For the past 10 days, I’ve been sick. After two trips to urgent care, one to the ER, two visits with the regular doctor and even a brain scan, they think I have Viral Meningitis (but aren’t yet sure). Whatever the name of this illness, it’s not fun. With daily fevers and excruciating headaches, I’ve…
U.S. President Barack Obama told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he deeply regretted the loss of life in an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla on Monday and urged him to quickly get to the bottom of the incident. The White House’s cautious response, which contrasted with an outcry against Israel’s actions in Europe and…
Student government presidents at more than 60 predominantly Midwestern and Southern colleges have signed a statement inviting Israeli ambassador Michael Oren to their campuses — a response to recent protests against Oren’s presence at two coastal universities. The statement, which cites recent incidents at Brandeis University and the University of California, Irvine, was drafted by…
The other day, my daughter and I went to a children’s reading hour at a bookstore by our home in Washington, D.C. As I juggled stroller and door at the entrance, a woman pushing a stroller came up to us. “Hello, Orli!” she exclaimed. I was taken aback. Orli smiled. I’d never seen the woman…
A plan to build a Muslim community center and mosque near the site of the September 11 terrorist attacks in Lower Manhattan has drawn fierce opposition, despite the moderate reputation of the imam spearheading the effort. Community members voted to support the project, and Jewish leaders who have worked with Feisal Abdul Rauf speak highly…
It was during the intermission in Oberammergau’s controversial, once-in-a-decade Passion play that I met Jesus for a cup of coffee. A public relations man at the Münchner Volkstheater when he’s not onstage, Frederick Mayet, 30, has the long, dark-blond hair and bushy beard of a Nordic Jesus portrait hanging on the wall of a rectory…
At the annual conference of the Association for Israel Studies, which took place in Toronto in early May, one of the first sessions was titled “State-Minority Relations.” Two of the panelists presenting papers on the topic were Ilan Peleg, a professor of government and law at Lafayette College, and Dov Waxman, a young associate professor…
It is an essay that has lit up the blogosphere. And the reason is at least as much because of who wrote it as because of what he wrote. Yet the specific targets of his criticism remain silent. Peter Beinart’s “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment,” published in The New York Review of Books…
As the Obama administration’s charm offensive toward the Jewish community enters its second month, a clearer picture is emerging of the White House’s strategy for recouping lost ground with American Jews on Israel. First and foremost, the administration is touting its strengthening of military cooperation and security ties with Israel, even as public clashes recede,…
On a sunny Sunday afternoon early in May, 5-year-old Danielle Fabicanas looked on with excitement as an amazing transformation took place in Lewinsky Park, an expanse of concrete and grass known in this city as a hangout for drug pushers and addicts. At 5 p.m., as she waited expectantly with her mother, Jerusalem-based artist Hadas…
The country’s main Presbyterian denomination is set to consider officially endorsing a church report on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that Jewish groups are condemning in the strongest terms. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is expected to consider the report, recently issued by a church study group, at its biennial General Assembly in July. Jewish communal officials are…
