Here’s Dennis Prager’s response – sent via email last night – to the news that former NYC Mayor Ed Koch wants him off the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council: Ed Koch calls me a “bigot.” Let him demonstrate how. There is surely ample opportunity. I have been a talk show host for 25 years and written…
Two Aipac board members are defending expected presidential contender John Edwards, in the wake of criticism over his selection of former Rep. David Bonior as his campaign manager. During his time in office, Bonior earned a reputation as one of the lawmakers least friendly to Israel. Now, Aipac board members Fern Hurst and Randall Kaplan…
Chrismukkah: Everything You Need To Know To Celebrate the Hybrid Holiday By Ron Gompertz Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 144 pages, $17.95 Ron Gompertz has found the solution to the December Dilemma: He punts. Gompertz is the self-appointed pied piper of Chrismukkah, a hybrid holiday popularized three years ago by the Fox television series “The O.C.”…
I ended last week’s column, which had to do with the pronunciation of the letter Gimmel in ancient Hebrew, with an explanation of how the dual nature of the beged-kefet consonants as both plosives and fricatives came into being, and of how the presence in them of a dagesh, a small dot, indicates that they…
The American Jewish Congress, once a leading voice of grass-roots liberal activism, has experienced a wave of drastic personnel cuts, downsizing of key domestic programs, regional office closings, and the departure of the organization’s president and half its board. Leaders of the 88-year-old organization portray the developments as part of a well-designed plan to create…
As Democrats prepare their agenda for the next Congress, party leaders are attempting a delicate balancing act, seeking to assure party faithful that they are not planning a shift to the right, while crafting a legislative program that has a chance of becoming law — and that does not alienate newly acquired moderate voters. In…
Just days before its publication, the much-anticipated report of the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton commission on Iraq came under attack Monday from the Democrats’ top foreign-policy voice, Senator Joseph Biden, in an address to a Jewish group in New York. Biden, incoming chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the Baker-Hamilton report, parts of which…
As official Washington waited with bated breath this week for the report of the Iraq Study Group, neoconservatives were sounding alarms that the document boded ill for Israel. That was because the leader of the ISG was none other than James Addison Baker III. By now, it’s an immutable law of American politics and foreign…
At its height, the Jewish community in Alexandria, Egypt totaled 80,000 individuals, men and women of diverse backgrounds and nationalities: In addition to Arab Jews, there were also Jews of British, French, Greek and Italian origin. In this fertile environment, the Eliyahu Ha-Nabi Synagogue on al-Nabi Street thrived, housing the headquarters for the Chief Rabbinate…
For the new Israeli ambassador to America, the Middle East peace process is about more than mere diplomacy. Sallai Meridor is the first Israeli ambassador to come from a West Bank settlement. Meridor is scheduled to present his credentials to President Bush at the White House on Friday. As Israel’s chief diplomat in Washington, he…
Tensions were running high in Beirut this week as a crowd of more than 100,000 Shi’ite protesters continued to camp out in the streets of the Lebanese capital, demanding a greater say in the country’s sectarian power-sharing system. The encampment is an outgrowth of a December 1 rally outside parliament that was organized by Hezbollah…
