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…
JERUSALEM –- After 21 suicide bus bombings in the last 41 months that killed 164 people and wounded 777, the Israeli government has acknowledged that it has failed to provide security and is now embarking on a new venture to ensure the safety of all passengers. Internal Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi unveiled the new plan…
In 1946, Ben Hecht wrote a controversial play that publicized a cause he hoped to help: the recognition of a Jewish homeland for Holocaust survivors and resistance to British rule in Palestine. Set on a Jewish transport ship that is stopped by British forces immediately after World War II, Hecht’s “A Flag Is Born” enjoyed…
JERUSALEM — The scene at Shikma Prison in Ashkelon on April 21 is sure to be a major media event, with fans, foes and reporters from the world over waiting outside when convicted nuclear spy Mordechai Vanunu walks free for the first time since 1986. But what happens the day after is the issue now…
Money invested in Switzerland by the Palestinian Authority during the peace process is being used to finance attacks carried out by violent factions associated with Yasser Arafat’s Fatah party, according to an Israeli businessman who helped set up secret Swiss accounts worth several hundred million dollars for the P.A. The businessman, a former Israeli senior…
