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Newsdesk September 23, 2005
Ex-Bush Aide Arrested A top former American official under arrest for allegedly lying about his relationship with a Jewish lobbyist is accused of using his influence to procure government land for a Jewish school. American agents arrested David Safavian on Monday, three days after he abruptly quit his position as top procurer for the Bush…
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Reform Rabbi Sues Israel for State Salary, In Latest Bid To End Orthodox Monopoly
TEL AVIV — In one of the strongest challenges ever to Orthodox religious dominance, an American-born Reform rabbi who serves a kibbutz of mostly American immigrants has petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to demand a state salary as a municipal rabbi. The suit, submitted to the court this week by the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism,…
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The Dusty Abacus
Avi Atias, my computer technician in Israel, has a small company called Abacus. The other day, I asked him how he came to choose the name. “A friend suggested it,” he said. “I was looking for a word that wasn’t Hebrew and that had an international sound. But, hey, you’re the word man. What language…
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Bloomberg Blurs Party Lines in Bid for Jewish Votes
New York’s Republican mayor, Michael Bloomberg, is leaving nothing to chance in his bid to lock up the Jewish vote in November. In recent days, the mayor has launched a high-profile “Democrats for Bloomberg” group featuring several icons of New York Jewish liberalism. He hired Governor George Pataki’s Jewish outreach director and declared his opposition…
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Remembering the Rosh Hashanah Cards of Yesteryear
When I was a child in New Jersey, I would correspond with a cousin who lived in Israel. I relished the missives I got from afar. Back then, my thoughts of Israel were based on what I saw in my Hebrew school textbook, “World Over”: women on tractors and desert battles. The letters were a…
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Hurricane Relief Plan Stirs School Vouchers Debate
The Bush administration’s plan to pay for the private school education of Hurricane Katrina evacuees has triggered the first major debate over church-state separation in the relief effort. During a tour of Houston last week, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings proposed that the government give $488 million to private schools that have taken in evacuated children…
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Guilt, Shame, Tantrums And Rosh Hashanah
The other day, I yelled at Josie. Really yelled. She has asthma, and so she tends to have a serious, multiday bout of wheezing every couple of months. I hate these times. She gasps for breath, and her eyes get glassy. But I trust our asthma and allergy doc, and I think she’s getting the…
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Israel Basks in New Warmth As Muslim States Hail Gaza Pullout
UNITED NATIONS — Meeting their warmest reception here in a generation, most notably from Muslim nations, Israeli leaders responded this week with a mixture of elation at their new standing in the world community and impatience at its limits. In a whirlwind week of diplomatic breakthroughs, the United Nations General Assembly Hall — not known…
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Organization Helps the Visually-impaired Feel Their Way Into the New Year
There is not a spot of ink on the pages of one of the High Holy Day prayer books produced by David Toiv’s nonprofit organization, the Jewish Heritage for the Blind — just line after line of raised bumps. The prayer book, which is in Braille, has been distributed free of charge for more than…
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Ex-Yeshiva Head Outs Himself, Leaves Fold
A former principal of one of New York’s most illustrious Modern Orthodox high schools has announced that he is gay and no longer an Orthodox Jew. Rabbi Alan Stadtmauer, 42, stepped down as head of the Yeshivah of Flatbush High School in June, after serving as a teacher and administrator for more than a decade….
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A Fruitful History
Pomegranates have been around since ancient times. The fruit has many biblical links, from ornamenting the high priests’ robes to decorating Solomon’s temple. Some scholars say that the pomegranate, rather than the apple, was the fruit that Eve gave to Adam in the Garden of Eden, as apples aren’t indigenous to the area. They can…
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