Forward reader Harold H. Rotman writes to ask: “My mother, of blessed memory, used to use an expression that describes an absurd, impossible, preposterous circumstance, as, for example, that a prayer was too long, or that a great hockey game was going into a third overtime, or that Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony took forever. The expression…
CORRECTION: The print version of this story gave an incorrect figure regarding the Kach Party. Rabbi Meir Kahane was its only member to be elected to the Knesset. Effi Eitam, a leader of the joint Knesset faction aligned with Orthodox Zionists worldwide, drew swift condemnation this week from secular American Jewish organizations because of his…
The American and Israeli governments will face growing international pressure to engage with a Palestinian unity government — even one dominated by the terrorist organization Hamas, foreign diplomats in Washington said this week. The new government has yet to be formed, but Palestinian officials this week were publicly saying that Hamas, the ruling Islamic fundamentalist…
JERUSALEM — Israel is planning to halve the rate of Ethiopian immigration to pay for the recent Lebanon war, in a move that critics say would violate the government’s pledge to American Jewish charities to double the rate of new arrivals. The government, in a draft of the 2007 state budget that was approved by…
Even as the incoming liberal chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary appears to be solidifying his control over Conservative Judaism’s flagship institution, the movement’s congregational union is being accused of sidelining vocal supporters of gay rights. For Arnold Eisen, chancellor elect of JTS, the school year began last week with two standing ovations and the…
“Touch your neighbor’s hand and say ‘destiny,’” Matthew Crouch implored the crowd, a microphone pressed to his lips. “We’re all Christians here,” he proclaimed, with the rousing cadence of a megachurch preacher. On a recent Friday afternoon some 200 churchgoers, seated in a movie theatre at the AMC Empire 25 multiplex in Times Square, did…
Overcoming concerns about his past association with the Nation of Islam, Democratic front-runner Keith Ellison prevailed Tuesday in a crowded Minneapolis primary to put himself in a strong position to become the first Muslim member of Congress. Speaking via telephone the morning after his victory, the newly minted Democratic nominee in Minnesota’s fifth district told…
It increasingly looks like State Sen. Steve Cohen, who last month captured the Democratic nomination for Tennessee’s ninth district, will be facing a serious independent challenge from the scion of the Ford political dynasty. Cohen, who beat out a deep field of African-American candidates in the primary, now faces Jake Ford, son of Harold Ford…
The Democratic quest to take back the House of Representatives this November will rest, in part, on Steve Kagen, the victor in a crowded Democratic primary in Wisconsin’s eighth congressional district. Kagen, 56, a Jewish doctor from the city of Appletown, handily won Tuesday’s three-way contest, garnering 47% of the vote with 87% of precincts…
WASHINGTON — A Muslim activist in Los Angeles is fighting efforts by Jewish organizations to block him from receiving a prestigious human rights award. The Human Relations Commission of Los Angeles County is planning, on October 5, to grant the John Allen Buggs Award for outstanding human relations work to Dr. Maher Hathout, a champion…
During his trip to the Middle East, British Prime Minister Tony Blair provided an encouraging shove for a Hamas-Fatah unity coalition by calling for Western economic sanctions against the Palestinians to be lifted if the new government recognizes Israel and honors past agreements with Jerusalem. So is Blair, who announced last week that he would…
