Hungarian Holocaust survivors reached an agreement with the American government in the so-called “Gold Train” case after three years of legal wrangling. In an agreement worked out Monday, survivors will receive $25 million from the American government, people at the negotiating table said. The non-monetary aspects of the settlement — presumed to be a letter…
Ukraine’s opposition presidential candidate reportedly is set to have plastic surgery in Israel after upcoming elections. Viktor Yushchenko is to have surgery on the pockmarks and cysts that disfigured his face after he was poisoned with dioxin this fall during Ukraine’s presidential campaign, Ma’ariv reported. Yushchenko also must be treated for liver problems as a…
’Tis the season to be jolly? The unknown composer of that lyric clearly wasn’t living in America in 2004. This winter holiday season has been anything but jolly for both Christians and non-Christians, as the debate over church-state separation and how America should celebrate the holiday in the public square went from simmering to boiling…
Israeli linguist Ghil’ad Zuckerman, whose new Hebrew book, “Hebrew as Myth,” will appear this coming year, thinks I am wrong to call “denigrating” Yiddish linguist Dovid Katz’s use of the term “Israeli” rather than “Hebrew” for the contemporary language of Israel. Mr. Zuckerman writes: “On the contrary! It is time to acknowledge that the language…
Forget about “Chrismukka,” the hybrid holiday invented for intermarried couples. Consider the other December Dilemma, that of thousands of affiliated and even Orthodox Jews like me. Without a history of celebrating Christmas, and with no intention of celebrating it in the future, either, we get a warm and fuzzy feeling from the warm and fuzzy…
Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist, a physician, was getting an on-camera grilling from ABC News talk show host George Stephanopoulos. “Do you believe that tears and sweat can transmit HIV?” Stephanopoulos asked. “I don’t know. I can tell you….” stammered Frist, a Tennessee Republican. “You don’t know?” Stephanopoulos pressed. The majority leader, a heart transplant…
B’nai B’rith International, a 161-year-old nonprofit organization and charity, is hardly known as a hip haven through which the new generation can connect to Jewish culture. That could change, however, if the organization makes the desired impact with its new 24/7, Internet-based Jewish-music radio station, www.bnai- brithradio.org. Launched this fall, and boasting a play list…
The latest crisis between Washington and Jerusalem over an Israeli weapons sale to China is now turning into a political spat between Jerusalem and Beijing. Harsh words were exchanged between the Pentagon and the Israeli Defense Ministry this week over the Harpy, an Israeli-built attack drone that had been sold to China, and then sent…
Following 9/11, Tim Barsky felt the world was upside down — not just because of global affairs, but also because of events closer to home. First, Barsky’s next-door neighbor was gunned down in a drive-by shooting as Barsky was sitting on his own front porch. Shortly afterward, in a succession of events, another neighbor was…
HERZLIYA, Israel — To its boosters, this seaside suburb north of Tel Aviv is Israel’s own West-chester County, a bedroom community for the affluent and a growing world center in its own right. To its detractors, that’s the problem. Their complaint tends to be quite specific: the expanding role of the Herzliya Conference. The conference,…
If world events had not intruded, these past few weeks might have been good for the Zionist Organization of America, a leading critic of the Oslo peace process and Israeli concessions to the Palestinians. On Sunday, the ZOA’s annual dinner drew its largest crowd in recent history. The event came just one week after Congress…
