Washington – Along the way to winning the presidential nomination of the Republican Party this week, Senator John McCain picked up the endorsement of James Baker, a former secretary of state with a long history of rocky ties with the American Jewish establishment. In the weeks since the February 28 endorsement, little protest has been…
After years of tension between more liberal and conservative elements of the American Orthodox Jewish establishment, several liberal Orthodox rabbis have banded together to create a new rabbinic organization that offers an alternative to traditional Orthodox authorities. Rabbis Marc Angel and Avi Weiss have convened an organization they are calling the Rabbinic Fellowship, a national…
Museum Faces Protests Outside a March 4 fundraising dinner for Manhattan’s Lower East Side Tenement Museum, women in babushkas and men in top hats gathered to protest what they see as an unfortunate irony: The museum, which teaches visitors about labor history, has stymied its employees’ efforts to form a union. In an attempt to…
Washington – The American Task Force on Palestine, a moderate group that has emerged in the past several years as the most prominent pro-Palestinian voice in Washington, is fighting off criticism from within the Palestinian American community that it has cozied up to the Bush administration at the expense of the Palestinian cause. The struggle…
Like many unresolved crimes, the tragedy of the Argentine citizens kidnapped by agents of the murderous military régime that ruled from 1976 to 1983 doesn’t seem to go away. Late last month, while continuing his examination of the trove of 4,700 documents known collectively as “The Argentina Declassification Project,” Carlos Osorio, director of the Southern…
“COUNTERFEITERS” — A REAL OSCAR WINNER By the time I attended the reception, hosted by Elie and Marion Wiesel, for the film “The Counterfeiters,” held at Sony Corporation’s headquarters two weeks before the movie won an Oscar for best foreign film, I had relished the film’s dialogue and unexpected twists at three prior screenings. Among…
A new study is challenging the notion that American Jews are growing less attached to Israel. According to a study released by three researchers at the Steinhardt Social Research Institute, a prominent demographic research center at Brandeis University, an analysis of survey data going back more than a decade suggests that American Jewish attachment to…
Adventures in sibling conflict, installment #3,121: Three months ago, at the Sacred Ritual Changing of the Toothbrushes, it was Josie’s turn to choose a brush. She chose the pink My Little Pony version with lavender bristles, leaving the purple one with blue bristles for Maxie, who wailed in thwarted fury. (If I could get the…
The candles were lit just before sundown, and the Sabbath meal was about to be served. Instead of challah, though, we started off with tapioca chips. And there was no sign of brisket anywhere. For we were in Kochi, India (formerly known as Cochin), and the setting for Friday dinner was at one of the…
Jewish leaders are divided over whether Republican presidential frontrunner John McCain should reject a recent endorsement from the Rev. John Hagee, with one prominent rabbi taking the leader of the Anti-Defamation League to task over his refusal to criticize the GOP candidate. Hagee, an evangelical Christian minister from San Antonio, Texas, has long courted controversy…
Los Angeles — In 2005, when a Jewish gay-marriage activist first pressed California rabbis to sign a statement supporting full marriage equality for gays and lesbians, only a handful of Conservative rabbis lent their names. Over the course of the past two months, however, more than a dozen Conservative rabbis here have signed on to…
