The indictment against former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has riveted Israelis with its allegations that the ex-prime minister took envelopes of cash from supporters for his personal use. But another aspect of the August 30 indictment, one directly relevant to American Jews, has been all but lost amid the fallout: The Israeli leader, prosecutors…
When Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s new president, appeared before the country’s premier Jewish umbrella group in late August, the audience before him was concerned about the tack his government might be taking not just toward Israel, but also toward South African Jews who support it. Just two weeks before the August 29 meeting, the Palestinian…
Many of the young people who pass through the Jewish Enrichment Center in Lower Manhattan view it with great affection. It is often the first time they have come in contact with a Judaism that is engaging and accessible. The rabbis responsible for the center’s educational and religious programs are charismatic and approachable people who,…
An Israeli academic’s call for an international boycott of Israel has set off threats of donations being withheld from his university and sparked a fierce debate over academic freedom. In an August 20 Los Angeles Times opinion article, Neve Gordon, chairman of the politics and government department at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, called Israel…
Many a riot has erupted on the first Friday of Ramadan, and as usual, Jerusalem’s Old City was on a knife-edge this year. But there, weaving through a crowd of police officers, was a familiar, furry blue Muppet with a pink nose and his young tour guide. To say that Grover looked incongruous would be…
When Rep. Barney Frank was asked by a woman at a health care town hall meeting, “Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy?” the Massachusetts Democrat had a ready reply. “On what planet do you spend most of your time?” he shot back at the questioner, who was toting one of the now-infamous…
Cross-posted from Examiner.com What’s with tomatoes and watermelon this year? I have seen them side by side at local farmers markets, of course, having both come into season recently. But in an odd development, I started to see them together in recipes, too. At first, I noticed the usual myriad recipes for watermelon-feta salad sometimes…
Lately, my weekends invariably include a round or two of Tetris: Kitchen Edition. The object of this game is to fit all the new pots, pans, casserole dishes and kitchen appliances — big ones, the kind that come with scary-looking attachments and instructional DVDs — into my cupboard- and countertop-deprived Manhattan kitchen. While I’ve spent…
Artists are the new rabbis. Since at least the destruction of the Second Temple exile, adaptation and cultural syncretism have been the hallmarks of Jewish practice. History dictates that rituals, customs and habits are lost, forgotten and changed over time or are remembered only in absences. What remains is a scant trace of the diversity…
William Korey spent more than 30 years of his life deeply involved with the struggle to allow free emigration for Soviet Jews. But when I interviewed him in his Queens apartment a few years ago, he did not hide the fact that he never liked to work on individual cases. “There would be no end…
POKER MAVEN HENRY ORENSTEIN, A HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR WHO CONTINUES TO BEAT THE ODDS, HONORED BY METROPOLITAN COUNCIL ON POVERTY “It was my dream as a little boy to come to America,” said Henry Orenstein, who, with his wife, Susan, was honored at the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty’s Annual Builder’s Luncheon, held August 4 at…
