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Remembering the Top of the Pops
‘Tonight we celebrate the keyboard and the life of a man who didn’t just play it — he inhabited it,” said composer, conductor, pianist and emcee-tummler Marvin Hamlisch at the 23rd New York Pops Birthday Gala, 88 Keys for Skitch, held May 8 at Carnegie Hall. (Skitch Henderson, founder and musical director of the Pops,…
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Stepping Into American Life
Been to a Jewish wedding of late? If you, like me, have had the good fortune to attend one recently, surely you’ll agree that one of its most striking features is the range of sounds emanating from the bandstand, from the upbeat strains of klezmer and Israeli music to the rhythms of Motown, the twang…
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Democratic Fight Looms Over House Intel Post
A potentially volatile cocktail of personality clashes, power plays and mounting outrage at the White House could upend any campaign by the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee — one of the most influential Jewish members of Congress — to keep her post. Rep. Jane Harman, a Southern California Democrat known for her centrist…
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Couple’s Wedding Project Becomes a Side Business
Leaving Saul Zipkin and Aliza Dzik’s New York wedding in 2001, guests took with them the customary keepsake bentcher — the mini-prayer book containing the grace after meals. But while theirs featured the names of bride and groom on the cover, along with mealtime blessings and songs, this wasn’t an edition of any bentcher their…
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At Auschwitz, Ire at What Pope Didn’t Say
Pope Benedict XVI’s failure to issue a clear denunciation of antisemitism in his speech Sunday at the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex has unleashed a wave of discontent among the Vatican’s main Jewish interlocutors and in liberal Catholic circles. The speech initially was seen as an opportunity for Benedict to signal his determination to carry on his predecessor’s…
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Giving Children at Risk a Future
‘Three hundred thousand young people are seriously at risk in Israel and likely to become part of a criminal underclass unless something is done,” ELEM/America’s president, Ann Bialkin, cautioned at the organization’s May 10 ELEM — Youth in Distress in Israel benefit. “Each year, 23,000 juveniles are referred to the service and account for 45,000…
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As Rabbinate Stiffens Rules, Orthodox Rites Face Scrutiny
The young American Orthodox Jew, about to marry in Israel, was asked to appear before a state rabbinic court that checks whether applicants are indeed Jewish. The immigrant, it turned out, was the child of a woman converted to Judaism by three prominent Orthodox rabbis in a major American community. The court checked with the…
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DER YIDDISH-VINKL June 2, 2006
Joan Braman returns to the Vinkl with another translation of an English classic into Yiddish. This time, the poet is John Keats. On the Grasshopper and the Cricket The poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From…
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Risky Gambit by Abbas Raises American Hopes, Israeli Worries
If the investigation of American soldiers accused of killing more than a dozen civilians in cold blood in Haditha, Iraq, proves their guilt, the episode will turn out to be the ugliest documented case of the behavior of the American military since the Iraq war began. For many Americans, the historical comparison may be Vietnam’s…
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Liberal Professor Takes On Conservative Firebrand in Federal Lawsuit
OAKLAND, Calif. — An Israel critic’s lawsuit against a neoconservative provocateur seems poised to become a battle over free speech, though exactly whose speech is being curtailed depends on whom you ask. Joel Beinin, who is a Stanford University history professor and a former president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, filed…
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Rep Set To Resolve Aipac Spat
The feud between a member of the House Committee on International Relations, Betty McCollum, and the Jewish community’s main pro-Israel lobby appears to have been settled. McCollum, a Minnesota Democrat, and Howard Kohr, executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, met last week to address the issue. By the end of the meeting,…
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