Warsaw, Poland – After one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Poland was vandalized last week, the chief rabbi of Poland found an unexpected source of help for the clean-up: 20 Polish art students and the mayor of the town himself, all of whom helped scrub the 100 gravestones spray-painted with black swastikas. The incident,…
Jerusalem – Israeli officials are giving the first signs that they are preparing for negotiations on a final-status peace agreement with the Palestinians. Both Israelis and Palestinians are readying for an international meeting set to discuss the Middle East conflict in November, but until now the Israelis have been wary of looking at this meeting…
Jenin, West Bank – Just outside this northern West Bank city, the groundwork is being laid for the first Israeli-Palestinian free-trade zone along the route of the security barrier separating Israel from the West Bank. The Israeli and Palestinian officials behind the project say that with enough foreign aid, the industrial zone could generate 10,000…
For years, Senator Dianne Feinstein has earned failing grades from the National Rifle Association and the American Conservative Union. But when the California Democrat unexpectedly helped her Republican colleagues approve a controversial judicial nominee last week, she gained a new, somewhat more unlikely, adversary: liberal advocate Sammie Moshenberg. “I don’t know what she was thinking,”…
Cairo, Egypt – Masturbation, oral sex and foreplay are strictly taboo discussion topics in conservative Egyptian society. Yet with impressive comfort, Heba Kotb, dubbed Egypt’s “Dr. Ruth,” covers these issues in depth on her weekly satellite television program, “The Big Talk.” Kotb’s level of comfort sharply declines, however, when asked about her education: Kotb, 39,…
Washington – The Bush administration’s most recent effort to prosecute alleged funders of terrorism is raising charges of Islamophobia and causing ethnic tensions in Texas, where the case is being tried. The case against the Holy Land Foundation is currently being heard at the United States district court in Dallas. Federal prosecutors allege that the…
Raul Hilberg, the pioneering scholar in the academic study of the Holocaust, died of lung cancer August 4 in Burlington, Vermont. He was 81. Hilberg is best known and most deeply revered for his monumental work “The Destruction of the European Jews,” which appeared in 1961 and was widely considered the founding text of Holocaust…
Protesters Win The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is promising to include information about a Jewish effort to rescue European Jews during the Holocaust in its permanent exhibition, following two petitions signed by more than 270 Holocaust scholars, Jewish leaders and descendants of Holocaust rescue activists. The David S. Wyman Institute started collecting signatures for…
With his personal wealth estimated at close to $3 billion, it may be safe to assume that cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder is unaccustomed to hearing the word “no.” But when Lauder, the newly elected president of the World Jewish Congress, tapped a highly respected Jewish professional to help him right what is by most accounts…
A soon to be released book details previously unknown backroom contacts between Iran and Israel in 2003, when Tehran was pushing the Bush administration into entering comprehensive diplomatic negotiations. In “Treacherous Alliance,” Trita Parsi, an adjunct professor at John Hopkins University and president of the National Iranian American Council, contends that shortly after Iran proposed…
In my last column, I railed against the blight that is “Higglytown Heroes.” Today I come not to bury another television show, but to praise it: “The Backyardigans” rules. Created by Janice Burgess for Nick Jr. in 2004, the show is about a group of suburban friends with adjoining backyards. Pablo (a penguin), Tyrone (a…
