TEL AVIV — As a special Knesset investigative committee began drafting its report this week on Israeli intelligence leading up to the Iraq war, Israel’s defense establishment found itself caught up in an unexpected debate over whether Israel had overstated the Iraqi threat, and why. The Knesset probe, headed by Likud lawmaker Yuval Steinitz, has…
I suppose Valentine’s Day might be better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but the stick would have to be really sharp. And have thorns. And be dipped in battery acid and Donald Rumsfeld’s saliva. Because Valentine’s Day is very, very far down on my list of life’s pleasures. I did…
PALM BEACH, Fla. — Standing before a room full of Anti-Defamation League leaders at the Italian Renaissance-style Majestic Breakers hotel here, Rabbi Robert Levine appeared to be preaching to the converted as he tore into Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.” But then Levine, the religious leader of Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Manhattan and…
‘The rules of the game have changed: prayers have given place to novs,” Ilan Stavans says in an interview that appears in the first issue of Tiferet: A Journal of Spiritual Literature. “It is the same art of storytelling that is at the fore.” Launching February 10, Tiferet is a rare synthesis of the Jewishly…
The January 23 article “Bringing Spanish Literature to Life — in English” referred to translator Edith Grossman incorrectly. She is divorced. The January 30 article “Cost of Medicine Imperiling Lives of Sick Survivors” cited a statistic incorrectly. If California’s proposed budget passes, the Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles will lose 10% of its $4.5…
‘Richie Scheinblum! You once got three hits off me!” the winningest (though oft-traded) Jewish pitcher in baseball history said by way of greeting to the only Jewish switch-hitter ever to hit .300 in a single season. The two former players — surrounded by 300-plus fans and more than a dozen former major leaguers and current…
VIENNA — A group linked to the Chabad movement has been cozying up to the government of Austria and the European Commission, angering secular groups that have been battling those entities in an attempt to get them to act against rising continental antisemitism. Last week, a three-day rabbinical conference organized by the Brussels-based, Chabad-affiliated Rabbinical…
Where can an observant Jew learn to prepare gourmet cuisine that is not just delicious and pleasing to the eye, but 100% kosher as well? Until last month, there was no such place. As a result, the vast majority of chefs in kosher kitchens around the world have not been Jews — at least not…
Melee at Knesset Violence broke out in the Knesset last Monday, when several local Likud party activists ran amok after being denied entry to a closed committee meeting. The dispute arose when a group of Likud Central Committee members arrived to monitor a meeting of the Knesset Finance Committee, which was to discuss privatization of…
My friend of 20 years called to say that $150 disappeared from her purse while she was at our house. She had left her bag indoors while we were dining outside. She pointed her finger at our 12-year-old daughter. When I questioned our daughter, she was hurt and bewildered. We have never had an incident…
Frank Michael “Mikey” Butler, the Pittsburgh native who publicly battled cystic fibrosis, died on January 26 at the age of 24. He had been hospitalized for more than four months to treat the lymphoma he developed as a result of a lung transplant. Through regular e-mail updates from Butler’s mother, Nina, thousands of people have…
