WASHINGTON — Angered by a wave of Palestinian terrorist attacks in Israel, pro-Israel hawks here are stepping up their criticisms of President Bush’s “road map” to peace, claiming that the violent surge proves the plan’s dangers to Israel. The violence prompted stern warnings to the president from both Jewish and Christian groups opposed to the…
War of Ideas: “During the 19th century, many people around the world earnestly believed that mankind had discovered the secret of steady human progress, and that secret was the culture of liberalism — the culture of rights, rationality, and innovation, which had arisen in Europe and spread to other places,” Paul Berman writes in the…
How Jewish can a democratic state be? That was the question at the heart of political philosopher Michael Walzer’s recent lecture, “The Jewish State and the Democratic Tradition.” Walzer, editor in chief of Dissent magazine and a professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, delivered the keynote address earlier this month at a…
A Jewish labor group is blasting the largest Orthodox organization in America for endorsing a bill that labor unions say is a Republican assault on workers’ rights. The legislation in question is a House bill that would allow businesses to offer workers time off from work, known as compensatory time, in place of time-and-a-half overtime…
It’s an intriguing position,” mused Maer Roshan, “being a member of three distinct minority groups in the United States at this moment.” Roshan, the 36-year-old publisher and editor of Radar — one of the most eagerly anticipated new magazines to hit the newsstands in years — is talking about being Jewish, Iranian and gay. “Maybe…
An erstwhile ally of Pennsylvania Republican Senator Arlen Specter says the moderate lawmaker has damaged his support among gay and progressive voters. Malcolm Lazin, a gay Republican and executive director of Philadelphia’s Equality Forum, said this damage is the result of the senator’s ringing defense of fellow Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum after Santorum made what…
Someone who makes a successful shidduch, or marriage match, is called a matchmaker. Someone who makes more than a thousand such matches is called Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis. Jungreis, who claims to have made an average of one shidduch a week for the past 30 years, shares her insights into marital bliss in her third book,…
The New York Times is rescheduling an “informal debate” to which it invited the Democratic presidential candidates. In a May 1 letter obtained by the Forward, Times associate editor John Darnton invited the candidates to participate in the daytime event on Saturday, June 21 — in the middle of the Jewish Sabbath. Connecticut Senator Joseph…
On May 4, a crowd of nearly 200 packed into the community hall of the Brotherhood Synagogue, located on the posh, southern edge of New York’s Gramercy Park. A young-looking man with closely cropped black hair, a matching goatee and black-rimmed glasses stepped to the bima, in front of the holy ark, and welcomed the…
Much has been made of the barbs recently traded by former Vermont governor Howard Dean and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry over their respective postures toward the Iraq war, among other issues. Now a supporter of another presidential candidate, Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, has decided to join the fray. George Spitz, Kucinich’s chief supporter in New…
The highlight of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s week-long 10th anniversary celebration was the April 30 National Days of Remembrance commemoration address by Secretary of State Colin Powell. Held in Washington’s Capitol Rotunda with grand pomp, this remarkable event could not have been imagined by anyone after World War II, especially by the thousands…
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