Ben Harris
By Ben Harris
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Opinion That Time Shimon Peres Needed a Speech Written — and I Needed a Nap
(JTA) — It was 9 o’clock on a weekday evening and I was lounging around my Brooklyn apartment in pajamas when the call came summoning me to a Midtown Manhattan hotel. Shimon Peres needed a speechwriter; I was a speechwriter at the time for Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations. It was the fall of…
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Fast Forward Black Church Group Condemns Black Lives Matter Over Israel ‘Apartheid’ Stand
— An association of hundreds of predominantly African-American churches in Missouri condemned the recent platform of the Black Lives Matter movement labeling Israel an “apartheid state” and accusing it of genocide. In a statement published Sunday in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Bishop Lawrence Wooten, president of the St. Louis chapter of the Ecumenical Leadership Council…
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Fast Forward Nice Jewish Boy Anthony Ervin Is the Oldest Male Individual Swimming Champion
— Jewish swimmer Anthony Ervin became the oldest Olympic gold medalist in an individual swimming event, at 35 capping a comeback from burnout and drug use in the aftermath of his gold medal at 19. Ervin edged France’s Florent Manaudou by one one-hundredth of a second in the men’s 50-meter freestyle race Friday night in Rio….
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Fast Forward Israeli Police Escape Prosecution for Trashing Palestinian Girl’s Bicycle
— The Israeli Border Police officers filmed taking away a Palestinian girl’s bicycle will not face criminal prosecution. The conduct of the officers, who were filmed in July by the human rights group B’tselem tossing the bike in bushes, was “inappropriate and unprofessional,” the Justice Ministry’s Police Investigations Department said Monday, according to The Times of Israel….
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Fast Forward Reform and Conservative Men’s Clubs Agree on ‘Historic’ Cooperation
— The men’s clubs of the Reform and Conservative movements agreed on a “historic” collaboration. The agreement between the Men of Reform Judaism and the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs, announced last month on the blog of the Union for Reform Judaism, emphasizes that the agreement is not a merger. But the groups have agreed…
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News Where Donald Trump Stands on 6 Things Jews Care About
(JTA) — With Donald Trump sweeping to a resounding victory in seven Super Tuesday states Tuesday night, Republicans awoke this morning to the reality that the New York real estate magnate had solidified his status as the front-runner for the party nomination. And while his candidacy has deeply unsettled many in the GOP establishment, not…
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Fast Forward 7 Fast-Growing Independent Congregations Join Forces in New Group
(JTA) — In the summer of 2011, Lizzi Heydemann returned to her native Chicago to establish a Jewish community loosely modeled on Ikar, the Los Angeles congregation where she had spent two years as a rabbinic intern. She set about harvesting email addresses and putting out the word on social media. Heydemann called her community…
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Fast Forward Itzhak Perlman Wins 2016 Genesis Prize
(JTA) — Itzhak Perlman, the Israeli-born violin virtuoso, was named the third winner of the Genesis Prize. Perlman joins former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the actor Michael Douglas as recipients of the annual $1 million prize that has been dubbed the “Jewish Nobel.” “I was totally dumbfounded,” Perlman told JTA about learning he…
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