An estimated 300,000 people marched through the streets of Jerusalem on Sunday — not to protest the Palestinian elections or to celebrate the Betar Jerusalem soccer team, but to join in the funeral procession for a famed Kabbalist, Rabbi Yitzhak Kadouri. Kadouri died last week, somewhere between the ages of 104 and 114 (no one…
WASHINGTON — As both political parties in Congress offer plans for lobbying reform, the American Jewish establishment finds itself in an increasingly precarious position. Jewish groups are already quietly fighting some of the reform proposals, especially the proposed ban on foreign travel financed by lobbyists, which could prevent groups from sending lawmakers to Israel. But…
Coretta Scott King, wife of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. and a longtime activist for peace and racial equality, died in her sleep Monday night at the age of 78. Jewish leaders praised her as a leader in her own right who looked beyond the concerns of her own community, and who repeatedly…
For a change, the United Nations felt like home last week. Holocaust survivors, their families and friends took the seats of pinstriped diplomats in the U.N.’s massive General Assembly hall. Emotional speeches replaced impersonal debates about war and poverty. And bitter exchanges over Israel and Palestine gave way to a dignified ceremony of remembrance of…
Following last-minute cries of protest from Muslim leaders last week, a Public Broadcasting Service affiliate in Dallas canceled the premiere of a documentary on the roots of Islamic terrorism. “The Roots of War: The Road to Peace” was scheduled to air on KERA-TV on Sunday, January 29, but the premiere was postponed by the station’s…
WASHINGTON — Since the Hamas victory in the Palestinian legislative elections last week, the Islamic fundamentalist group has come under international pressure to remove any calls for Israel’s destruction from its charter. The problem is that asking Hamas to remove such passages would be like demanding that Marx and Engels drop their calls for overthrowing…
JERUSALEM — Two months ago, after he won the Labor Party chairmanship, Amir Peretz declared enthusiastically in his victory speech that the demon of ethnic discrimination had been “taken off life support” and “buried.” But the demon, as demons are wont, has refused to die. Polls commissioned by Labor show a “drain” of traditional Ashkenazic…
TEL AVIV — In the army, they call this a “defining strategic event.” In laymen’s terms, it’s called an earthquake. The gains of Hamas in the Palestinian Authority’s parliamentary elections compel all players in the Middle East to rethink their behavior. “It’s much worse than we estimated,” a senior Israeli security official said last week,…
Coleman To Lead Prayers Senator Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican, was scheduled to lead the annual national prayer breakfast, the first time a Jew has done so. Coleman was set to lead prayers this week at the breakfast, a non-government event organized by the Fellowship Foundation, an evangelical group. Some rabbis complained of proselytizing Christian…
TEL AVIV — Barely 48 hours after the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian parliamentary elections — a victory that no Israeli intelligence agency foresaw — the government in Jerusalem had replaced its initial shock with a “wait and see” attitude. The prevailing tone was that in the end, something good might come out of…
Forward reader Gilad J. Gevaryahu has written to tell me that my discussion of the Sabbath greeting “shabbat shalom” in this column two weeks ago was scooped. A many-sided correspondence regarding this greeting, Mr. Gevaryahu informs me, can be found in “Mail.Jewish” (featured on www.ottmall.com, a site devoted to halachic issues). It appears in Volume…
אין פֿאַרגלײַך מיט די פֿיזישע פּאַוויליאָנען געשאַפֿן פֿון אָפֿיציעלע לענדער איז דער ייִדישלאַנד־פּאַוויליאָן געבויט אויף אידעעס
