‘Meditation practice,” said Rabbi Rachel Cowan, outgoing director of the Jewish Life Program at the New York-based Nathan Cummings Foundation, “is a daily practice of teshuva. Literally, physically, you are coming back to your breath. But you are also coming back to who you are.” This journey to one’s true self has animated Cowan throughout…
Groups Push for AIDS Funds The campaign to push for more money to fight AIDS in Africa is uniting Jewish groups with rock stars, Christian leaders, human-rights activists and Africa advocates. The orchestrated effort is aimed at trying to convince the White House and the Republican congressional leadership to appropriate the full $3 billion President…
When the shofar blew at Amy Tobin’s Rosh Hashana celebration a few years ago, it was to the beat of techno music, and she was dancing. While she had little desire to attend synagogue, Tobin nonetheless felt a need to mark the new year. So she organized “Honey: DJs spin in 5761,” a party with…
WASHINGTON — Congressional support is mounting for tougher action against Syria and Iran, as the White House insists that both countries are attempting to develop weapons of mass destruction. The new congressional push for sanctions comes after senior Bush administration officials testified last week that Iran already has the ability to build crude biological warheads…
fascist party, and the other part of his government was the Northern Alliance, which is composed of racists from the north who regard the southerners as degenerate. Does that sound like a good human rights and civil rights record to you?” Even for some people sympathetic to the ADL’s decision, Berlusconi’s past is cause for…
‘Everything revolves around bread and death,” the Yiddish proverb tells us, and this is never truer than on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when we deny ourselves the one that we may not be condemned to the other. On the day during which we are most aware of our mortality we abstain from those…
A recently released review by leading survey researchers has pointed to holes in the methodology of the National Jewish Population Survey 2000-2001 that could have led to an undercount of the Jewish population. The review comes as emotions over the controversial population survey conducted by United Jewish Communities are reaching a fever pitch, with much…
This is the time of year when I ask forgiveness of my family and friends for anything I might have done in the past that was hurtful to them and when I focus on forgiving others for hurts they have inflicted on me. A few months ago I had a falling out with a friend,…
Hello, Goodbye: Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman is welcoming retired general Wesley Clark into the Democratic presidential race even as he is insisting that in at least one way, former Vermont governor Howard Dean is outside the Democratic Party. During a conference call September 19 with reporters from Jewish publications, a relaxed-sounding Lieberman had kind words…
First Day of Rosh Hashana: Genesis 21:1–34; Numbers 29:1–6; Second Day: Genesis 22:1–24, Numbers 29:1–6. * * *| ‘Pray take your son, your only-one, whom you love, Isaac, and go forth to the land of Moriah, and bring him up there as a sacrifice…” (Genesis 22:2). This bone-chilling scene opener might seem more apt in…
Simcha Dinitz, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States and past chairman of the Jewish Agency, has died. Dinitz, 74, died Tuesday of a heart attack in Jerusalem. Born in Tel Aviv, Dinitz joined the Haganah in pre-state Palestine and served in the Israel Defense Forces during the War of Independence. He spent 37…
אַנאַ שטערנשיס האָט געזאַמלט הונדערטער בעל־פּהיִקע גבֿית־עדותן פֿון מענער און פֿרױען פֿון פֿאַרשײדענע סאָציאַלע שיכטן.
