As the roster of Republican presidential hopefuls grapples with the seeming implosion of one-time front-runner John McCain’s candidacy, Rudolph Giuliani is taking steps to claim his place as the field’s leading hawk. The former New York City mayor announced last week that he had assembled a team of foreign policy advisers featuring several prominent neoconservatives,…
Jerusalem – Journalists, like crewmembers on the Starship Enterprise, are not supposed to participate in the events they’re observing. Still, when you’re invited to an international gathering in Jerusalem with an imposing title like the Conference on the Future of the Jewish People, it’s hard to say no. Confused, I phoned a friend who edits…
Washington – President Bush trumpeted a new aid package for the Palestinians on Monday, but congressional sources and aid groups say that Bush’s proposal is actually just a shifting around of existing funds that will provide almost no new help on the ground. In a broad-ranging speech Monday about the Palestinian situation, Bush promised to…
A few months before his son was born, Thomas Wolfe of Wheeling, W.Va., consulted the rabbi of his Reform congregation to discuss plans for the baby’s circumcision. “I had the perception that a circumcision was just an innocuous procedure, with no risk,” he later told the Forward. After the rabbi had recommended that Wolfe find…
Washington – At this week’s gathering of pro-Israel Christian lobbyists, it took an unscripted moment for the most passionate sentiments to emerge. Instead of delivering an introduction to Israeli ambassador Sallai Meridor, Evangelical leader and former presidential candidate Gary Bauer delivered a passionate appeal against any Israeli territorial compromise to the Palestinians. “Tell the people…
Oakland, Calif. – Some lines, it seems, cannot be crossed. In 1999, Rabbi Yitzchok Feldman and his synagogue, Congregation Emek Beracha, approached the city of Palo Alto — an urbane community of tree-lined lanes that some of Silicon Valley’s and Stanford University’s finest minds call home — about creating an eruv, a delineated area in…
Two separate documents issued by the Vatican last week are raising concern among liberal Catholics, Protestants and Jews that Pope Benedict XVI is turning back the clock on four decades of ecumenism. On July 10, the Holy See reiterated a controversial statement from 2000 that the Protestant and Christian Orthodox denominations are not “true” Christianity….
Negative attitudes toward Jews in Europe have increased overall since 2005, according to a newly released survey by the Anti-Defamation League. The survey of six European countries — Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Holland, Switzerland and Britain — showed that fully half of its respondents believe that Jews are not loyal to their country, and more than…
The Council on American-Islamic Relations does not lack for critics — but usually they’re at a greater distance. This week, the Washington-based advocacy group, which has long been dogged by charges that it is an ally of Islamic extremists, invited American Conservative Union chairman David Keene to participate in a panel discussion on “Islamophobia” with…
Protest in Front of U.N. An estimated 4,000 people protested in front of the United Nations on Monday, calling for international action to free three Israeli soldiers who were captured last summer by Hamas and Hezbollah. The event marked the one-year anniversary of the abduction of soldiers Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. The…
Floundering presidential contender John McCain is scheduled to speak at a breakfast of the Republican Jewish Coalition in New York a week from Friday. Apparently, a $1,000 donation to the RJC buys a picture with the much-fallen front-runner… As one Republican operative has snarkily observed to me: “Why would he waste his time raising $$$…
