Steven I. Weiss
By Steven I. Weiss
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News Florida Lawmaker in Flap Over ‘Holy Water’
Rep. Katherine Harris, the Republican best known for her controversial role in the Florida recount battle, is at the center of a new flap — over a report that she pressed the state to treat trees with Holy Water. Harris reportedly helped associates of the Kabbalah Centre to get officials in Florida’s agriculture department to…
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News Gay Jewish Groups Take Root on College Campuses
Alongside the Jewish groups waving their banners at the country’s many Gay Pride parades last month was a group of relative newcomers who —though technically on vacation this time of year — have become a major force in gay Jewish activism nationwide: college students. Nathan Weiner, a recent graduate of George Washington University, is the…
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Culture Plan To Revive Biblical Sanhedrin Receives Boost
A nascent effort to re-establish the ancient rabbinical body of the Sanhedrin received a significant boost Monday when world-renowned scholar Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz agreed to serve as the body’s president. The original Sanhedrin, the supreme legislative body in ancient Israel, comprised 71 leading scholars who issued rulings on a wide array of ritual and policy…
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News Dershowitz Fires Back at His Critics
An academic battle simmering for two years is coming to a boil with the release next month of a new book taking aim at Harvard University professor Alan Dershowitz and his support for Israel. In the new book, “Beyond Chutzpah,” DePaul University professor Norman Finkelstein attempts to discredit Dershowitz’s 2003 bestseller, “The Case for Israel.”…
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News Jew vs. Jew Struggle in N.Y. School Board Election
A bitter school board election in an affluent Long Island suburb has inflamed tensions between Orthodox Jews and members of the old-guard, liberal Jewish community in Lawrence, N.Y. Tuesday’s election pitted Shlomo Huttler, a lawyer and Orthodox rabbi, against Stanley Kopilow, vice president of a local Reform temple. Kopilow won the race, which featured battling…
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News Energy Bill Worries Some Observant Jews
A proposed congressional bill to extend daylight-saving time by months would make it nearly impossible for many religious Jews to hold daily prayer services before work. The measure, an amendment to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, caught Jewish communal leaders off guard. Under the amendment sponsored by Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Ed Markey and Michigan…
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News Rabbi Targeted After Call for Bris Change
A prominent Orthodox rabbi and medical ethicist says he is the target of a harassment campaign following his calls to abandon a circumcision-related ritual that may have resulted in an infant’s death. Rabbi Moshe Tendler, a bioethics expert and Talmud instructor at Yeshiva University, was criticized by ultra-Orthodox leaders and newspapers after he was quoted…
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News Tax Filing Triggers Buzz Over Executive’s Pay
The salary of Malcolm Hoenlein, arguably the most influential chief executive of any Jewish representative organization, was the subject of a flurry of discussion this week among communal insiders. But Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of President of Major American Jewish Organizations, insisted that the fuss was misplaced. Hoenlein earned $819,939 in…
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