Salt Lake City. Away from the rink, Hughes is an active breast cancer awareness spokesperson, inspired by her mother, who is a breast cancer survivor. For over a decade, Hughes has also worked with Figure Skating in Harlem, a program providing free skating lessons to disadvantaged girls, as well as Skate for Hope, and the Women’s Sports Foundation. She graduated from Yale University in 2009.

Dylan David Moscovitch

Dylan David Moscovitch (b. 1984) is a Canadian figure skater with Romanian, Russian, and South African Jewish roots. He began skating at 13 months, and went on to compete in pairs figure skating competitions. He won gold and a couple of silvers at Canadian Championships, as well as a silver at the Four Continents Championships in Japan. Moscovitch competed at the Sochi Olympics earlier this year and won silver there, too. When not on the ice, he teaches the Israeli martial art Krav Maga.

Words of the Week

Where is God found? Wherever you let Him in.
– Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, the Kotzker Rebbe

Jew of the Week: Joe Lieberman

Joe Lieberman

Joseph Isadore Lieberman (b. 1942) was born in Connecticut, the grandson of Jewish immigrants from Poland and Austria-Hungary. He was the first in his family to graduate from college, and earned degrees in political science, economics, and law from Yale. After working at a successful law firm, Lieberman was elected to the Connecticut Senate and served as a state senator for 10 years. Following this, he served as Connecticut’s Attorney General. He then ran for the U.S. Senate and won a seat, serving for three full terms as a Democrat, and another term as an independent, for a total of 24 years of service on the U.S. Senate. Over those years, Lieberman chaired and was a member of a wide range of committees, including Homeland Security, Environment and Public Works, as well as Armed Services. Despite being a Democrat for so long, Lieberman has a reputation for being quite conservative. He supports a strike on Iran, and has criticized Obama for avoiding terms like “Islamic extremism”. He has always been fervently pro-Israel, and it has been said that “there is nobody who does more on behalf of Israel than Joe Lieberman”. This is most likely because Lieberman is actually a practicing Orthodox Jew. In 1967, after his grandmother’s death, Lieberman returned to his Jewish roots, and has kept kosher and Shabbat ever since. When Al Gore ran for president in 2000, Lieberman was selected as his running mate, making him the first Jew to run for vice-president of the U.S. Although Gore and Lieberman actually won the election in terms of popular vote, Bush and Cheney were awarded the presidency after a long legal battle. In 2008, Lieberman received an award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected Official. He has been called a “national treasure” and “one of the greatest Senators we’ve ever had…” Lieberman has also written 7 books, one of which is The Gift of Rest: Rediscovering the Beauty of the Sabbath.

UPDATE: Sadly, Joe Lieberman passed away on March 27, 2024.

Words of the Week

Whoever saves a single life, is as though he saved an entire world.
– Talmud, Sanhedrin 37a

Jew of the Week: Irwin Cotler

Irwin Cotler

Irwin Cotler (b. 1940) was born in Montreal and studied law at McGill University. After continuing his education at Yale, he returned to McGill as a law professor, and directed its Human Rights Program for over 25 years. As an expert on international and human rights law, Cotler served as a counsel for famous political prisoners like Nelson Mandela, Maher Arar, and Natan Sharansky. He has advised the Middle East peace process, and was involved in the Camp David Accords that brought peace between Israel and Egypt. In the 1980s, he served as President of the Canadian Jewish Congress, while also working to combat apartheid in South Africa. In 1999, he was elected as a Canadian Member of Parliament with a landslide victory that gave him 92% of the vote, described as “the most stunning electoral victory in this century.” Between 2003 and 2006, he served as Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, and has been lauded for his work in ensuring human rights and citizen privacy, particularly in the face of increasingly restrictive anti-terrorism legislation. He has worked against discrimination, anti-Semitism, and racism, appointing two women to the Supreme Court (making Canada’s the most gender-representative in the world), and appointing the first aboriginals and visible minorities to appellate courts. He issued the first national initiative against racism, worked to bring justice to victims of the Rwanda massacres, and even to indict former Iranian President Ahmadinejad for inciting genocide. Cotler reverted more wrongful convictions than any other minister in history. Having been re-elected as MP no less than 5 times, Cotler recently announced that he will not seek further re-election, and is ready to retire, though he intends to remain very active in social justice and peace activism. Awarded ten honourary degrees and the Order of Canada, Irwin Cotler is described as a key global player “in the struggle for justice, peace and human rights.”

Words of the Week

And God said: “. . . Abraham shall be a great people . . . Because I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him that they shall keep the way of God, to do righteousness and justice.”
– Genesis 18:17–19