Bill Morris writes from San Diego: This last weekend I heard someone talking about an “ufruf” (“oof-roof”). In English contexts, I’ve always seen this word given the German spelling of “aufruf,” which should be pronounced “owf-roof,” while in Yiddish it is spelled sextie`, which should be pronounced “oyf-roof.” Are there Yiddish dialects in which the…
Yossi Vassa is an Ethiopian-Israeli stand-up comic who has been confronted with hardships and tragedy that most 29-year-old Americans would struggle to imagine. At age 9, he and his family were among thousands of Ethiopian Jews resettled in Israel thanks to Operation Moses. They journeyed on foot for 440 miles to a Sudanese transit camp,…
A tempest has been swirling inside the delicate gilded teapot of New York high society after basketball fans of the elite Trinity School taunted a Jewish player for the opposing Dalton school with calls of “gefilte fish, gefilte fish,” and “hey, he fouled him… that’s not kosher!” One Dalton parent challenged the hecklers at the…
Saul Austerlitz is a freelance writer based in New York City. Little Edens By Barbara Klein Moss W.W. Norton & Company, 288 pages, $23.95. * * *| Having spent my formative years in Southern California, I have long been familiar with the sometimes astonishing discrepancy between the paradisiacal environment — in which the burnished sunlight,…
Shortly before he went off to vote in the Missouri Democratic primary on February 3, 68-year old Carl Moskowitz learned that the premium for his retiree health plan was doubling to $250 a month. Suddenly the issue of health care became integral as he listened to the candidates present their case. “I hadn’t thought about…
Showtime’s made-for-television movie “Crown Heights” was shot mostly in Toronto — and it shows. But despite its tendency to make things neater and prettier than they actually were, the film manages to offer an honest lesson about the 1991 riots that shook Crown Heights, Brooklyn. “Crown Heights” is based on a true story about an…
WASHINGTON — The divisive national debate over gay rights is about to spill over into the Jewish organizational world, as leaders of a dozen of the nation’s largest Jewish groups prepare to gather in Boston and try to hammer out a joint Jewish communal position on the issue. The topic will take center stage later…
Why did Libya’s stiff-necked Muammar Gadhafi agree to get rid of all weapons of mass destruction? In his State of the Union address, President Bush offered an explanation. The overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq was a warning to Gadhafi that if he did not behave he might well be next. This is the most…
The electoral turmoil in Iran has scuttled a controversial visit to Iran by congressional staffers that was seen by moderates as a possible turning point in U.S.-Iranian relations. Iranian officials decided to shelve a planned visit by aides of three lawmakers, Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Rep. Robert Ney…
‘Moreover, thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating unjust gain… And let them judge the people.” … So Moses hearkened to the voice of his father-in-law… And Moses chose able men out of all of Israel… and they judged the people. — Exodus 18:21-26…
TEL AVIV — Riding together recently on a Jerusalem bus, Devora Goldberg, 19, asked her uncle whether being on buses in Israel frightened him. Outside of his home, where relatives and friends now gather to sit shiva for the 42-year-old Yechezkel “Chezi” Goldberg, one of 11 people killed in last Thursday’s bus bombing, she repeats…
