The Bush administration, already under fire for under-funding the rebuilding of Afghanistan and permitting that country’s warlords to retain their power, is now facing charges that it is allowing Afghan drug production to boom. The charges, initially raised by a handful of independent experts, were aired at a Senate hearing in May. Critics say the…
CHICAGO — Liberal Protestant churches are coming under renewed fire from Israelis and their American allies who accuse the churches of unwillingness to hear Israel’s side in the Middle East debate. The newest unrest began to emerge after the start of the intifada, as Jewish observers noticed that the five prominent Protestant denominations were unwilling…
On the occasion of Israel’s celebration of its Independence Day, the Forverts devoted its “Pearls of Yiddish Poetry” page to several selections of poetry on the theme of the Israeli state. One of these was by H. Leivick who lived in Israel at the time of the historic Israeli Declaration of Independence. What follows is…
AQABA, Jordan — In the end, President Bush could not have hoped for more. He got Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas to say as much as either man could permit himself to say. Sharon gave his strongest-ever endorsement of Palestinian statehood and pledged to start immediately dismantling illegal settlement outposts. Abbas issued his bluntest denunciation…
The following exchange was excerpted from Charlie Rose’s May 30 television interview with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. CHARLIE ROSE: The other thing is that the American Jewish community does not speak with one voice either. THOMAS FRIEDMAN: Absolutely. The rank-and-file are a lot more moderate than the, quote unquote, leadership. CR: Why is…
Lectures and Discussions Vilna Memories: “Memory and Witnessing: Life, Culture and Politics in the Holocaust” is a lecture-reading with Barbara and Benjamin Harshav held in conjunction with the publication of “The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania” (Yale University) — the English translation of Herman Kruk’s chronicles of the Vilna ghetto and camps —…
American Jewish philanthropies are coming to blows with their main beneficiary, the State of Israel, following an unprecedented Israeli Cabinet vote to deplore Diaspora charities’ use of Israeli hunger as a fundraising tool. Prime Minister Sharon unleashed the opening salvo at a weekly Cabinet meeting last Sunday, lambasting overseas fundraisers who use images of “hunger…
WASHINGTON — The U.S.-backed “road map” to Middle East peace is coming under mounting attack from conservative pundits and several right-wing Jewish groups, while most influential Jewish organizations are offering either tepid support or subtle criticisms of the plan. As a result, some observers say, the weight of visible Jewish opinion in this country has…
The Jewish community has gained a new member — and a prominent new in-law. Katherine Gergen, a recent convert to Judaism and the daughter of former presidential adviser David Gergen, married Mark Barnett last Sunday in a Jewish ceremony held at Music Mountain in Falls Village, Conn. Rabbi James Ponet, a Conservative clergyman and the…
Shortly before leaving for his trip to Europe and the Middle East, President Bush met in Washington with members of the foreign press corps. One reporter questioned whether, with an election coming up next year, the president had the political ability to pressure Israel. “Can you really do that?” the reporter asked. “Of course I…
City College of New York, the near-mythic temple of working-class Jewish advancement, is on the rebound. Known to generations as a bridge between a working-class, immigrant past and a middle-class, professional future, the college has been for the most part forsaken in recent years by the children and grandchildren of its upwardly mobile Jewish alumni….
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