Even though Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is facing scrutiny from Democrats, union leaders and human rights advocates over his government’s record, a prominent Jewish organization was set to honor him this week. The American Jewish Committee was slated to present Uribe with a “Light Unto the Nations Award” on Thursday night at its annual meeting…
Jerusalem – After the war in Lebanon ended last August, Amnon Nachmias, a reserve paratroop colonel, left his farming village in the North and drove to Jerusalem to join hundreds of other reservists in a protest camp in front of the Supreme Court. Together they demanded that the government appoint a state inquiry into the…
Pastor John Hagee, the firebrand evangelical Christian minister from San Antonio, Texas, had thousands of pro-Israel activists standing, clapping and chanting at this year’s annual convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Hagee’s virtuoso performance at the conference in March underscored his emergence as a linchpin in the growing political alliance between Jewish and…
Al Tanf, Iraqi-Syrian Border – On a recent mild spring morning, Tawfiq Mohamed was nervously pacing back and forth in front of a drab office building that bears a large picture of Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad. The former Iraqi police clerk was waiting for his two sisters, who had embarked that morning on the seven-hour…
Washington – A prominent liberal think tank is launching a new e-mail newsletter following claims that the main daily digest put out by the Jewish community advances a right-wing agenda. The Center for American Progress is set to launch the Middle East Bulletin, which will be arriving in subscribers’ inboxes beginning next week. It aims…
Washington – One of America’s most storied Jewish organizations is making a policy U-turn as it re-embraces an aggressively liberal domestic agenda. Last Sunday, the American Jewish Congress elected a new president, who vowed to change course and refocus the group on domestic policy, including abortion rights, separation of church and state separation, and outreach…
In a move that could put Congress on a collision course with the federal bench and the White House, a Florida lawmaker is fighting to allow Holocaust survivors with unpaid insurance claims to have their day in court. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican from Miami with close ties to the Jewish community, is sponsoring a…
He was given four standing ovations and received universal praise from Conservative rabbis this week, but Arnold Eisen still has his work cut out for him as he prepares to help steer the Conservative movement out of the doldrums. On July 1, Eisen will assume the chancellorship of the Jewish Theological Seminary and with it…
A BRITISH LORD TOUTS ‘MULTIPLE IDENTITIES’ AT APPEAL OF CONSCIENCE DINNER “I want this to be an evening of hope,” declared Rabbi Arthur Schneier, senior rabbi of Park East Synagogue and president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, at the foundation’s March 27 awards dinner. Following “God Save the Queen” and “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the…
Diana Muir Appelbaum writes about the word am-ha’aretz, the “people of the land,” a biblical term commonly translated as “boor” or “ignoramus” when it occurs in Yiddish or in modern Hebrew: “How did the am-ha’aretz lose their stature? The group known by that name that emerges to put Josaiah on the throne in the Book…
Several sources who are in close contact with the White House have told the Forward that senior officials expressed concern over the political uncertainty in Israel. The main questions being posed by Washington, according to the sources, are what power the Israeli street will have in determining the fate of the Olmert government and what…
