If Israel unilaterally withdraws from the Gaza Strip as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has suggested, no governmental vacuum would be formed, Jibril Rajoub, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat’s national security advisor, said Tuesday in an unusual briefing with Israeli reporters. “We have a plan to handle the territory,” Rajoub said during the press conference, held…
Before agreeing to perform at next Monday’s “Up We Stand” benefit for the Israeli charity Atzum, the chasidic reggae artist Matisyahu hesitated. He usually asks his rabbi for permission before performances. For those pious people who may be wondering: Is it okay to laugh it up for Israel? Don’t worry about it. It’s for a…
Faced with lurid popular images like Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl striptease and the stark reality of sexually active adolescents, Orthodox girls would be expected to turn to rabbinic law for guidance. The problem, says Jewish educator Tova Hartman, is that in religious schools sexuality is either dealt with through an “oy vey” curriculum that lays…
“Almost 60% of American Jews have nothing at all to do with Judaism,” Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald, impassioned founder and director of the National Jewish Outreach Program, said at its February 3 dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria. Changing tacks, he said: “For the past 16 years NJOP has reached 730,000 North American Jewish souls… taught them Hebrew…
WASHINGTON — Senator Lincoln Chafee has a reputation as a maverick within the Republican Party, but that’s only half his troubles. Much of the pro-Israel lobby views him as a pain in the neck and wouldn’t mind seeing him gone from the Senate. Yet, in an exclusive interview, Chafee argued that it was President Bush…
At this week’s gathering of Orthodox feminists, women read from the Torah and led the Kaddish prayer during mixed-gendered services. Still, at least one topic had the power to shock this crowd: women rabbis. At this annual conference of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, the subject was raised by two young women in the audience…
Most of us have learned to be wary of people who offer us too many reasons to do what they want us to do. If my children list five different reasons why I need to drive over to the shopping district, I suspect that a sixth reason lurks behind them all: their “need” to rent…
In its effort to relieve overstretched U.S. troops in Iraq, the Bush administration has hired a private security company staffed with former henchmen of South Africa’s apartheid regime. The reliance on apartheid enforcers was highlighted by an attack in Iraq last month that killed one South African security officer and wounded another who worked for…
In one of the last scenes of “The Passion of the Christ,” the character of Mary, played with emotive steel by the Romanian Jewish actress Maia Morgenstern, embraces the mutilated body of her dead son. Streaks of dirt and Jesus’ blood form swaths of darkness on her light skin, as Morgenstern looks ahead with a…
In the course of researching his new book about cyber sex and online relationships, Haifa University philosophy professor Aaron Ben-Ze’ev came across a couple who had reached an unusual understanding. The husband discovered that his wife was having cyber affairs. She and her virtual partners would exchange amorous (and sexually explicit) messages on the Internet,…
TEL AVIV — Although the official announcement has not been made, the word out of the Defense Ministry is that the commander of the Israel Air Force, Major General Dan Halutz, will be appointed deputy chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces this summer. The promotion makes Halutz the prime candidate to become Israel’s…
