WARSAW — In the Jewish community in Warsaw, the visit of Israel’s military chief of staff was a source of visible elation. On a weekday, at an awkward hour, dozens of members of the 1,500-person community waited in the Nozyk Synagogue, which had been used as a stable during the Nazi occupation, to hear Moshe…
Israeli archaeologists are threatening to pull the plug on a historic effort to rescue invaluable artifacts from Judaism’s ancient First and Second Temples because the project has run out of money. Organizers and supporters of the rescue project are blaming the Israeli government for failing to fund the initiative, which marks the first time in…
Speech, Speech: Republican and Democratic officials strutted their rhetorical stuff on the podium of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s policy conference this week, providing a snapshot of the oratory of their respective parties — and of the officials’ varying skills. Speaking at an event Sunday night called “Party Playbooks: The Republicans, The Democrats and…
When Israeli Prime Minister Sharon comes to the United States this week to stump for his Gaza disengagement plan, he will be competing for the spotlight with the most prominent opponent of the initiative, Natan Sharansky. Sharansky, the former Soviet refusenik, resigned from Sharon’s government two weeks ago to protest the disengagement plan, but he…
Chief Rabbi Cleared Israel’s Sephardic chief rabbi was cleared of complicity in the assault on a yeshiva student who had courted his daughter. Attorney General Menachem Mazuz recommended Wednesday that no charges be brought against Rabbi Shlomo Amar in connection with the incident that took place over Passover, officials said. Amar has denied any knowledge…
TEL AVIV — In his first Knesset appearance since taking over as head of the Shin Bet security service last Sunday, Yuval Diskin sounded a grim but unaccustomed note. “Israel’s internal strength might crumble if there were to be another assassination of a prime minister,” Diskin warned the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Regarding that…
Usually, the Speaker of the Knesset’s opening address commencing Israeli Independence Day, given at the ceremony at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, is a pretty dull series of clichés: “In this —th year of our independence, we take pride in our achievements and look forward to the future with hope,” etc., etc. This year, however, it…
A bitter school board election in an affluent Long Island suburb has inflamed tensions between Orthodox Jews and members of the old-guard, liberal Jewish community in Lawrence, N.Y. Tuesday’s election pitted Shlomo Huttler, a lawyer and Orthodox rabbi, against Stanley Kopilow, vice president of a local Reform temple. Kopilow won the race, which featured battling…
In the not-a-news-flash department: We live in an era in which children are accessories. They are like fabulous Birkin bags, only stickier. Now more than ever before, you can express your aesthetic, whatever it may be, through your child’s clothing and gear. Are you a nasal Juicy Couture-clad label whore? A hip-hop hoodio who covets…
His name may double as a greeting of “hello,” but a recent statue of Sholom Aleichem went missing before anyone could say goodbye. A bronze statue of the author disappeared from a central square in Kiev several weeks ago, touching off an international frenzy — fueled by speculation on the Internet — about its whereabouts….
Since the Passover Seder is a time for questions, it should come as little surprise that some would be raised by an easily missed moment tucked into the Haggada’s back half. During the recitation of the Hallel prayer that marks the second Seder’s ritual conclusion, we make a blessing and declare, “Tonight is the first…
די „שלום־עליכם לעקציע“ וועט מען קענען הערן אויפֿן אָרט אָדער דורך דער אינטערנעץ.
