WASHINGTON — An interdenominational group of more than 700 North American rabbis and cantors is stepping up its “campaign to end U.S.-sponsored torture” through a combination of political lobbying, protests and grass-roots mobilizing in synagogues. Last week the group, Rabbis for Human Rights North America, sent orientation packages to about 4,000 rabbis across the nation,…
The ousting this week of an unpopular ally, New York Independence Party leader Lenora Fulani, is expected to bring about some benefits for New York’s Republican mayor, Michael Bloomberg. Fulani, an erstwhile Marxist and perennial fringe candidate whom many New Yorkers consider antisemitic, was a leader of the Independence Party’s downstate faction. She and five…
While traveling in the Middle East this week, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean offered President Bush some diplomatic advice. “If President Bush wants to accelerate the peace process, he has to watch out for the stability of Jordan,” Dean said during a telephone interview from Israel. “The Jordanians are under pressure because of rising…
Sandra Feldman, longtime advocate for public education and former leader of the national teachers’ union, died Sunday at 65. Colleagues at the American Federation of Teachers, the 1.3 million-member union that Feldman led from 1997 to 2004, cited cancer as the cause. “Sandy’s death is a great loss for the AFT personally and professionally, and…
WASHINGTON —As Washington struggles to secure world support for slapping international sanctions on Iran over its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons, Jewish organization are stepping up their efforts to trigger a crackdown on Tehran. Pro-Israel activists in Washington are pressing Congress to tighten American sanctions on Iran. And last week, on the margins of the…
The death of Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal brings to a close a storied career shrouded in achievement, in dazzle and perhaps even in mystery. Wiesenthal’s life, like those of all Holocaust survivors, may be described in three chapters: “Before,” “During” and “After.” The last is the most mysterious. “Before” was the life of a young…
A devastating hurricane rips through a southern state. There is no power, water or ice. The poor and the elderly are hardest hit and most forgotten. Sewage overflows into the streets. Federal officials struggle to establish supply routes for life-sustaining aid. I could be describing the catastrophic effects of Hurricane Katrina. I also could be…
“I know just enough Yiddish to answer an old lady in an elevator that I am not going to kill her,” Paul Reiser joshed during our August 31 interview at the Regency Hotel. He was in town to tout his new film, “The Thing About My Folks,” which he wrote and in which he co-stars…
Due to an editing error, the contributor biography at the end of Ruth Gavison’s September 9 opinion article, “Bridging the Post-Gaza Divide,” misstated the name of a document she co-authored. The document is known as the “Gavison-Medan Covenant.”
A federal appeals judge rejected a request from American Holocaust survivors for a greater share of any remaining money in the $1.25 billion Swiss bank case. The American survivors were appealing a March 2004 memorandum that promised 75% of any remaining funds in the case to needy survivors in the former Soviet Union. In a…
Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani last week stood behind his endorsement of a Cincinnati Republican mayoral candidate who once wrote that “only born-again believers” should be elected to public office. Giuliani endorsed the candidate, Charles Winburn, during a September 7 visit to the southern Ohio city. A picture of Giuliani was displayed prominently on…
בײַ ייִדן איז פֿאַראַן אַן אַלטע טראַדיציע צו שרײַבן רײַסישע סגולות מיט ייִדישע אותיות.
