Officials at the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism are denying that the organization sent letters to senators praising John Bolton, President Bush’s embattled choice to serve as ambassador to the United Nations. In its June 24 issue, the Forward reported that the “United Synagogue, which represents about 800 Conservative congregations, sent a pro-Bolton letter to…
History comes to us in a variety of ways. Sometimes we stumble upon it, suddenly coming face to face with a historic marker or an age-old monument. At other moments, like family or holiday celebrations, we deliberately pay homage to it. And still at other moments, we simply accumulate it. Intentionally or not, most of…
In the latest GOP attack on George Soros, Republicans are trying to dissuade Major League Baseball from selling the Washington Nationals to an ownership group linked to the billionaire financier — with one lawmaker appearing to paint Soros as a foreigner who is unwelcome in Washington. The controversy started last week when several Republicans, including…
After 90 years of wending its way from its beginnings on New York City’s Lower East Side on Second Avenue through its “vagabond” years at assorted theaters and auditoriums, the Folksbiene Yiddish Theatre took center stage at Carnegie Hall on June 16 at A Benefit for the Future of Yiddish Theatre in America, co-chaired by…
In his first trip to the Middle East as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean will be traveling to Israel this fall with a Jewish organization. Dean, who became the DNC chairman in February, will take the six-day trip in September with the National Jewish Democratic Council. Democrats are noting that the September…
Murray Meld is an active Yiddishist who lives in Seattle. On several occasions over the past few years, he and his wife have submitted their works to Der Vinkl. Now we are pleased to add to their contributions with a poem written in English by Meld’s daughter. Murray has translated the poem into Yiddish. He…
David Weintraub, executive director of The Dora Teitelboim Center for Yiddish Culture, lists among his organization’s goals “making the old language new again” and “fostering Jewish cultural continuance over the generations.” To this end, Weintraub and Rae Ann Harris, a onetime publicist who passed away in 2002, developed “Sereena’s Secret: Searching for Home,” a Yiddish-English…
A conservative activist is coming under fire for claiming that a Jewish senator is blocking an Arab American judicial nominee because of his ethnicity. Victoria Toensing, a Washington attorney who sometimes speaks on behalf of the conservative judicial advocacy group Committee for Justice, reportedly accused Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, of “executing a vendetta”…
BASKETBALL Herb Brown Herb Brown exemplifies a long and distinguished basketball tradition: the Jewish coach. Joining the ranks of such legends as Arnold “Red” Auerbach, longtime coach of the Boston Celtics, and William “Red” Holzman, onetime coach of the New York Knicks, Brown has kept the tradition alive by teaching the X’s and O’s of…
WASHINGTON — The retirement of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is expected to intensify the Jewish community’s plans to weigh in on the high court’s future. Many Jewish organizations already had been mobilizing for an anticipated vacancy on the court, but had expected to be discussing a successor to Chief Justice William Rehnquist and…
The leading Holocaust revisionist group in America is set to go on the offensive this month with a meeting in New York to discuss the “Jewish-Zionist role in fomenting war in the Middle East” and a protest in Los Angeles at the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The Institute for Historical Review argues that 6 million Jews…
