A great deal of ink has been spilled over whether a substantial number of Jews will move to the Republican column in this election. But while the recent studies don’t show any major shifts, there are at least some new phenomena among Jewish voters in this year’s election: spitting, vandalizing and making obscene gestures. As…
Less than a week after endings its 17-day Operation Days of Repentance in northern Gaza, Israel this week launched a new operation in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, aimed at ending mortar fire on the nearby Gush Katif settlements. Sixteen Palestinians were killed and dozens injured on the operation’s first day, October 24,…
The Jewish Agency for Israel has voted a significant boost in the resources it invests in forging ties between Jewish youth abroad and young Israelis, according to a strategic plan approved this week by the agency’s board of governors. The board convened its quarterly meeting October 25 in Jerusalem, with an agenda topped by plans…
With Prime Minister Ariel Sharon facing death threats from right-wing critics, Reform and Conservative leaders are rising to the defense of the Israeli ruler. On Monday, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, issued a statement vehemently condemning Orthodox calls for violence against Sharon. “That these comments are made by religious leaders…
Paul Baron of Stony Creek, Conn., wants to know if there is a Yiddish word for “cuckold.” One can, of course, speak in Yiddish of a “betrayed husband,” just as one can do in English, in which cuckold is a semi-archaic word no longer much used for a man cheated on by his wife. However,…
Two years ago, President Bush told a large audience in Cincinnati that “America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.” For months leading up to the Iraq…
Advised by his Cabinet to strike against a country thought to have had a hand in the murder of Americans, the commander in chief grows indignant. “Are you suggesting,” he sneers, “we use the attack… as a pretext to attack another country we don’t know to be responsible?” A John Kerry daydream? Hardly. The speaker…
When I accompanied George W. Bush on his first trip to Israel in 1998, I had no inkling he would one day lead a global coalition to conquer terrorism. During that trip, we both saw threats that seemed remote to most Americans but were part of daily life in Israel. In the Middle East’s only…
Stepping up his bid for Jewish votes in Florida, Senator John Kerry accused the Bush administration Monday of “dragging its feet” on the contentious Hungarian Gold Train case, a Holocaust restitution suit against America’s government that is moving through federal court in Miami. Hungarian Holocaust survivors brought the class-action case in 2001. They are seeking…
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — With polls showing that this most crucial of swing states could once again determine the presidency, both the Bush and Kerry campaigns are bombarding the region with high-profile emissaries in an effort to boost Jewish support. The frenzied push to harvest Jewish votes comes in a state in which Bush won by…
WASHINGTON — Despite a strong pitch from Israel’s ambassador to the United States, American Jewry’s top representative body balked this week at adopting a statement directly endorsing Prime Minister Sharon’s disengagement plan. In a dramatic series of events, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations held a stormy meeting October 14 in its…
