One Jewish organization is hoping to spread a little Purim cheer in the region where the holiday’s ancient story began. The National Council of Young Israel is sending more than 450 mishloach manot packages to Jewish American soldiers stationed in Iraq — part of the present-day geographic site of the Persian kingdom, where the celebrated…
The executive director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is defending the decision to honor Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl during the Oscars ceremony. The inclusion of Riefenstahl, nicknamed “Hitler’s filmmaker,” in Sunday night’s video montage memorializing members of the movie industry who died in 2003 is being heavily criticized by several prominent…
“I was a left-wing extremist… a young student… screaming in Rome against Israel and Zionism,” said Francesca Cernia Slovin, the Italian author of “In Principio: Dove Affondano le Radici di Israele” (“In the Beginning: Where the Seeds of Israel Take Root”), which was showcased at a February 12 event at the Center for Jewish History….
Saudis Relent on Visas Saudi Arabia’s government last week dropped a reference on its official tourism Web site to “Jewish people” as a category of foreigners barred from receiving visas to visit Saudi Arabia. A spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington told the Forward that the online content was “unauthorized,” and that the kingdom’s…
Regular readers of Der Vinkl will recall last week’s poem by the ever wise and witty Stanley Siegelman titled “Oy Vey, Oy Vey, der Bishop iz Gey.” He offers this follow-up in the same vein, “Hooray, Hooray, der Rebe iz Gey.” The poem is dedicated to Rabbi Lionel Blue, whom the Forward described in a…
JERUSALEM — Amid growing indications that anarchy and lawlessness are reaching a critical stage within the Palestinian territories, observers now are wondering aloud if the financially broke and politically splintered Palestinian Authority is on the verge of collapse. The mayor of the West Bank city of Nablus, Ghassan Shakah, resigned last week to protest the…
What are we to make of the long descriptions of the High Priest’s ceremonial garments in this week’s portion? The garments include a breastplate, a robe, a fringed tunic, a headdress and a sash and an ephod, or long tunic, and each is described in detail. The robe, for example, is to have embroidered pomegranates…
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is rejecting Jerusalem’s demand for American approval of a plan to strengthen several key blocks of Jewish settlements in exchange for a complete Israeli pullback from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wants to fortify large blocks of Jewish settlements in the West…
A delegation of French Catholic bishops toured New York last week for what amounted to a crash course in Judaism. Organized by the World Jewish Congress, the four-day encounter included visits to institutions ranging from Reform to Chasidic. WJC chairman Israel Singer described the tour as an outgrowth of a desire to further the interreligious…
When Massachusetts Senator John Kerry learned last year that his paternal grandparents in 19th-century Austria had converted to Catholicism from Judaism, one of the first people he called was his younger brother, Cameron. The younger Kerry was surprised. In an interview at John Kerry’s New York headquarters last Friday, Cameron Kerry told the Forward that…
For the Jewish immigrants who founded the German-language newspaper Aufbau in 1934, America represented the future and Germany the past. Things certainly have changed. Just days after the Jewish newspaper’s 70th-anniversary issue was published last week, editors said the paper’s financial situation in America had grown so tenuous that it faced the stark choice of…
