It was a perfect summer day at the Dachau concentration camp. The clear skies and pleasant breeze seemed almost offensive. And there, beneath the main monument, a bronze sculpture of writhing bodies intermeshed with barbed wire, was an uncommon sight: a group of Muslims leaders prostrate in prayer. At the end of the service, prayer…
They flocked to Washington during the summer months, driven by their desire to get a taste of politics and maybe gain some points in the networking game after they graduate college. Crowding the Metro during rush hour, they often irritated locals by standing on the left side of the escalator, which by local custom is…
Like many 21-year-old travelers, I had no plan. No money. And no real assurance that I was even going to be picked up from the airport on a late rainy evening in Central America’s most notoriously dangerous city. Because I also knew no one. All the same, I hopped on a plane to Guatemala City…
It’s rare for an American to set foot in Dimona. With an unemployment rate of 14.5%, almost double the national average, Dimona is one of Israel’s poorest cities. Tourist attractions are nonexistent, and if non-Israelis have heard of the city, it’s because of its nuclear reactor. But for 22 high-flying American university students, it’s this…
A 78-year-old Atlanta woman who has been living in the United States for nearly a decade is mulling a return to her native Kazakhstan — now that her access to a benefits program on which she and thousands of other indigent refugees rely is slated to expire. The woman, who asked to be identified by…
More than a week after the Anti-Defamation League publicly opposed the construction of an Islamic community center and mosque two blocks from the former site of the World Trade Center, erstwhile allies of the group continue to lob criticisms at the organization over the statement. On August 6, CNN host and Newsweek magazine columnist Fareed…
For the first time in about 30 years, Providence, R.I., public schools will remain open during the Jewish High Holy Days this fall, a decision that came as an unpleasant surprise to the local Jewish community. In a meeting with Jewish community leaders, school officials cited as their rationale for keeping schools open on Rosh…
This past Sunday, we went on a family outing to Oxnard, a seaside community about an hour away from our home. After a yummy fish-and-chips lunch, we rented an electric boat to take a ride out on the bay. My husband steered the boat and let both kids help. Our six-year-old son Jeremy was absolutely…
As a girl growing up in the 1980s, I was praised by my parents for fairly mundane things: loyalty to siblings and friends, occasional athleticism and a willingness to speak up to adults on behalf of causes I believed in. My father let me answer the phones on “Take Your Daughter to Work Day.” My…
A year ago they were living by the bank of China’s Yellow River. Now, the seven yarmulke-and-tzitzit-clad young men, sitting in central Jerusalem and chatting about their lives, are Israel’s keenest yeshiva students. It is the end of July, the day after the Fast of Av, when every yeshiva halts for summer break — but…
Amid the din of Diaspora and Israeli voices shouting to be heard in July during a heated intercontinental debate over a proposed Knesset bill on Jewish conversion, it was easy to miss the silence of one major stakeholder in the legislation: the non-Jewish immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union, on whose behalf the…
