BOYS TOWN, Neb. — In a large Tudor-style house on a quiet, well-kept cul-de-sac, Daniel Ocanto, 17, proudly shows a visitor his bedroom. Shy yet articulate, he talks about his love of classic rock — hence the Pink Floyd posters and drum set — and his plans to attend Brandeis University next year. It seems…
WASHINGTON — Liberal groups are vowing a constitutional court challenge if President Bush follows through on his promise to sign the first federal law banning an abortion procedure. The measure, a ban on a procedure widely known as “partial birth abortion,” passed the House of Representatives last week by a wide margin, after the Senate…
OAKLAND — The self-proclaimed “guru of ganja” Ed Rosenthal says his one-day, time-already-served sentence for three marijuana-cultivation felonies proves that federal laws against pot are going up in smoke. But a federal judge in San Francisco insisted that this get-out-of-jail-free card could be played only once. Rosenthal faced the possibility of a decades-long prison sentence…
What do a trumpeter from a band called Sex Mob, a popular hip-hop session musician and a Latino percussionist who once played for Yiddish theater have in common? They all play jazz infused with Jewish melodies and Latin rhythms, and are all featured in Tzadik’s “Radical Jewish Culture” CD series. And this month, all three…
Russian President Vladimir Putin, meeting with a group of senior American Jewish communal leaders in a hastily arranged Kremlin session Tuesday evening, promised to tighten Russian monitoring of Iran’s nuclear program, but he rejected a request to cut off ties with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. The two and a half hour meeting, which was initiated…
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is set to push for an end to the ban on direct American funding of the Palestinian Authority, according to congressional sources. The White House intends to ask Congress to allow transferring of American financial aid directly to the Palestinian Authority, rather than the current practice of funneling funds to…
When I was a boy, my father was either absent or screaming, a lose-lose dialectic that forged my resolve to grow up to become a different kind of man. In the intervening decades, though, struggling to carve out my niche in the world, I rarely thought about fatherhood or children. But then, when I was…
JERUSALEM — The failed assassination of Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi is likely to weaken the already precarious position of Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and to herald a new wave of terrorist attacks against Israelis. This was the assessment of most Israeli analysts even before the Hamas-backed suicide bombing in Jerusalem Wednesday and Israel’s…
JERUSALEM — Meir Wilner, the last surviving signer of Israel’s Declaration of Independence and longtime leader of the Israel Communist Party, died last week at 85. A member of the Knesset from 1949 until he retired in 1990, Wilner was an unrepentant communist to the end. He said in a 1998 interview, on the 50th…
About a year ago an Israeli friend of mine called my parents’ house looking for me. “So what are you Israelis doing about the settlements?” demanded my father, a fervent believer in complete Israeli withdrawal from every last corner of the West Bank and Gaza. “I’m not doing anything,” my friend said. “Well, you should!”…
JERUSALEM — Menashe Habakuk was once described as Israel’s golden boy. National judo champion during the late 1980s, he won the gold medal at the 1990 Maccabiah games, married an adoring fan and went to work as a trainer in a studio near Tel Aviv. Six years later he was working part time as an…
הערט אַן אַרטיקל וועגן אַ באַליבטער מעשׂה פֿון אַ באָבע מיט די אייניקלעך און אַ צווייטן אַרטיקל וועגן חסידישע מעשׂיות.
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