When we moved last year from the Washington, D.C., area to Anacortes, Wash. — a Thornton Wilder-era town in the far northwest corner of the state — I spent the first few months cataloging all that was missing from our new home. My parents were gone from our day-to-day lives; back east, in our cozy…
Los Angeles – Most major cities offer plenty of venues for rock music, but the newest ones are those you’d least expect: synagogues. In an era in which synagogue membership rolls have seen a sharp decline, congregations across the country are increasingly turning to live music, from electric guitars and conga beats to world music…
The institution of new visa rules is stoking anxiety and frustration among Jewish groups in Russia. The regulations severely limit the parameters of multiple-entry business visas — which cover the subsections of religious, humanitarian and cultural visas — by reducing them to 180 days total. In addition, the holder of the 180-day business visa may…
For many Israelis, the assassin who killed Benazir Bhutto removed another barrier shielding the Jewish state from the Islamic bomb. Israel’s media and leadership portrayed the sniper-suicide bombing attack that ended the onetime Pakistani prime minister’s life last week as a blow to hopes for a bridge to the Islamic world. They also suggested that…
By the age of 80, most people have retired. But 85-year-old Fyvush Finkel has no such plans. “I’m going to keep going until I expire,” the gregarious performer said with a laugh. “There was once an actress called Sarah Bernhardt, and she made 50 years of farewell appearances. I’ll make at least 20, and I’m…
The New York Post reports: Mike Huckabee is being backed by a bizarre upstate group that has been denounced as a cult, The Post has learned. Records show Huckabee raked in $20,000 from Sara Bronfman, the Seagram liquor heiress and high-profile devotee of the NXIVM group. Bronfman made the donation to Hope for America, a…
INTREPID SALUTES GOVERNOR SPITZER “We think the United States invented the idea [of a volunteer army,]” Greek American James Stavridis, a four-star admiral, told the guests at the November 14 Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum’s Salute to Freedom Dinner “aboard” the Hilton New York hotel. “It goes back to Athens, the first democracy in…
Washington – A push by right-wing American Jewish activists to change the constitution of the governing Palestinian party is gaining momentum in Congress, even as Israelis are dismissing the document as “irrelevant,” and the umbrella body of American Jewish organizations has voted against taking up the issue. Recent demands by the Zionist Organization of America…
About a decade ago, the head of the Jewish Agency for Israel refused to be photographed taking a check from Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founder and president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. This past week, the agency accepted a hefty donation from the evangelical-backed organization and offered Eckstein a seat on two of…
Dana Rishpy has vanished. The 24-year-old Israeli was last seen at a beach party in Tulum, Mexico, nine months ago. Dania, her mother, still hopes her child will return to the family’s home in Haifa. Dror, her father, thinks that the only place he will see his youngest daughter is in a video clip she…
When his son was born, Reverend Louis DeCaro Jr. was dismayed to learn that none of the doctors on call at Manhattan’s Allen Pavilion hospital had time to perform the circumcision. At a loss, the DeCaros turned for advice to their Manhattan pediatrician, Andrew Mutnick, who offered a simple solution: Hire a Jewish ritual circumciser,…
