Forward National Editor Ami Eden will be participating in a week-long online book discussion on “Wrestling With Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” Visit amieden.com on Monday December 8 to view the discussion, which will also feature Steven I. Weiss and Pinchas Shapiro of protocols.blogspot.com, Brad Pilcher of justanotherrant.blogspot.com, and Daniel “Mobius” Sieradski…
The following essay is an abbreviated version of the introduction to “Yiddish South of the Border: An Anthology of Latin American Yiddish Writing,” edited by Alan Astro and released by the University of New Mexico Press. In the ever-popular “The Joys of Yiddish” (1968), Leo Rosten offered the following definition for Ladino: “Ladino, or Judesmo,…
Israel’s attorney general has declined to bring incitement charges against 250 rabbis who signed a religious ruling branding liberal opposition leaders as traitors for their role in the Geneva Understandings. The decision not to prosecute was hailed by Orthodox leaders in Israel and the United States, many of whom were vehemently opposed to the peace…
In 1923, a year before Charlton Heston was born, Cecil B. DeMille shot his original version of “The Ten Commandments.” In its day, it was the largest, most popular project ever put on film. With a price tag of $1.48 million, it was also the most expensive. Following its glittering premiere — 80 years ago…
JERUSALEM — During his recent interview with The New York Times, Syrian President Bashar Assad raised the possibility of normalization between his country and Israel. But he was really sending a message about the sour state of relations between Washington and Damascus. When asked to explain what he meant by “normalization” with Israel, Assad replied,…
Upon its debut 80 years ago, Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments” was hailed by The New York Times as the most “wonderful spectacle ever put before the public.” The silent film’s first half recounted the events that led up to Mount Sinai; its second melodramatically recounted what happened when ordinary men and women lost…
In a dramatic admission, the French government’s newly-appointed liaison to the worldwide Jewish community is saying that Paris underestimated the scope of domestic antisemitism and finally has decided to respond appropriately. While Jewish community leaders have expressed alarm about the growing antisemitism repeatedly during the past three years, French officials have consistently downplayed the wave…
Drunk from his bachelor party, still in jeans and flannel shirt, Jack plops onto his bed and falls asleep. He snores. Soon he’s dreaming of tomorrow’s chupah, his white-veiled Rachel being led down the aisle by her father, Wisconsin’s goat-cheese king. Stainless-steel vats of curds roll onto the bima, and speckled sheep leap oh-so-Chagallesque over…
If there was ever an example of why I titled the book about my Holocaust restitution negotiations in the Clinton administration “Imperfect Justice,” it is the case of Simon Rozenkier. Every fiber of our beings screams out for justice for Rozenkier, a slave laborer and survivor of the infamous death march to Buchenwald who was…
A certain British society thinks antisemitism is comic — or at least cartoonish. A collection of 300 political cartoonists from newspapers throughout Great Britain are being accused of antisemitism for awarding a controversial cartoon of the Israeli prime minister first prize in their annual competition. The cartoon in question portrays a ravenous Sharon — clad…
My 2-year-old daughter bit me. She bit me so hard that four days later I still had a half-moon of tiny tooth imprints tattooed on my skin. She was playing a “Sesame Street” game on her computer (don’t get me started on my ambivalence about the computer, which she stares at with glazed intensity while…
