When I moved to New York from Los Angeles in the winter of 2004, I decided that if I was going to call New York home, it was time to eat red meat, again. So I schlepped down to the Second Avenue Deli (of blessed memory) for the pastrami sandwich. I took a bite, and…
This week’s portion, Be-Shallah, contains some of the most powerful and familiar images from the Exodus story: the pillar of fire that illuminates the night as the people walk through the desert; the pillar of smoke that shields them during the day; the dazzling wall of water in the Sea of Reeds; Pharaoh’s army submerged…
According to this story, he started phoning Dems with his decision yesterday.
With his campaign just off the ground, Sen. Joe Biden spent yesterday explaining his first gaffe of the race: Barack Obama, he told Jason Horowitz of the New York Observer, is “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” Biden ran for for president in 1988, but withdrew…
After weeks of squabbling about who should take the lead on global warming, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair John Dingell made nice today at the Washington Auto Show. In January, Pelosi sparked push back from Dingell when she bypassed the Michigan lion to propose a select committee on global…
An overwhelming majority of religious and lay leaders in the Conservative synagogue movement support gay rabbinical ordination and same-sex marriage, according to the results of a newly released survey. In another development likely to boost the push for gay ordination, the movement’s flagship institution, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, announced that Rabbi Daniel Nevins…
Rep. Jerrold Nadler told our Daniel Treiman that the Bush administration’s “lies” regarding Iraq would make it difficult to build support for any tough action that is need to block Iran from developing nuclear weapons. “The fact that the administration lied about weapons of mass destruction in iraq means that if we get into a…
President Bush may think that he is the decider, but Senator Arlen Specter isn’t so sure. “I would suggest respectfully to the president that he is not the sole decider,” Specter said Tuesday during a congressional hearing on war powers. “The decider is a shared and joint responsibility.”
It’s 6 p.m. on a Saturday night and Larry Lighter is describing the gradual evolution of the menu at Moishe’s, the Montreal steakhouse that his father, Moishe Lighter, founded in 1938. Lighter calls my attention to the framed menus that hang above the overstuffed leather banquettes in the coat-check area. Back in the 1940s, Moishe’s…
Former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer testified today in the Valerie Plame leak case — and undercut I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s story (see report).
What do you if you care about the fate of a “chained” woman, but your religious beliefs dictate that she can’t remarry until her estranged husband voluntarily signs a “get,” or bill of divorce? For the ultra-Orthodox group Agudath Israel of America, the answer is simple: Lobby state lawmakers to require the recalcitrant Jewish husband…
