MANHATTAN

RABBI SCHORSCH TO RETIRE FROM JTS POST NEXT YEAR

The chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, will retire from his administrative post at the end of June 2006 after two decades as leader of the Conservative movement’s spiritual and academic center.

“I am going back to my scholarship,” Rabbi Schorsch told The New York Sun yesterday, adding that he will remain on the JTS faculty as a history professor. Rabbi Schorsch, who was born in Hannover, Germany, in 1935, is an expert on Jewish reactions to German anti-Semitism at the turn of the 20th century.

While at the helm of the JTS, Rabbi Schorsch helped to steer the Conservative movement’s direction with his publication of a 1995 monograph outlining “the core values of Conservative Judaism.” He placed “the centrality of modern Israel” atop a list of seven fundamental tenets.

Under Rabbi Schorsch’s direction, JTS has opened a rabbinical school in Jerusalem and a Jewish Studies program in Moscow. Meanwhile, Rabbi Schorsch has expanded the seminary’s presence on the Upper West Side with the opening of the Solomon Schechter High School and the creation of a graduate school of education – established with an $18 million gift from manufacturing mogul William Davidson in 1996.

Rabbi Schorsch has frequently waded into current events both in America and abroad. In 1991 he shared a stage at Middlebury College in Vermont with the Dalai Lama, calling on the world’s religions to respond in unison to the environmental crisis. In 1994 President Clinton invited Rabbi Schorsch to join the official American delegation to the signing of the Israel-Jordan accords. But in 1998, Rabbi Schorsch called for Mr. Clinton to resign in response to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The rabbi also emerged as a vocal critic of Operation Iraqi Freedom at the outset of the war in March 2003. Rabbi Schorsch made headlines again this spring when he lambasted Conservative synagogues that cater to “entry-level” Jews, warning that worshippers with more extensive religious knowledge are leaving the movement to join Orthodox congregations. The rabbi told the Sun that it is “much too premature” to speculate on his potential successor as JTS chancellor. In a public statement yesterday, he expressed confidence in the future of the 120-year-old seminary, saying that it “has never been larger, stronger, or more focused.”

– Special to the Sun

RANGEL, ADL’S FOXMAN TRADE BARBS OVER IRAQ COMMENTS

The feud between Rep. Charles Rangel and the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, which flared last week after the Harlem Democrat drew a comparison between the war in Iraq and the Holocaust, reached new heights yesterday as the two men traded barbs in separate interviews with The New York Sun.

The spat erupted early last week when Mr. Rangel, in an interview with WWRL radio, said of the war in Iraq: “This is just as bad as 6 million Jews being killed. The whole world knew it and they were quiet about it, because it wasn’t their ox that was being gored.”

Mr. Foxman said that the congressman should apologize to Holocaust victims and to members of the armed services. But Mr. Rangel told the Sun yesterday that his remarks had been “distorted” by Mr. Foxman.

“I’m just saying that when atrocities are being committed, people should stand up and be counted,” Mr. Rangel said.

The congressman fired off a press release last week alleging that Mr. Foxman “has made a living attacking Black leaders on charges of anti-Semitism.”

And on ABC Radio last week, the congressman said that Mr. Foxman “doesn’t have the support of the ADL.”

In an interview with the Sun yesterday, Mr. Foxman asked: “If I don’t speak for the ADL, who does? Charlie Rangel?”

For more than a decade, the two men have engaged in verbal combat, usually followed by public apologies and peacemaking. But Mr. Foxman said yesterday that the present rift would be difficult to heal.

“Charlie Rangel has always been in the denial phase, always denying that there is a problem of anti-Semitism in the African-American community,” Mr. Foxman said.

– Special to the Sun

BROOKLYN

CONEY ISLAND HOSPITAL OPENS NEW TOWER PAVILION

Mayor Bloomberg and the acting president of the Health and Hospitals Corporation, Alan Aviles, announced the opening of a new tower pavilion at Coney Island Hospital yesterday.

The $80 million addition – the first major modernization of the hospital in more than half a century – holds 212 inpatient beds and is home to a 9,500-square-foot Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine Center with 32 examination rooms. The project also includes a new cardiac catheterization suite and outpatient diagnostic center. These facilities cost $3 million each, and were completed in 2003 and 2002, respectively.

– Special to the Sun

MEXICAN MAN BEATEN TO DEATH, ROBBED IN SUNSET PARK

After muttering an ethnic slur while drunk and stumbling down Fourth Avenue in Sunset Park, an unidentified Mexican man was allegedly beaten to death by three teenagers and robbed of money and his shoes early Tuesday morning, police said.

One of the alleged assailants, Jonathan Torres, 14, was charged with murder and entered a plea of not guilty yesterday afternoon in Brooklyn Criminal Court. Bail was set at $100,000. Two other alleged assailants, Luis Alvarato, 17, and another male, who has not been identified, have yet to be arraigned.

According to police, the fatal beating took place at about 2 a.m. Tuesday in front of 4719 Fourth Ave. in Sunset Park after a drunken man allegedly made an insult to Mr. Torres about Puerto Ricans. Mr. Torres left the man and came back with two friends, police said. The teenagers then began punching him repeatedly, which caused him to fall and hit his head on a curb, police said. The medical examiner’s office said the victim suffered bleeding in the brain and a laceration to his head. With the victim laying on the street, police said the 14-year-old noticed a $10 bill sticking out of his pocket. The boy then allegedly took the money and the man’s shoes, police said. Because of the stolen property, prosecutors charged the boy with murder instead of manslaughter. If convicted, he faces 25 years to life in prison. Mr. Torres’s lawyer, Lance Lazzaro, disputed the charges. He claimed that his client didn’t take part in the beating and expressed confidence that the murder charges against him would be dismissed.

– Special to the Sun

QUEENS

COUNCIL MEMBERS ASK FOR 7 TRAIN IMPROVEMENTS

With the West Side stadium deal quashed, City Council members are asking Mayor Bloomberg to redirect $2 billion he promised for the extension of the no. 7 subway line toward improving that line in Queens, where the mayor proposed a new Olympic stadium Sunday.

Council Members John Liu and David Yassky presented the mayor yesterday with a $2 billion wish list of subway projects not covered by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s capital plan. The list included $425 million for the rehabilitation of 12 stations throughout the city whose restoration was canceled when the MTA did not receive full funding for its capital plan by the state. Messrs. Liu and Yassky asked the mayor to appropriate $50 million to rehabilitate 18 stations along the 7 line, $50 million for the rehabilitation of the Long Island Rail Road stations at Willets Point and at Main Street in Flushing, and $900 million to pay for street and highway improvements to accommodate traffic for the Olympics and Mets home games. The mayor’s office could not be reached for comment.

– Special to the Sun