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DER YIDDISH-VINKL January 14, 2005
Ruth Rubin’s songbook “A Treasury of Jewish Folk Songs,” published a half-century ago, is still a treasure trove of songs transliterated from the Hebrew into the Roman alphabet, accompanied by Rubin’s very own translations into English. Multitalented Rubin was a singer, a recording artist, a musicologist and a folklorist. What follows was a very popular…
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Sharon, Symbol of Right, Stays In Office With Help of Leftists
TEL AVIV — Even if Ariel Sharon’s new government doesn’t last long, it already has made Israeli political history. In a bizarre turn of events, Sharon — for decades the most visible and most vilified symbol of the Israeli right — managed this week to survive as prime minister only because the left and several…
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Kabbalistic Kirtan: Just Replace Hindu With Hebrew
f you’ve ever been to a yoga class, you’ve probably performed kirtan, an ancient Hindu call-and-response chant practiced by Hindus and Sikhs. Now imagine that the phrases you were chanting were not Hindu, but Hebrew. Welcome to the newest rung in the Jewish spirituality ladder: kabbalistic kirtan. The genre — which features chanting Jewish names…
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California Case Contains Claim Jews Will Refuse To Impose Death Penalty
OAKLAND, Calif. — The San Francisco Bay Area’s legal community is abuzz over a death-penalty appeal that claims a respected late Jewish judge advised a prosecutor to exclude Jews from a jury because, since the Holocaust, “no Jew would vote to send a defendant to the gas chamber.” Former Alameda County prosecutor Jack Quatman, now…
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‘Center’ing Around Jewish Culture, Arts and History
The Curtain raiser for the December 15 Center for Jewish History’s Board of Governors and Board of Directors annual dinner program was emcee Joel Chasnoff, a comedian whose reservoir of Jewish-Christian humor included references to “Jewish guilt” and a chuckler about the “Conservative Jew” who was “the Shabbos goy at an Orthodox building in Riverdale.”…
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Canadian Group Sides With Muslims on Law
TORONTO — In a move that is angering Jewish feminists, B’nai Brith Canada is supporting the demands of conservative Muslims in the province of Ontario who wish to have the right to use private arbitration based on Islamic law for the resolution of their marital, custody and inheritance disputes. A report prepared for the Ontario…
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Vatican Memo Reignites Pius Debate
Jewish organizations are stepping up their pressure on the Vatican after the discovery of a memo suggesting that Pope Pius XII directed French Church officials not to return some Jewish children to their families after World War II. Several American Jewish interfaith leaders said the document could reignite the long-simmering struggle between the Vatican and…
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Messinger, AJWS Gain Prominence for Tsunami Relief
When President Bush publicly thanked hundreds of government workers and international charity leaders for their tsunami relief efforts Monday, he singled out Ruth Messinger, a life-long liberal Democrat from New York and president of the American Jewish World Service. Addressing an audience at the U.S. Agency for International Development headquarters near the White House, Bush…
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Nursing Home’s Labor Dispute Simmers
OAKLAND, Calif. — A holiday-season labor strike at San Francisco’s Jewish Home was canceled at the last minute, but the strife is far from over — and the well-being of 430 elderly residents hangs in the balance. About 380 workers, including vocational nurses, certified nursing assistants, dietary aides, housekeepers, porters and drivers at the nonprofit…
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CAMPAIGN CONFIDENTIAL
Food Fight: A fund raising letter signed by Rabbi David Saperstein, head of the Religious Action Center, the Washington-based policy arm of Reform Judaism, is raising the hackles of some Orthodox officials. “Thanks in large part to the aggressive tactics and ‘take no prisoners’ approach of the reactionary right, reasoned political debate in America has…
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2004: A Year of Scars and Stars
‘American Jews,” wrote the late novelist Ilona Karmel, “have scars, but no wounds.” The year just past, 2004, was a year to prove that point. We experienced some pain and anxiety, but as usual, we were surprised at year’s end to find ourselves as safe as ever. Indeed, it might best be called a “year…
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