Washington — The legislative centerpiece of pro-Israel advocacy, aimed at toughening sanctions against Iran, has been struggling to win congressional approval. The Iran Counter-Proliferation Act was first introduced by the late California Democrat Tom Lantos and is viewed as the main legislative attempt to ensure strict sanctions against Tehran. The bill was approved in the…
FILM STAR LENA OLIN HONORED AT AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN GALA “Did you ever meet Isaac Bashevis Singer?” I asked film star Lena Olin at The American-Scandinavian Foundation’s gala, held April 7 at the Pierre Hotel. Olin and her husband, filmmaker Lasse Hallström, were honored at the event. “No,” Olin said, “but I was told that he was…
Olivier Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time,” which premiered in Stalag VIIIA on the Polish-German border in sub-zero weather in January 1940, has become one of the most acclaimed and performed works of the 20th century. In May alone, there are two major performances scheduled in New York: one by Mitsuko Uchida & Friends…
NEWS ITEM: Hamodia, an English-language newspaper geared toward an ultra-Orthodox readership, refuses to print photos of women. The editors contend that doing so would violate Jewish laws governing modesty. “Thou shalt not show the female form!” For uptight Jews, this is the norm. “No pics of women are allowed,” Asserts this anti-Playboy crowd. To reproduce…
Washington – A Jerusalem foundation with a fundraising arm based in the suburban home of a Long Island businessman is being probed in Israel in a corruption investigation that is threatening to bring down Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Investigators are looking into allegations that The New Jerusalem Foundation and Morris (Moshe) Talansky, who heads its…
Plans to establish a downtown Manhattan outpost of the famously insular Brooklyn Syrian Jewish community are falling victim to an intra-community business deal gone bad — a mess that has sparked controversy within Brooklyn’s Sephardic community and embroiled a storied Ashkenazic congregation as well. According to lawsuits filed in New York State Supreme Court, the…
Haifa, Israel – More than 40,000 Israelis who were converted to Judaism in the past decade by the state’s official conversion courts may find their conversions annulled — rendering them non-Jewish in the eyes of the law — following a ruling last week by Israel’s Supreme Rabbinical Court. The ruling, responding to an appeal in…
Berlin – An otherwise quiet block in central Berlin has been rocked in recent months by paint bombs, broken windows and protests. The cause of the commotion is a clothing store, Tønsberg, that sells a brand linked to Germany’s far right. To those unversed in neo-Nazi symbology, the brand, Thor Steinar, looks like normal urban…
San Francisco – Go to almost any Jewish conference and you’ll likely find the ethnic makeup to be largely, and unsurprisingly, white. But at a recent plenum in San Francisco, a group championing ethnic diversity in Jewish life turned that situation on its head, as scores of black, Latino and Asian Jews from around the…
Last month, Israeli diamond magnate Lev Leviev announced plans to open two eponymous jewelry stores in Dubai, but steps taken by officials in the emirate seem to indicate that Leviev’s business is not welcome there. In mid-April, representatives of the Soviet-born billionaire, who has been active in funding building projects in the West Bank, announced…
Jewish organizations are fighting over a proposed boycott of the upcoming Beijing Olympics, due in part to a concern that the campaign could harm Israel’s relationship with China. In recent days, a half-dozen Jewish groups — including the Anti-Defamation League, the Orthodox Union and the American Jewish Committee — have spoken out against a letter,…
