Los Angeles – When attorney Donald Etra was invited to join President Bush at Camp David for a spring weekend in 2005, the invitation put him in a quandary. It was already Friday afternoon, and Etra, an Orthodox Jew, feared that if he traveled by car from the White House as planned, he’d never make…
The economy is not doing so hot. Perhaps you’ve heard. Even Josie has noticed that bananas from street carts, which were five for a dollar only a year or so ago, are now three for a dollar. (And she let out a bray of shocked and horrified laughter when I showed her that the four…
Ruth Mastron had been in Israel only a few days last March when reports of the terrorist attack on Jerusalem’s Mercaz Harav yeshiva hit the news. The 53-year-old, who just minutes earlier was reveling in her very first trip to the Holy Land, was horrified. But she also realized that it’s because of tragedies like…
Every kid remembers a time when their parents urged them to “Eat your vegetables.” But what about “Eat your ice cream or you’re not leaving the table?” Vegetable ice cream. I know it’s a radical concept, but I proved recently to my dinner guests that this unexpected combination of fresh spring peas and sweet cream…
OLDER THAN THE STATE OF ISRAEL, TEL AVIV MUSEUM CELEBRATES CALDER GALA In 1930, Tel Aviv’s first mayor, Meir Dizengoff, gave his home over to the city to be transformed into the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, with the injunction: “Guard it, for it bears a blessing, for it is destined to become an honor…
Washington – Despite a concerted effort by the pro-Israel lobby in Washington to maintain a spirit of bipartisanship in this election year, this past week’s annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee turned into a charged campaign battleground between Republican John McCain and the newly nominated Democrat, Barack Obama. In front of some…
Haifa, Israel – As Ehud Olmert’s premiership appeared to be crumbling this week, all eyes in Israel were turning to his likely successor, squeaky-clean Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who is widely viewed as the ruling Kadima party’s much-needed antidote to the corruption-dogged leader. Signs that the end is near for Olmert are surfacing on every…
The fate of a Soviet-born American lawyer withering away in a Belorussian jail has taken a decidedly bizarre turn in recent weeks. The government of Belarus is pressing new charges against him. The American government, meanwhile, is calling for his immediate release. And to top it all off, in several countries a spate of legal…
The news of the massive immigration raid on the largest kosher slaughterhouse in the United States has triggered national headlines and outrage among a group of vocal Jewish activists, but the raid seems to be having little impact on consumers’ appetite for kosher meat. Based on conversations with kosher butchers, rabbinic authorities and consumers across…
With one year to go before Iran’s next presidential election, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is facing an open and increasingly pointed challenge from rivals within his own conservative camp. On June 1, Ahmadinejad’s archrival and likely 2009 opponent, Ali Larijani, was elected to the powerful post of speaker of parliament for one year. Within hours of Larijani’s…
If a newly proposed Hebrew-language charter school opens in Brooklyn, its longest shadow may be cast on a nearby school that is, in some respects, already the borough’s Little Engine That Could. Several years ago, the East Midwood Hebrew Day School — a kindergarten through eighth grade academy that is Brooklyn’s only Conservative day school…
