Menachem Butler was in the fifth grade when his interest in genealogical research was born. A family-tree project for school had put him on the trail of an ancestor whom his father had always mentioned as a point of pride: Rabbi Shmuel Salant. Butler, now 19, found out that Salant for nearly 70 years was…
With a Peel: Skip the sugar. Skip the ice. The opinions posted on Bitterlemons.org may be hard to swallow, but like its namesake fruit, the self-described “Palestinian-Israeli Crossfire” yields a healthy squeeze of unfiltered, juicy commentary. The Web site — published in Hebrew, English and Arabic — is produced and edited by Yossi Alpher, a…
The grim tale of the Boston Red Sox’s trade of Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees and Boston’s subsequent 80-plus-year World Series drought has been told so many times as to become almost apocryphal. Indeed, the Curse of the Bambino has come to define the Red Sox nation — we are perennial also-rans and…
WASHINGTON — Seeking to prevent the unraveling of its so-called “road map” to Israeli-Palestinian peace, the Bush administration is scaling back its demands on each side in hopes of making it easier for each of them to comply. The apparent aim is to ease domestic political pressures on the leaders, as well as to defuse…
Scott Hillman was in the lobby of a Virginia Beach hotel that was hosting a convention for messianic Jews when a woman approached him. “You’re a nice Jewish boy; don’t you know Yeshua HaMashiach [Jesus the Messiah] was predicted in the Tanakh?” she said in a thick Israeli accent. Hillman — executive director of the…
Nominee Could Split Dems Democrats are weighing an effort to block the nomination of Henry Saad, an Arab-American judge from Michigan whom Bush has tapped for a seat on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, which handles federal appeals from Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. Although he is a conservative Republican, Saad’s…
With the JCC Maccabi Games on the horizon — they start Sunday in Houston — it’s not surprising that the minds of many Jews are filled with thoughts of sports. If you’re looking to give your favorite sports enthusiast a gift that keeps on giving, it might be time to end your search. Now there…
JERUSALEM — Police in the north were intensifying their searches this week for two teenagers, both American Jews, who have been missing since last week. One of the missing teens, Eliezer Zussiya Klughoft, 19, is the grandson of a chasidic leader in Brooklyn, the Skoliner rebbe, Rabbi Yisrael Avraham Portugal. A yeshiva student, he was…
Other than visits to the Polish Consulate in New York, I have not set foot on Polish “soil” since my mother and I fled Nazi-occupied Warsaw in the winter of 1939. Invited to the Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow, but unable to attend, I asked Michael Berkowicz, vice president of Friends of the Festival, if…
In a rare rebuke of Israel, the Anti-Defamation League is criticizing the Knesset for passing a bill that denies residency permits to Palestinians who marry Israeli citizens. The decision to speak out, albeit gently, puts the ADL in the unusual position of joining the European Union and international human rights organizations in criticizing Israeli policy….
My ex-mother-in-law just passed away. I have been divorced for seven years and have been dating the same man for the past four years. My boyfriend met my ex-mother-in-law and sees my ex-husband often since we share custody of our children. He would like to attend the services with me. Is this appropriate, or will…
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