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…
The agonizing effort to form a post-election government in Iraq is largely over, but the struggle to bring an end to the Sunni Arab-led insurgency remains a crisis. Until that battle is won, the safety and normality so many Iraqis crave, the effective democratic government they deserve and the economic recovery they desperately need cannot…
Next month, Forward contributor Mark Oppenheimer will be release his second book, “Thirteen and a Day: The Bar and Bat Mitzvah Across America”(Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Below are excerpts from three of its chapters. The first is devoted to a thoughtful girl from New Haven, Conn.; the second, a bar/bat mitzvah tutor from Tampa, Fla.,…
The Orthodox Union is lending its support to a contentious House bill that would expand federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research. The bill, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005, sponsored by Rep. Michael Castle, a Delaware Republican, and by Rep. Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat, seeks to extend federal funding to research on…
“I want [Lily] Safra’s life, her fire, her clothes, her friends,” said “Good Morning America” anchor and emcee Diane Sawyer to the International Sephardic Education Foundation’s 650 benefit guests at its April 19 gala. “Her circle of family and friends stretches across countries and continents,” Sawyer said of the petite philanthropic Safra, who with her…
The U.S. Air Force Academy is embroiled in a growing scandal over alleged religious coercion, following an investigation triggered by complaints from a Jewish student distressed over evangelical Christian proselytizing. Earlier this year, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington-based advocacy group launched an investigation. Its report alleges that academy leaders, including…
די „שלום־עליכם לעקציע“ וועט מען קענען הערן אויפֿן אָרט אָדער דורך דער אינטערנעץ.
