Budget Sparks Worries Spending on Israel remains unaffected by fiscal belt-tightening in President Bush’s proposed budget, but domestic programs are under the knife, including those that most affect the Jewish community. Surveying the details in the budget Bush handed to Congress on Monday, Jewish organizational officials were especially worried about funding for the elderly. In…
I have known for quite some time that Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) was a philosemite. The Argentine writer was a lover of Franz Kafka’s work, a vocal intellectual against Nazism, a fervent supporter of Israel after the Six Day War and a student of kabbala. He even wished he could read Hebrew. But a chance…
With the controversial film “The Passion of the Christ” set to open next month, some Christian groups are launching campaigns to counter theological errors that may exist in Mel Gibson’s account of the death of Jesus, while several Roman Catholic scholars are calling on their church to outline publicly its doctrinal belief as a counterbalance…
B y the hearth of a crackling fireplace at the Deer Park Church Camp in rural Pennsylvania, Josh Shaneson was welcomed into a brotherhood of men, for the second time. Shaneson, 19, had been inducted into manhood once before, as his yarmulke and ritual fringes indicated. But unlike his bar mitzvah, at this initiation he…
When five Jewish communal leaders returned last week from their all-expenses-paid five-day trip to Taiwan, they were exhausted from the 24-hour flight but laden with exotic gifts. At one meeting with high-ranking Taiwanese officials, the delegates received tea-cups, at another colorful ties were distributed. “The whole time I was thinking: Hello, am I allowed to…
As the Israelites prepared to leave Egypt, the Hebrew text of Exodus 3:22 records one of the divine commands in words that the King James Version understood in this way: “But every woman shall borrow of her neighbor… jewels of silver, and jewels of gold.” Through their actions, the Israelites “spoil” the Egyptians. The same…
With Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman polling a scant 9% in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday, the word on the street was not whether he would drop out, but when. “He’s kind of the Bob Graham of January,” said independent analyst Stuart Rothenberg, referring to the Florida senator who ended his bid for president in October….
We all know the joke. All Jewish holidays can be summarized in nine words: “They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat!” But there’s seriousness behind the humor. (Isn’t there always?) So much of our group identity comes from food. As Steven M. Cohen and Arnold M. Eisen write in “The Jew Within: Self,…
Judge Rules on Hamas A U.S. federal judge ordered the Palestinian militant group Hamas to pay $116 million in damages for the deaths of an American citizen and his Israeli wife near the West Bank in 1996. The ruling Tuesday upheld a judge’s decision last month on behalf of relatives of Yaron and Efrat Ungar,…
The Jewish Children’s Museum dinner (emceed by NBC news anchor Jane Hanson) “belonged” to Devorah Halberstam. Her indefatigable determination helped realize this $50 million ultra-modern facility dedicated to her son, Ari, murdered 10 years ago by a Lebanese gunman while on a van full of chasidic students crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. Designed by the evening’s…
TEL AVIV — Yossi Ginossar, a former senior Shin Bet official and a key envoy to the leadership of the Palestinian Authority for three prime ministers, died January 12 of cancer at age 58. Ginossar served Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak as a liaison to Palestinian leaders, becoming particularly close to Palestinian Authority…
