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…
Washington should send an American aircraft carrier to the Syrian coast, summon strongman Bashar al-Assad aboard, chide him vigorously for sponsoring terrorism, meddling in Iraq and pursuing weapons of mass destruction — and take special care to confront him over Syria’s occupation of Lebanon. So says the CIA’s former director. “Besides terror-related activities, there is…
With his clever, caustic, comical poems in both Yiddish and English, Stanley Siegelman — a constant contributor to Der Vinkl — continues to amaze and amuse us. What follows are both his Yiddish and English versions of the plight of the ballerina who lost her job with the Bolshoi Ballet because she was deemed “overweight.”…
WASHINGTON — Still smarting from an embarrassing dust-up with his top general a day earlier, Israel’s Prime Minister Sharon received a stunning public rebuke last week from a key ally in Washington when Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz endorsed a peace plan that envisions Israel withdrawing to its June 1967 borders. Wolfowitz, considered the leader…
LOS ANGELES — After reading news of devastating fire storms, widespread local labor strikes and Middle East suicide bombings, readers of the Los Angeles Times may have found some relief in the headline “UCLA Rabbi Accused of Kicking Woman.” The incident may generate some laughs, but it has triggered a face-off between supporters and critics…
At the gym one day a few years back, Howard Leavitt started chatting with a Korean War veteran at a nearby locker. Leavitt told the man that he too had served in Korea, as a Marine, and he was aghast to hear the man respond, “I didn’t even know there were Jews in the Marine…
as a cadet at west point, i learned that a state cannot survive for long unless it alone controls the use of force. the story that most vividly illustrates this point started back in 1948. it is the story of the state of israel. In June of that year, a ship named the Altalena dropped…
JERUSALEM — Last month’s closure of the major media outlet of the pro-settler religious right, radio station Arutz-7, has left supporters scrambling to get it back on the air and critics satisfied that the law against illegal broadcasting has been upheld. The Oct. 20 ruling by a Jerusalem Magistrates Court, after four and a half…
At the October 26 Friends of AKIM USA dinner at the Plaza, black-tied, gowned and bejeweled Hamptons, Palm Beach and Friars Club boosters mingled to honor “Man of the Year” Daniel Rattiner, publisher and president of Dan’s Papers, Inc. AKIM is the Hebrew acronym for the Association for the Habilitation of the Mentally Handicapped in…
