Haifa — With the war in Gaza over, Israel is gearing up for an internal battle — the February 10 general election. All parties put overt campaigning on hold during Operation Cast Lead, effectively shortening the campaign to three weeks. But this did not mean that the political map was in freeze frame during the…
Washington — When Rep. Henry Waxman of California won control of the chairmanship of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in November, he did so with the promise to make promoting alternative energy sources and combating global warming congressional priorities. Now, with President Obama putting energy high on his agenda, Waxman is sure to…
The link between North America’s federated Jewish charities and the organization that built the State of Israel with their donations, the Jewish Agency for Israel, may be coming unglued. The Jewish Agency, founded in the 1920s as the operations arm of Theodor Herzl’s World Zionist Organization, today serves as Israel’s main immigration agency and as…
Los Angeles — In the midst of sweeping changes at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, the charity’s long-serving president, John Fishel, is resigning. Fishel, 60, announced January 26 that he would step down as president of this city’s central Jewish charity when his contract expires at the end of December. He has served as…
A federal judge has ruled that Sholom Rubashkin, former CEO of the embattled kosher meat giant Agriprocessors, should be released from jail on bail after Orthodox rabbis staged a campaign on his behalf. Judge Linda Reade of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa ordered Rubashkin’s release January 29, on the…
Compared with Anne Frank, her most obvious counterpart, Hannah Senesh is relatively unknown in America, but she is a hero of saintly proportions in Israel and in the Zionist youth movement. “Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh,” a recently released documentary film directed by Roberta Grossman, seeks to change this….
Every time I think about my son Max’s upcoming bar mitzvah, I temporarily freeze. My brain just locks up as I try to wrap it around the concept of putting together a fancy-shmancy shindig for hundreds and hundreds of people. It’s not that I don’t want Max to have a good time. It’s just the…
The most significant impending meeting between Jewish leaders and Pope Benedict XVI is being called off due to the Catholic Church’s recent decision to reconcile with four renegade ultra-conservative Catholics, including one who has a history of denying the Holocaust. Israel’s chief rabbinate sent a letter to the Vatican indefinitely postponing a March summit in…
SPOTLIGHT ON MADOFF (“THE MOMSER”) AT YIVO PANEL DISCUSSION When I mentioned to someone that I’d be attending the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research’s January 15 panel discussion, “Madoff: A Jewish Reckoning,” the snap retort was: “That momser! They should hang him like in the Wild West.” At the Center for Jewish History, no one…
As Barack Obama took the oath of office as the 44th president — and first black president — of the United States on January 20, there was, across the country, a scattered group of Jews whose perspective on the unprecedented event was deeply personal. The significance of disproportionate Jewish involvement in the civil rights movement…
Washington — Jewish communal activists are preparing to push a domestic agenda in the new Obama administration that seeks funding for health care and energy independence, support for toughened hate crimes legislation and stem-cell research, and some sort of compromise on government-funded faith-based initiatives. While veteran activists know that their goals might have to give…
