Jewish news briefs: October 1, 2015

jns logo short version

Four Jews among 24 MacArthur ‘genius’ grant winners
(JNS.org) Four Jews have been selected among this year’s 24 MacArthur fellows. The grants of $625,000 per fellow are colloquially referred to as the “genius” grants.

Author Ben Lerner, a writer and professor at the Department of English at the City University of New York, won the grant for “seamless shifts between fiction and nonfiction, prose and lyric verse, memoir and cultural criticism, conveying the way in which politics, art, and economics intertwine with everyday experience,” according to the MacArthur Foundation’s website.

Environmental health advocate Gary Cohen, who is the co-founder and president of Health Care Without Harm, won for bringing “attention to the fact that American hospitals had been major contributors to environmental pollution and had been largely ignoring the damage to local communities and environments caused by extensive use of harmful chemicals in medical devices, toxic cleaning agents, reliance on fossil fuels, and disposal of waste via incineration.”

Artist Nicole Eisenman won for her nearly four-decade-long career as a a painter, sculptor, and printmaker, while Princeton University professor and Jewish studies educator Marina Rustow won for using her expertise on the Cairo Geniza texts “to shed new light on Jewish life and on the broader society of the medieval Middle East.”

Altogether, the 24 “delightfully diverse MacArthur Fellows are shedding light and making progress on critical issues, pushing the boundaries of their fields, and improving our world in imaginative, unexpected ways,” MacArthur President Julia Stasch said in a statement.

*
Jewish American fashion mogul Ralph Lauren to step down as CEO
(JNS.org) Jewish American fashion mogul Ralph Lauren announced his plan to step down as chief executive officer of the renowned fashion brand. The head of Gap Inc.’s Old Navy brand will take over the position.

The 75-year-old Lauren, who founded Ralph Lauren Corp. in 1967, will continue to serve as executive chairman and to lead the fashion house’s design team, according to a statement by the company.

After the announcement, Ralph Lauren shares rose 3.79 percent while Gap shares fell 3 percent.

Lauren’s fashion empire includes 25 brands such as Polo, Club Monaco, Denim & Supply, and others.

Lauren’s replacement—global president of Gap’s Old Navy division, Stefan Larsson—will be a good fit as CEO because “he understands global supply chains and that’s one of the things that Ralph Lauren is trying to implement right now,” said Odeon Capital analyst Rick Snyder, according to Reuters.

*
Articles from JNS.org appear on San Diego Jewish World through the generosity of Dr. Bob and Mao Shillman.