In a historic photo that serves as an icon of Orthodox settlers’ political clout, Menachem Felix is held aloft by supporters, his face staring at the camera in amazed joy next to an oversized Israeli flag. Thirty years after that picture was taken, Felix decided not to put a flag on his house in the…
Efraim Halevy is no dove. The bluntly speaking former Mossad chief, a key adviser to former prime minister Ariel Sharon who supported harsh retaliation against Palestinian terror, is a supporter of the Iraq War who issues dark warnings about the dramatic increase in Europe’s Muslim population. So, there were more than a few puzzled looks…
WASHINGTON — Among the tens of thousands of people who gathered in Washington Sunday to press for greater intervention in Darfur, there were a number of speakers known for garnering accolades, including Oscar-winner George Clooney, Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel and Olympic speed-skating gold medalist Joey Cheek. Then there was Ruth Messinger, a woman who is…
As American Jewish leaders were publicly calling on the Bush administration this week to do more to end the killing in Darfur, behind the scenes they were quietly pressing the Israeli government about its treatment of 160 imprisoned Sudanese refugees. Over the past year, dozens of Sudanese asylum-seekers have crossed into Israel illegally, particularly after…
The leader of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Paul Spiegel, died Sunday. Spiegel, who was 68, had been hospitalized in Dusseldorf with cancer. As head of the council for the past several years, he represented one of Europe’s largest Jewish populations, numbering more than 100,000 members.
LAS VEGAS — Imagine a place where synagogue services are held in funeral parlors, casinos stand in for Jewish community centers and the rabbis have to plan their services at old-age homes, around gambling field trips. Welcome to Las Vegas. Thanks to a booming casino economy and the popularity of the Southwest among retirees, Las…
GOP Chairman Booed The chairman of the Republican National Committee, Ken Mehlman, was booed at an American Jewish Committee event because of his comments on Iraq. Mehlman, who is Jewish, was greeted with hisses and boos when he said that Iraq posed less of a challenge now than it had under Saddam Hussein. The GOP…
The Passover Seder may be behind us, but reader Saul Newman is still thinking about it. That is, he’s thinking about the afikoman, the piece of matzo hidden away by the head of the family (and stolen for bargaining purposes, if they can find it, by the children at the table), whose shared consumption marks…
In recent years, the greatest unmet need of older adults has been affordable prescription medicine. On average, Americans have been paying double what people in Canada and the European Union pay for the exact same prescriptions. The extravagant price of medication in the United States has been due in no small part to bitter congressional…
Every culture has its proverbs, bits of folk wisdom helpful in times of sorrow or joy, fear or hope, frustration or epiphany. In 1997, Yiddishist Fred Kogos put together a collection of proverbs in a book titled “The Dictionary of Popular Yiddish Words, Phrases and Proverbs” (Carol Publishing Group). What follows are a few selections…
A coalition of American Jewish organizations launched a groundbreaking initiative this week to improve the socio-economic standing of Israeli Arabs, but participating groups were split on whether to speak out against the inclusion of an ultra-nationalist, reputedly anti-Arab party in Israel’s new government. Last Wednesday, a new task force made up of Israeli experts and…
