The controversy over a disputed circumcision ritual could affect the mayor’s race in New York City, as some members of the Hasidic community are promising to protest any restrictions placed on the mohel in question. Rabbi Yitzchok Fischer has been the subject of an investigation by the city’s health department since three infants tested positive…
By most measures, Yisroel Newman, 25, and other young Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis like him are the obvious solution to the army’s severe shortage of Jewish chaplains. These young rabbis are trained by a movement dedicated to reaching Jews wherever they may be, no matter how remote. The peripatetic military lifestyle would not be much more difficult…
Recently, the small city of Provo, Utah, acquired a big distinction: According to a study published this month, it is the most conservative city in America. Based on the voting patterns of 237 major urban centers across the country, researchers at the left-leaning Bay Area Center for Voting Research determined that Provo had the highest…
The August 19 article “Shul Dispute Nears End” erroneously reported that the National Council of Young Israel entered into a contract to sell its building for less than the assessed market value. In fact, the only thing the article should have stated was that before any deal was closed, the proposed buyer was attempting to…
As Pope Benedict XVI paid a historic visit last week to a synagogue in Cologne, Germany, and laid out his agenda for the future of Catholic-Jewish relations, his Jewish partners in dialogue were settling an internal skirmish over titles and authority. Despite the jockeying, Jewish leaders found time to praise Benedict’s speech, which included a…
U.N. Slammed on Banners Members of Congress and Jewish groups are demanding explanations from the United Nations over the use of United Nations Development Programme funds for the preparation of inflammatory banners by the Palestinian Authority in Gaza. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Florida Republican who chairs the House Subcommittee on the Middle East, sent a…
The Rockville Volunteer Fire Department is in the center of a heavily Jewish area of Maryland, but it was only last month that the 85-year-old fire department got its first Jewish chaplain. At their monthly meeting in July, the 225 members voted to accept a young Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi, Chesky Tenenbaum, as a chaplain. Tenenbaum recently…
WASHINGTON — After a recently promoted State Department official was linked last week to spying allegations against the pro-Israel lobby, Jewish communal leaders are again suggesting nefarious motives behind the investigation. The New York Times reported August 18 that David Satterfield, the U.S. deputy chief of mission in Baghdad, was one of two previously unnamed…
EIN HASHLOSHA, Israel — As the residents of Netzarim, the last Israeli settlement in Gaza to be evacuated, left the area Monday, the respective commanders of the Israeli military and police southern commands, Dan Harel, a general, and police chief Uri Barlev, met the press in what was tantamount to a victory ceremony. They maintained…
American Orthodox groups are gearing up to ensure that the needs of the settlers recently uprooted from Gaza are not ignored. Jewish organizations, including the Orthodox Union, already have established a number of financial campaigns to raise money for the needs of the settlers. But the most ambitious call for action came from the National…
Throughout their century-old struggle over Palestine — or is it the Land of Israel? — Jews and Arabs often have vied with each other not only for the same land but also for the same words, the same images and the same conceptions of themselves, each side spinning a narrative that has been the upside-down…
