NDS, one of Israel’s most prominent high-tech success stories, has become embroiled this week in the ongoing hacking scandals that have been shaking Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation empire. According to allegations made in a BBC Panorama investigation, NDS, which is partly owned by NewsCorp, leaked details on the internet that allowed viewers in Britain to…
A tale of wine drew me in. The intriguing account of a new kosher winery’s genesis was being spun by a tall man with a gray beard and restless blue eyes for the benefit of an intent listener, Adam Montefiore, a wine writer and senior manager at the Carmel Winery. Around the two men swarmed…
We have all heard the story. A former lawyer — or investment banker, computer programmer or teacher — makes a gutsy career change, leaving the conventional job market behind to start producing small-batch artisanal sorbet. Or ricotta, chutney or sourdough bread. But what happens when enough of these craft food mongers start making similar products…
In this election year, even liberal Democrats are seeking to protect their flanks by touting hawkish credentials on Israel. For J Street, the dovish pro-Israel lobby whose annual Washington conference wrapped up recently, that makes 2012 a year for swimming upstream. The group is targeting its message where it believes it will have the most…
January marked the 75th anniversary of the original publication of “Bitter Fruit.” The poem evolved into the song “Strange Fruit,” which was made famous by jazz legend Billie Holiday and was named best song of the century by Time magazine in 1999. But its author and composer, Abel Meeropol, is largely forgotten today. “Strange Fruit”…
It was a single silver shekel that stole the spotlight at a recent New York coin auction. Its gavel price: $1.1 million. Back in the day, the shekel might have represented four days of a soldier’s pay. But that was 66 C.E., during a bloody and doomed fight to the death by Jewish nationalists against…
Chef Moshe Basson cuts a striking yet down-to-earth figure with his long, thin salt-and-pepper braid and chiseled face. I find him on a lush hillside near the entrance to Jerusalem, stripping olives from a tree. Plunking the olives into an old plastic grape juice bottle, he explains that in March, the tail end of olive…
Living up to its promise of bringing together a “big tent” of Jewish opinions, J Street has chosen to highlight at its conference speakers whose views at times exceed the dovish lobby’s comfort zone. In its Sunday evening plenary session, J Street gave the stage to author and journalist Peter Beinart, despite his call for…
While presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is the pick of the Republican Jewish establishment, Rick Santorum enjoys notable support among Orthodox Jews — a phenomenon that could become more visible with the approach of primaries in states that have large Orthodox populations. Romney, the front-runner in the Republican primary race, has raised millions from prominent Republican…
As J Street, the self-styled pro-peace, pro-Israel lobby, opens its annual conference this year, it does so at a time of unparalleled growth for the group, and serious setbacks for its cause. With talk of war with Iran dominating Israeli–American discourse, the dovish lobby is working hard to return the Palestinian issue to center stage….
Nothing evokes the Jewish holidays quite the way chopped liver does. It frequently appears at post-Yom Kippur break-fasts and makes eating matzo on Passover somewhat bearable. How chopped liver became a classic Ashkenazi Jewish staple is less clear. The Jews of Eastern Europe and Russia probably ate offal and lesser cuts of meat and poultry…
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