This week’s portion, Devarim, is read on the Shabbat before Tisha B’Av, the day on which, tradition tells us, both the First and Second Temples were destroyed. Tradition also tells us that the second destruction “came about through a Kamtza and a Bar Kamtza.” 66 C.E. Judea. A dinner party. As a wealthy gentleman, Reuven,…
LETTER FROM LA PAZ When a hunger strike by government deputies forced the Bolivian president to call an emergency session of Congress in June, a group of men gathered at Eli’s Confiteria in downtown La Paz to assess the situation. When rival Bolivian security forces clashed in the capital earlier this year, leaving some 30…
Earning money is nice; making it grow is even nicer. What should individuals who want their money to make money do? Put it in a bank? Interest rates are negligible. Buy stocks? The memory of Enron and other scandals is still fresh. Recently this writer sat down with Michael Woolfolk, senior currency strategist at the…
TEL AVIV — Amir Peretz, chairman of the Histadrut labor federation, is a hot commodity these days, to the apparent surprise of just about everybody but him. He’s emerged as the main threat to Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial budget reforms. His name is spoken with awe on the streets of Israel’s urban slums and…
Stanley Siegelman does it again. For steady readers of Der Vinkl, Stanley’s name by now should be familiar. In satirical poetic form, he has described a Jewish White House with Joe Lieberman at its helm. He then shared with us his view of Hillary Clinton’s view of Bill Clinton. From there he took us through…
Bonds That Bind: Comparisons between Israel and South Africa are usually of the less-than-charitable variety, seeking to draw parallels between apartheid-era policies and Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. A July 23 opinion article in the South African paper of record, though, has Johannesburg looking to Jerusalem for guidance on societal reconciliation. To…
The president of the World Jewish Congress criticized Israel’s security fence in a letter to President Bush. The fence, which Israel says is necessary against terrorist infiltration, is “complicated and potentially problematic,” Edgar Bronfman wrote to Bush on Monday. The letter is co-signed by Lawrence Eagleburger, a former secretary of state who chairs the International…
Israel, Austria Renew Ties Israel is resuming full diplomatic ties with Austria and will soon appoint an ambassador to Vienna, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom announced Tuesday at a joint press conference in Jerusalem with his Austrian counterpart, Benita Ferrero-Waldner. Israel downgraded relations with Austria in February 2000 after the far-right Freedom Party, then led by…
WASHINGTON — A meeting between Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and about 50 Jewish community leaders in Washington last week left most of the activists convinced of Abbas’s commitment to peace. The meeting also underscored the growing support for President Bush’s Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative among the Jewish community and the growing influence, in the community,…
The message is crystal-clear. Point one: French society is not more antisemitic than American society. Yes, there is anti-Jewish violence in France, but nearly all of it comes from socially estranged Arab youths, inflamed by the intifada. And in France, unlike America, no Jews have been killed or seriously wounded. Point two: American Jewish groups…
“Women of Ravensbrück: Portraits of Courage” focuses on the experiences of women during the Holocaust. Ravensbrück was the largest of the Nazi concentration camps for women, located roughly 50 miles north of Berlin. It opened in May 1939 for an estimated 3,000 people, but 132,000 women and children from 23 nations passed through its gates….
חוה אַלבערשטיין האָט לעצטנס אַרויסגעלאָזט איר אויטאָביאָגראַפֿיע, וווּ זי באַשרײַבט די ראָלע פֿון ייִדיש אין איר רעפּערטואַר און אין איר לעבן
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