The FBI closely monitored the militant Jewish Defense League and its fiery leader Rabbi Meir Kahane out of concern that the group’s protests and violent action could hurt fragile diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, according to government documents obtained by the Forward. The documents, many of them labeled “confidential” and partly redacted, reveal a…
Esther Greenspan has survived a motor disability that interfered with her ability to nurse, 10 broken bones in her first 10 years of life, asthma attacks, scoliosis that required surgical treatment and illnesses that her body has trouble shaking off because her immune system is weak. She’s now 19. In the winter of 2005, her…
JERUSALEM –– The Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and exiled leader of the Tibetan people, paid his fourth visit to Israel last week. The self-styled “simple Buddhist monk” sold out speaking engagements, sparked a small controversy within the Israeli government and, just as a Hamas-led parliament was about to be sworn in, met with…
SELMA KATZ c/o Larry and Sheryl Katz 17-82.5 Parsons Boulevard Flushing, NY 11432 Oprah Winfrey Harpo Productions One South Wacker Drive Chicago, Illinois 60606 Facsimile 312.987.5637 Dear Opie, As I meditate on my screensaver, which is, of course, you, I want to thank you for being my only friend, if not best friend. Honestly, my…
A Jewish Defense League activist filed a police complaint against Georgetown University after campus police ejected him February 18 from a Palestine Solidarity Movement conference. Campus security threw Bill Maniaci of Reno, Nev., and Matthew Finberg of Boulder, Colo., out of the event, which was aimed at promoting divestment from Israel. Maniaci said two campus…
I first met Coretta Scott King — who died January 30 at 78 — in 1995 at a Martin Luther King Jr. commemoration hosted by the World Jewish Congress. The event, which took place at the Seagram Building, celebrated the proclamation by Jewish communities in 80 countries that Jews worldwide will remember King’s legacy. In…
On a recent Sunday evening at the height of New York’s Fashion Week, the Cafe Deville was bustling. Backstage, beneath the downtown bistro’s dining room, designer Levi Okunov’s latest line of coats hung from a set of racks. A hairdresser and a makeup artist were busy doing up the models according to this year’s theme:…
Omri Sharon Sentenced The son of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was sentenced to nine months in prison for campaign-funding violations in his father’s 1999 race for Likud Party leadership. Last Tuesday, Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court sentenced Omri Sharon to another nine months of suspended imprisonment and fined him some $65,000. Because of the condition…
WASHINGTON — Two months after the head of the Anti-Defamation League called for a united Jewish front against evangelical attempts to “Christianize” America, the ADL found itself pitted against a raft of other communal organizations in a controversy over guidelines for religious speech in the U.S. Air Force. The Air Force released revised interim guidelines…
When San Francisco real estate developer Jim Joseph died in 2003, he received no obituary in any major newspaper. Born in Austria and brought to California as a child, he had built up a fortune and become a major giver to Jewish causes — his charitable trust gave away between $500,000 and $1.5 million per…
Fred Lerner of White River Junction, Vt., a little town that has now accounted for two straight columns (see last week’s “Now Shmear This”), has a complaint. He writes: “In the January 20 issue of the Forward, Raphael Mostel, in an article about the composer Osvaldo Golijov, wrote that, ‘One memory he has of his…
אין פֿאַרגלײַך מיט די פֿיזישע פּאַוויליאָנען געשאַפֿן פֿון אָפֿיציעלע לענדער איז דער ייִדישלאַנד־פּאַוויליאָן געבויט אויף אידעעס
