OAKLAND — A Fresno, Calif., high school teacher has been charged with a hate crime more than a year after she allegedly pushed a Jewish woman to the ground, pulled her hair, kicked her and told her, “You should have burned in the oven with the rest of the Jews.” Donna Jean Hubbard, 45, was…
Ted Junker first startled the residents of his rural Wisconsin town this month with his plans to open a memorial to Adolf Hitler on his property. As the controversy grew in advance of the site’s proposed opening, the 87-year-old retired farmer made an announcement with more far-reaching implications: Junker claimed to local media that he…
The Texas Republican Party issued its platform earlier this month, declaring America a “Christian nation” and describing the concept of separation of church and state as a “myth.” The 31-page platform, adopted by the party’s state convention, carries over language used in the Texas GOP platforms in 2002 and 2004. As in past years, state…
Even as Israeli President Moshe Katsav kept up his public feud with the leader of Reform Judaism, he hosted a top leader of the Conservative synagogue movement in America. During his recent trip to Israel, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, refused to meet with Katsav at his official residence. Yoffie…
Intense long-term lobbying efforts produced two major victories for Jewish organizations in recent weeks, with Israel securing admission to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and the Presbyterian Church voting to replace its 2004 divestment decision. In both cases, Jewish organizations played key public and behind-the-scenes roles in pressing for change. The Red…
During one particularly bruising round of negotiations over the future of The Jerusalem Post, Israeli businessman Eli Azur paid a 3 a.m. visit to the hotel room of Canadian newspaper magnate Leonard Asper. According to just-released court papers, that night in January 2005 Azur was hoping to rescue his joint bid for the Post with…
JERUSALEM — The 35th World Zionist Congress, a quadrennial event typically characterized more by political infighting over patronage jobs than by ideological debate, was marked by an unusual drama this week: Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of America’s Union for Reform Judaism, chose the congress as the venue for a protest against Israeli President Moshe Katsav’s…
MEXICO CITY — With less than two weeks to go in Mexico’s highly polarized, too-close-to-call presidential contest, a top Jewish adviser to leftist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador insists that the contender would focus his attention on domestic policy while steering clear of contentious foreign policy matters. When López Obrador “gets to the presidency, he’s…
I didn’t grow up eating kosher, but my wife did. Occasionally we’ll be watching television and a Pizza Hut ad will pop up, and she’ll say to me, “Do you ever miss bacon-pineapple pizza?” Truthfully, I don’t. There’s a story in the Talmud saying that for every forbidden food, God provided a permitted food that…
Two key national bodies of Conservative Judaism have created a task force to investigate and respond to complaints of substandard working conditions at the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse, first described in a Forward investigation. Separately, initial steps have been taken by national bodies of Orthodox Judaism to examine the validity of the allegations and explore…
‘Eat your dinner!” Joan Rivers exhorted the black-tie crowd at the May 23 National Osteoporosis Foundation’s Silhouette Ball, held at The Waldorf-Astoria. “The fatter you are, the less likely you are to have osteoporosis,” said NOF designated ambassador Rivers, who once joshed about her bones “clicking like dolphins.” Despite the comedic nature of Rivers’s remark,…
