TEL AVIV — Syrian President Bashar al-Assad continued his version of a peace offensive this week, publicly offering to give up weapons of mass destruction if Israel agreed to do the same, knowing in advance that it won’t. Israel’s Prime Minister Sharon replied in kind, sending a message to Assad that if the Syrian leader…
Arizona “Stories Untold: Jewish Pioneer Women, 1850-1910”: TREX: the Traveling Exhibitions Program of the Museum of New Mexico is circulating this exhibition, which features the work of Santa Fe artist Andrea Kalinowski and is composed of nine large works telling the stories of Jewish pioneer women as they made their way across the Great Plains…
Israel’s absorption minister is under fire for reportedly speaking out in opposition to a Cabinet decision to immediately bring up to 20,000 Ethiopians of Jewish descent to Israel. Several Israeli media outlets have reported that the minister of immigrant absorption, Tzipi Livni, disparaged the idea of bringing the Falash Mura, descendents of Jews who converted…
Resisting History: Historicism and Its Discontents in German-Jewish Thought By David N. Myers Princeton University Press, 280 pages, $29.95 * * *| According to Jewish belief, God transcends history. He started it and could intervene in it at any time. But by means of ritual practices, memorializing events, educational transmission and interpretive practices (for texts…
Anne Roiphe is the author of numerous books, including the memoir “1185 Park Avenue,” the novel “Up the Sandbox” and “Fruitful: A Real Mother in the Modern World,” which was nominated for a National Book Award in Nonfiction. Her most recent accomplishment, “Secrets of the City” (Crown, 302 pages), began as a serialized novel published…
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Sharon traded verbal blows this week with the apparatus of his ruling Likud party, with disputes ranging from pure ideology to naked power in the background. The stage has now been set for a dramatic showdown next month that could have a profound effect on both. The party’s top decision-making authority,…
When Daniel Asia began composing music in the early 1970s, he was, like many of his generation, intent on turning his back on what came before out of a belief that he was part of a revolutionary movement forging a radical future. This went for everything: music, culture, politics and religion. He was part of…
WASHINGTON — In a historic about-face in the debate over federalism, conservatives are increasingly attempting to curtail states’ rights over social issuues through congressional legislation and the federal courts, while liberals are arguing for local control on several fronts. This shift was on full display after the Massachusetts Supreme Court recently ruled in favor of…
Professor Berel Lang writes from Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.: “Perhaps you would give a couple of paragraphs to the misconception (and the mistranslation) of the Sixth Commandment [in Exodus 20:13], ‘You shall not murder,’ as ‘You shall not kill.’ The original Hebrew, lo tirtsah., is very clear, since the verb ratsah. means ‘murder,’ not…
Two of Washington’s most famed neoconservatives — David Frum and Richard Perle — have issued a stinging critique of America’s fight against terrorism and are urging more aggressive action. In their new book, “An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror” (Random House), Frum and Perle call for universal biometric fingerprinting, immediate…
According to Jewish belief, God transcends history. He started it and could intervene in it at any time. But by means of ritual practices, memorializing events, educational transmission and interpretive practices (for texts and for law), Jews emphatically live out the belief in a suprahistorical God in recognition that historical time matters. Moreover, God’s plan…
