Disgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff reportedly used a Jewish nonprofit organization as a conduit for money in a scheme to try to influence a top aide of then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. The organization, Toward Tradition, headed by South African-born Orthodox Rabbi Daniel Lapin, received $50,000 from two Abramoff clients, which it used to hire…
Highlighting their concerns with privacy issues, Democrats tapped a freshman congresswoman from Florida to testify Thursday at the Senate hearings on the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, one of two new Jewish members of the House of Representatives, was chosen by the ranking Democratic member of Senate…
Jack Abramoff’s dealings with Native American tribes did not set the best model for cross-cultural communication between Indians and Jews, so a group of Californians came together last Sunday to create a better foundation. Twenty-one Indians and Jews came together for a wide-ranging discussion just five days after Abramoff pleaded guilty to defrauding four Indian…
“Don’t believe everything you read,” was my first reaction to the news that the American Jewish Historical Society plans to sell six of its valuable, Colonial-era portraits of the Franks family. If only my hopefulness were justified. The society’s sale is another nail in an ever-expanding coffin being built to inter the remains of dying…
The Senate should reject Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court because of his almost certain impact in undermining basic constitutional protections. It is impossible to overstate the importance of this nomination for the immediate future of constitutional law in the United States. Often in considering judicial nominees, the Senate can take refuge in doubt…
As Rep. Eric Cantor, the Virginia Republican, counted votes this week in his bid to become House majority whip, the conflicting perceptions of his own lobbyist ties suggested the depth of the challenge facing Republicans in the mushrooming Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. The leadership bid by Cantor, the sole Jewish Republican in the House, is…
In 1994 I sat with Ariel Sharon for two hours in an attempt, one-on-one, to understand his views on settlements, Palestinians and the territories. At the time he was a mere member of the opposition in the Knesset, busy criticizing Yitzhak Rabin’s government, Oslo, even peace with Jordan. Sharon unfolded a detailed map of the…
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration will work in coming weeks to boost the standing of Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, while trying to avoid the appearance of meddling in Israel’s upcoming elections, according to Israeli envoys and former American diplomats, American Jewish communal leaders and other Middle East experts. Initial signals from top officials in…
Lose Hanick from Toronto writes: “The numerical value of the Hebrew letters Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh, which spell the sacred name of God, is 10+5+6+5. or 26. But so is the numerical value of ‘God,’ ‘g’ being the seventh letter of the English alphabet, ‘o’ the 15th, and ‘d’ the fourth. Is this purposeful or coincidental?” I suppose…
JERUSALEM — For a moment last week, Ehud Olmert seemed like a guy who’d agreed to take a small-plane trip of uncertain destination with his friend, the pilot — and then watched the pilot collapse over the controls. In the hours after Prime Minister Sharon’s January 4 stroke, Israeli commentators stressed that Sharon’s new Kadima…
He’s not your typical yenta, and he’s certainly not JDate.com, but 70-year-old Asher Aramnia spends every Sunday afternoon working the phones at his Los Angeles office to make national and international love connections for Jewish singles of different backgrounds. With countless successful matches to his credit, Aramnia’s matchmaking activities, based out of an Iranian Jewish…
