Marek Edelman, the last surviving commander of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, was the fighter who stayed behind. Unlike his fellow surviving uprising leaders, Edelman did not leave Poland after the war. A Bundist, he was not attracted to Palestine; a socialist, perhaps he was not quite ready to become a capitalist in the United…
Ruth Brin, a Jewish scholar and author of 13 books, died September 30 of a heart attack. She was 88. Famous for her Jewish poetry, prayer services, scholarly articles, children’s books and librettos, Brin’s work made an impact far beyond the city limits of her native Saint Paul, Minn. Her liturgy was found in the…
Reports on progress made in recent diplomatic talks with Iran have left some Jewish activists playing a kind of Greek chorus, expressing skepticism on the sidelines while not interrupting the ongoing drama. Many of these activists have been gearing up for a push toward tough sanctions against Tehran to curb its nuclear ambitions, and are…
Tensions between Israelis and Arabs simmered as Arab rioters clashed with Israeli police and Palestinian leaders accused Israel of trying to “Judaize” Jerusalem. The clashes began on September 27, the eve of Yom Kippur, when some 150 Arabs stoned a dozen or so Jews visiting the Temple Mount. Riots spread to several Arab neighborhoods in…
Craig Dershowitz started with a Kabbalah Ladder on his back, then followed with the word ZION on his right forearm. His entire torso remains a mural in progress. Marisa Kakoulas considers herself a Grecian urn, ready to be decorated. The suit she wears as an attorney conceals her black-ink tapestry, making her feel like a…
Imagine you’re at an oasis — a colorful island in the middle of a dry, hot desert with plenty of trees for shade. Could it get any better than this? Well, it does get better. You’re holding an ice-cold glass of the finest chocolate milk in Israel. The stories behind the popular milk and some…
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The 21-year old Marine is the only known Jewish guard at the camp that houses Al Qaeda terror suspects. While the camp’s name is widely synonymous with U.S. abuse of power in the war on terror, Atani is proud of her mission there, and believes it reflects her Jewish values. So how…
Aviva Kremer knew when she was just 8 years old that she wanted to be a rabbi. Now she is 27 and in her third year of rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary. It took Jonathan Kremer a bit longer to be sure that he wanted to become a rabbi. Today the 55-year-old former…
The Jews and Protestants are worse. That appears to be the Vatican’s newest defense of its ongoing child sex-abuse scandal. Responding to criticism, Catholic Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s representative to United Nations organizations in Geneva, read a statement on September 21 to the U.N. Human Rights Council, noting that reports of sex abuse were…
When I moved to Berlin last year, I settled into a Bohemian-chic neighborhood in what was formerly East Berlin. Despite Germany’s declining birth rate — the once decaying buildings here, where coal ovens and shared bathrooms have been replaced with stainless steel kitchens and cupboards filled with organic muesli — are packed with babies. It’s…
NEWS ITEM: David Letterman, host of CBS’s “Late Show,” shocked his national audience by announcing he had engaged in sex with some of his program’s female employees and that a CBS producer had tried to extort $2 million from him by threatening to reveal those indiscretions. Dave Letterman, who makes us laugh, Has close relations…
דער שוועדישער פֿאַרלעגער ניקאָלײַ אָלניאַנסקי האָט דערציילט ווי ער האָט אָנגעהויבן אַרויסגעבן קינדערביכלעך אויף ייִדיש.
