TEL AVIV — Israel braced itself for a plunge into the unknown this week, following the army’s March 22 assassination of the leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. The killing of the charismatic Islamic leader was the most controversial Israeli military action in the three and a half years of violence. Most observers agreed that…
In 1929, the photographer Lotte Jacobi shot a rare self-portrait. The ferociously independent, 33-year-old Jewish single mother was also a habitué of Weimar Berlin’s cafes, cabarets and theaters; her pictures of actors, clowns, leftists and intellectuals would help to define that glittering, heady era. In the self-portrait, she stares at her reflection with a restless,…
The Eve of Destruction: The Untold Story of the Yom Kippur War By Howard Blum HarperCollins, 350 pages, $25.95. * * *| The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East By Abraham Rabinovich Schocken Books, 560 pages, $27.50. * * *| Uri Dan: Yom Kippur War Photographs Farkash Gallery, Jaffa *…
“The Passion of the Christ” may have dominated the box office for its first three weeks on American screens, but in Germany the Mel Gibson flick was flattened by a bear. A mega-hit in the United States, “The Passion” sold less than half as many tickets as the Disney animated film “Brother Bear” during its…
Ira Epstein writes: “In several recent news reports in the English media, the Jerusalem street ‘Emek Refa’im’ was referred to as the ‘Vale of Ghosts’ or ‘Valley of Ghosts.’ While I know that the Hebrew word refa’im in the Bible can be translated as ‘ghosts,’ is there any special significance to the association of ghosts…
Choreographer Paul Taylor has never demonstrated any fondness for religion. But in his latest premiere, “In the Beginning,” he uses his satirical wit as the primary narrative voice for the book of Genesis. The ballet, which made its New York City debut with the Paul Taylor Dance Company at City Center on March 3 and…
Paintings by the German artist David Stern announce themselves with the subtlety of a lion’s roar. A quick glance reveals an awesome abundance of paint: gummy impasto surfaces inches thick, rough and uneven like a tempest-torn sea. This first impression is so strong, in fact, that it is not uncommon to see no more in…
Howard Stern, the radio shock-jock who delights in tweaking minorities, gays and women, is emerging as liberalism’s newest and most unlikely poster boy after unveiling his latest persona: dump-Bush militant. Stern, who has habitually endorsed Republicans and helped elect at least two Republican governors, announced his opposition to President Bush’s reelection earlier this month, protesting…
Jeremy is a 14-year-old in dire need of a liver transplant, which in his case stands a good chance of success, but his parents are reluctant to give their consent; they are the ones who would bear the burden of the child’s long-term care, not the surgeon or hospital. The surgeon, not understanding the parents’…
The apparent evolution of Al Qaeda into a loose network of autonomous terrorist cells, as a result of U.S.-led attacks on Osama bin Laden’s inner circle, may be having the unintended effect of boosting the importance of Jewish targets as a primary focus of international Islamic terrorism. Declassified U.S. documents, German court testimony and interviews…
‘No one,” recently wrote political commentator Yosi Verter in the Hebrew newspaper Ha’aretz, in an article on the attitude of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s fellow Likud politicians to the financial scandals threatening him, “wants to appear to be dancing on the blood.” By “dancing on the blood” — roked al ha-dam — Verter meant taking…
