It could have been any Saturday night fraternity homecoming party — almost. Rutgers University’s football team had lost to Pittsburgh that October afternoon, but the students were still in a celebratory mood in New Brunswick, N.J. There was dancing, and booze was being swilled from large red-plastic cups. To the uninitiated, the only thing that…
JERUSALEM — It is a showdown worthy of a Hollywood script, where “The Sopranos” meets “Law and Order” deep inside “The West Wing.” It is a confrontation that is shaking Israel’s law-enforcement apparatus to the core and rocking its political establishment. It is depicted on both emotional sides as a fateful battle between good and…
In their latest campaign against the National Rifle Association, gun-control groups are highlighting the names of Jewish organizations and individuals found on an NRA-compiled “blacklist,” in what observers say is an effort to spur one of the gun-control lobby’s key constituencies to action. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence-Million Mom March bought advertisements in…
Should I go behind my 72-year-old mother’s back and tip her doormen? She has lived in the same building for the past 20 years. She gives each doorman $10 for the holidays. Period. Should I slip the doormen something extra when I visit her, and, if so, how much would be appropriate? — At the…
A group of American lawmakers has introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives calling for recognition of the plight of the 900,000 Jews who fled Arab countries after 1948. The congressional move is part of a larger campaign by Israel and its supporters here to link the fates of Jews and Arabs who fled…
Sunshine State Scramble: Rep. Peter Deutsch, a Jewish Democrat from south Florida, has emerged as the best-financed of the several contenders vying to replace Senator Bob Graham, who declared this week that he would not run for re-election in 2004. Deutsch, whose district stretches from Broward County south to Key West, has some $3 million…
Just the other day, Levi Strauss, the maker of one of America’s most representative products — blue jeans — announced that it was closing the last of its North American manufacturing plants and transferring all of its operations overseas. The company’s announcement marked a sad day for its thousands of employees and for history as…
The head of Conservative Judaism’s flagship institution is arguing that the movement made a “mistake” when it issued a landmark ruling a half-century ago permitting Jews to drive to synagogue on the Sabbath. Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, made his declaration last week in Dallas during a speech at the biennial…
A group of American lawmakers has introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives calling for recognition of the plight of the 900,000 Jews who fled Arab countries after 1948. The congressional move is part of a larger campaign by Israel and its supporters here to link the fates of Jews and Arabs who fled…
Here is the call to Abraham: “Now the Lord said unto Abram: Get thee [Lech Lecha, Go! Go! or perhaps, Get going!] out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto the land that I will show thee.” [Genesis 12:1] This call is of universal applicability, as we might expect…
Ukraine’s most prominent and controversial Jewish businessman, Vadim Rabinovich, said he has bought a “controlling stake” in America’s oldest Russian-language daily newspaper, Novoe Russkoe Slovo, and its sister radio station, Narodnya Volna. Rabinovich, the first overseas owner of NRS, holds a number of Ukrainian media properties, which are known for journalistic standards that are “far…
