The Daily Forward, better known as “The Forward,” puts together an annual list to “celebrate the 50” Jews who do “impactful work in arenas that might seem surprising.”
Attorney Michael Sussman made it to the list. Why? Between others he is shaking up Jewish lives “through lawsuits against two redoubts of ultra-Orthodoxy ensconced in the Catskills. The suits threaten, for better or worse, to upend what he sees as the Hasidic sects’ unholy fusing of religion and government.” The Forward also mentions a lawsuit against the Hassidic Village of New Square, being litigated by Sussman.
I personally think that someone like Chaskel Bennett who drove the force in the Jewish community to get behind Bob Turner in NY-9 (and thus flipped the seat), was more “impactful” to Jews in 2011 than Sussman will be in a period of three years. But after reviewing the overall Forward list, it does not appear that Strictly Orthodox or Hasidic Jews – who together make up more than ten percent of America’s 6 million-plus Jews – have much place in the minds of the Forward journalists who put together the list.
