A prominent Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi delivered a speech in Brooklyn this week lambasting his movement’s leadership for not aggressively fighting Israel’s plan to dismantle settlements in Gaza and the northern West Bank. “When I read that the Lubavitch took a position that we’re not to get involved, it went against everything I know,” said Rabbi Avraham…
Whenever I hear the word democracy, I shiver. Since the term became a rallying cry in Western foreign policy, it has come to mean a set of priorities and values that are essentially American and European. As such, for many of us here in the Middle East, democracy has become dated as a philosophy that…
LONDON — With most of the United Kingdom’s 290,000 Jews living in London, it was with a sense of inevitability that the community awaited details of possible Jewish casualties, as missing commuters were listed and fatality totals were announced. Sure enough, the first confirmed death after the bombings was that of Susan Levy, 53, a…
LIMA, Peru — Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo visited the provincial city of Cajamarca last month to hand out land titles to peasants. It was part of a successful initiative that gives poor Peruvians the keys to the property on which they have been squatting. Not a word of this appeared the following day in El…
Cairo Shul To Reopen A Cairo synagogue built in 1934 was slated to open Friday for the first time in many years. Ha’aretz reported Monday that the head of Cairo’s Jewish community, Carmen Weinstein, and Israel’s ambassador to Egypt, Shalom Cohen, arranged to reopen the synagogue, which had been closed because so few Jews remain…
WASHINGTON — As settlers and their supporters ratchet up efforts to stop Israel’s planned Gaza pullout, Jerusalem is intensifying its efforts to build support for the plan and neutralize any American Jewish opposition. Last week, in a conference call with leaders of Jewish organizations, Israel’s minister of construction, Yitzhak Herzog, urged American Jews not to…
This letter comes from Esther Tabak: “I have to ask you about an expression I grew up with: ‘sheb nakhes,’ which refers to the nakhes or satisfaction we get from life’s gifts, such as the pleasures associated with children and grandchildren. No matter what area of the world a Yiddish speaker comes from, every one…
In the wake of last week’s London bombings, British Prime Minister Tony Blair is likely to increase his calls for American involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian issue, according to international experts, diplomats and Jewish activists. “Blair will absolutely push harder for a two-state solution,” Crispin Black, director of Janusian Security Risk Management in London, wrote in…
It’s always fun when celebrities weigh in on sociopolitical matters. As Britney said on CNN, “We should trust our president in every decision that he makes, and we should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens.” Amen! Keep the faith! (But wait, does that mean you support our president’s faithful allies…
Rep. Katherine Harris, the Republican best known for her controversial role in the Florida recount battle, is at the center of a new flap — over a report that she pressed the state to treat trees with Holy Water. Harris reportedly helped associates of the Kabbalah Centre to get officials in Florida’s agriculture department to…
I’ve never much gone in for “two kinds of people” theories, but if I had to choose a way to divide up the world, it might be into those people who loved sleepaway camp and those who hated it. (As far as I know, no one is ever indifferent where sleepaway camp is concerned.) I…
