Israel’s targeted killing of the wheelchair-bound head of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, predictably has drawn a hail of criticism from the international community. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw characterized the killing of Yassin as “unlawful”; the Vatican said it was “not justified in any state [run by] the rule of law” and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi…
WASHINGTON — As some observers suggest that the threat of terrorist strikes against American targets is intensifying, an increasingly bitter dispute has erupted among Jewish groups over a bill that would provide federal funds to enhance security at nonprofit organizations deemed particularly vulnerable to attack. The bill, which supporters expect to be introduced in Congress…
Next week’s paper will not include my byline. Five years ago, when I began writing “Ask Wendy,” the column was an extension of my life. I would walk into a store to buy a jacket and end up sitting on the dressing-room floor counseling the saleswoman. At any given dinner party, I would spend all…
In the March 19 “Letter From Uzbekistan,” Uzbekistan was incorrectly identified as the largest of the core Central Asian states. It actually is the largest in terms of population, not geographical area. In the same article, the name of writer Ruslan Sharipov was misspelled. The March 5 article “Putin Appoints Russia’s Third Jewish Premier” failed…
As the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman has led a series of high-profile battles against antisemitism, Holocaust denial and, most recently, Mel Gibson and “The Passion of the Christ.” And now, his son Ariel Foxman, 30, is stepping into the limelight with what some might see as an equally challenging mission: enticing…
JERUSALEM — Lubavitch leaders are crying foul after one of their own was passed up for the newly created post of chief rabbi of Lithuania. Rabbi Sholom Krinsky, the Chabad emissary who has served in Vilnius for a decade, said he was being ignored by the Association of Jewish Religious Communities of Lithuania because it…
Some things never changed about Anna Kainen: The pink kerchief perched atop her forest of gray hair; the large dark glasses; the tan pants that looked as if she had sewn them herself. When I arrived each Sunday morning at her 14th-floor apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, she would always greet me with the…
Islamist Warns of Plot Leaders of the Jewish community in Serbia received a letter from an inmate with links to Islamist militants stating that he had been ordered to attack Aca Singer, president of the Jewish federation of Serbia-Montenegro, during the High Holy Days last year and that the plot was still on, the Forward…
Last week, I relished Broadway’s latest “Fiddler on the Roof.” When I told Bel Kaufman, Sholom Aleichem’s 92-year-old granddaughter, how much I enjoyed the performance, she concurred: “It’s sheer magic!” Kaufman, author of “Up the Down Staircase,” said: “You know, there was a real Tevye, a small, scrawny man who had no daughters. My grandfather…
Socking Specter: Rep. Patrick Toomey, the conservative Pennsylvania Republican challenging Senator Arlen Specter in a primary, is criticizing Specter for “poor judgment” and “striking up relationships with some of the world’s worst dictators” in regard to the senator’s dealings with Syria and Iran. Specter, one of two Jewish Republicans in the Senate, recently tried to…
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, the umbrella outfit that speaks for the American trade union movement, has filed a complaint that calls upon the U.S. government to take action against China to protest Beijing’s total disregard of worker rights. The complaint — the first of its kind — is based…
