Jerusalem – Organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest are protesting Israel’s decision to submit a song whose lyrics seem to touch on the raging international controversy over Iran’s nuclear program. “It’s absolutely clear that this kind of message is not appropriate for the competition,” said Kjell Ekholm, a Eurovision organizer, adding that contest officials would…
Berlin – A declaration criticizing Israeli territorial policies is roiling the German Jewish community and raising questions about the limits of open debate on matters in relation to the Middle East. At issue is a declaration published in January in one of the country’s most widely read Jewish newspapers, Die Jüdische Zeitung (The Jewish Newspaper)….
Ehud Olmert won’t talk. Reduced to its essence, that was State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss’s angry complaint to a Knesset panel Tuesday. The ex-judge was speaking at a hearing devoted to his investigation of how the government handled, or mishandled, the home front during last summer’s war in Lebanon. One reason that the confrontation between Olmert…
Washington – On the eve of its major policy conference, the pro-Israel lobby is backing new congressional legislation that would toughen sanctions against Iran and target foreign entities doing business with the Islamic Republic. Increasing economic pressure on Iran will be one of the main lobbying objectives for the 5,500 activists attending the annual American…
Moshe Bejski, a former Israeli Supreme Court justice and Holocaust survivor who was saved from the Nazis by Oskar Schindler, died Tuesday at the age of 86. Bejski was born in 1920 in the Polish town of Dzialoszyce, near Krakow. After the Nazis invaded Poland, Bejski’s family was deported to the Belzec concentration camp. He…
Less than a week after his former chief of staff was convicted on four counts of perjury, Vice President Dick Cheney is scheduled to address the most important annual conference of pro-Israel activists. This marks the second year in a row that the vice president will speak at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s benchmark…
Jewish Republicans are mounting a campaign to derail a resolution, proposed by leaders of the country’s largest synagogue movement, opposing President Bush’s troop surge in Iraq and calling for a timetable for an American withdrawal. The Reform movement’s 80-person executive committee has slated the resolution for consideration at its March 12 meeting. Last week, in…
A Detroit businessman and professional sports team owner has pledged $75 million to help build a new hospital tower in Jerusalem. The gift, from glass magnate Bill Davidson, is believed to be the second largest ever devoted to a Jewish cause. Last year, fertilizer executive Ronald Stanton pledged $100 million to Yeshiva University. Davidson’s donation…
When I was a boy, I was on Moses’ team, which stands to reason. Clearly, our teacher and the rabbi were on his side, too, and my classmates and I were not only distressed but also puzzled that the Jews should set up a golden calf and worship it, just at the time when Moses…
The New York City Council resolution calling on New Yorkers to stop using the word “nigger” has its comical side, as observers have noted, not only because people do not choose the words they use on the basis of city council resolutions, but because the use of “nigger” is most widespread in the United States…
Newt Gingrich: “[Y]ou cannot accept felonies and you cannot accept perjury in your highest officials].” So the man that many conservatives would like to see run for president actually thinks Lewis Libby got what he deserved? Actually, Gingrich was talking about Clinton. Now that he might run for president, Newt is trying to explain how…
