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Amid Growing Crisis, U.S. Asks Israel for Action To Boost Abbas
Facing a political crisis in the Palestinian Authority, the Obama administration has privately presented Israel with a list of measures it should take to bolster embattled leader Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas’s recent decision not to run again for the P.A. presidency was one of the main topics discussed in a November 9 meeting between President Barack…
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Perfect Storm: Wide Gaps, Weak Leaders, Elusive Peace
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s threat to withdraw from Palestinian Authority politics — an act that could have grave consequences should he make good on it — is only the tip of a large iceberg threatening to sink the very structure of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. For the first time since the Oslo process began 16 years ago,…
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The Life, Death and Judaica of a Russian Oligarch
Like everything else about his colorful life — which ended abruptly and violently in a hail of bullets on a Moscow street in early November — Shabtai von Kalmanovic’s large collection of Judaica has been both shrouded in mystery and subject to exaggeration. There is no quick and easy way to describe Kalmanovic’s bizarre existence….
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Tariq Ramadan Gets a Hero’s Welcome, and Cold Shoulders, at Religion Scholars Confab
Swiss-born Muslim scholar and public intellectual Tariq Ramadan has for decades been a lightning rod for controversy. He was barred from entry to America by the Patriot Act’s “ideological exclusion provision,” and then on account of his financial contributions to two Hamas charities. Even so, he took center stage at the American Academy of Religion’s…
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Shalom Y’all: New Rabbi Lights Up Southern Town
The only synagogue in Greenville, N.C., sits on the outskirts of this old tobacco town in a converted funeral home. Inside, on a recent Friday, people milled, kibitzed and greeted one another: “Good Shabbos.” “How y’all doing?” Nametags were distributed to make everyone feel comfortable. The bright strum of a guitar coaxed the guests —…
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Visa Issues Lead to a Shortage of Religious Staffers
A pathway used by many Jewish institutions to bring foreign religious and educational workers into the United States is tightening due to increased scrutiny from immigration authorities. The temporary work visas for the religious professionals program — which many Jewish institutions use to gain work permits for rabbis, ritual slaughterers and teachers — now requires…
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At Reform Biennial, Yoffie Pushes For Jewish Eating
When Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, delivers his Saturday-morning sermon at the group’s biennial conference, he sets the movement’s priorities for the coming two years. His message in Toronto this month was: Let’s eat like Jews. He was not asking Reform Jews to observe kosher laws. Rather, acknowledging America’s increased…
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British Jewry?s Self-Inflicted Wound
The opening of Britain?s brand-new Supreme Court last month was an occasion for celebration. But for some sections of Britain?s Jewish community, it was accompanied by trepidation. In a society with only partial separation between church and state, one of the first cases heard by the new court concerned the right of the Jewish community…
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What Cool, Suave Barack Could Learn From ?Give ?Em Hell? Harry
It has lately become fashionable to speak of Barack Obama with ? well, with regret. Such great hopes and expectations; so little so far. I write here not of the birthers and the tea partiers with their loathsome signs, not of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and the others who trade in playing to people?s…
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Who?s Afraid of Salam Fayyad?
Life, John Lennon wisely observed, is what happens to you while you?re busy making other plans. For the latest evidence of that truth, consider the current moment in Middle East diplomacy. Only yesterday, it seems, the chatter was all about freezing settlements and whether a Palestinian state still can or should be established alongside Israel….
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The Nudes of Dr. Moreau
The floor of photographer Daniel Gordon?s studio is covered in colored shreds of paper. Here and there, an arm and leg made from those very scraps protrude from the rubble. One leg is covered in a sheath of thick gray hair that also turns out to be made of paper. There is something grotesque about…
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