Amid the revolutionary turmoil sweeping the Arab world, there is renewed interest in Washington in supporting the movement for human rights and democracy in Iran. The new atmosphere reflects a noticeable shift in the policy discussion in Washington. The Obama administration has, at times, been hesitant to embrace Iran’s opposition movement, wary of being seen…
The hubbub surrounding Cuba’s small Jewish community these days does not faze Yakob Berezniak Hernandez. Sitting behind a desk crowded with a typewriter, several cans of Lieber’s tomato paste and piles of loose foreign change, Hernandez, of Havana’s Adath Israel synagogue, waved away inquiries about Alan Gross, the 61-year-old American Jewish contractor sentenced to 15…
At Tifereth Israel Congregation, on the northernmost tip of northwest Washington, just before the District of Columbia brushes against Maryland, there is a new book group. Named for Carla Cohen, the Sabbath-afternoon group will be reading this longtime congregant’s favorite books in her honor. It might seem unremarkable — a beloved congregant, a book lover,…
PITCHING IN THE PROMISED LAND Aaron Pribble University of Nebraska Press 272 pgs $24.95 When I learned that a professional baseball league would be starting up in Israel in 2007, I was excited that my two great loves, Israel and baseball, would be together at last, like chocolate and peanut butter. America?s pastime had taken…
Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems 2007-2010 By Adrienne Rich W.W. Norton & Company, 24.95 How does poetry serve, since, as W.H. Auden told us long ago, it ?makes nothing happen?? That is the question behind Adrienne Rich?s most recent book, which comes as a summary of all she has learned in the course of…
Warsaw ? If it weren?t for a story she read in 1972 in a local paper, she would probably be a retired journalist by now. Instead, the phones are ringing, meetings are being set and work is progressing on a new book. Monday morning at the apartment of Hanna Krall is not exactly peaceful. At…
Jewish Mysticism and the Spiritual Life: Classical Texts, Contemporary Reflections Lawrence Fine, Eitan Fishbane, and Or N. Rose Jewish Lights 256 pgs. $24.99 We may consider ourselves fortunate to have the many personal reflections on mystical texts offered in tribute to Arthur Green, on the occasion of his 70th birthday. ?Jewish Mysticism and the Spiritual…
If you were wondering (which, perhaps, you weren?t) how to create the most memorable ad campaign ever ? one that will get stuck in your brain, like the Taco Bell chihuahua; or Coke?s ?I?d Like To Teach the World To Sing? song, or even the E*TRADE baby, except for an extra couple of THOUSAND years…
Happy April, the Poetry Month! To the list of festive occasions, picked up in this American goles, or exile ? Thanksgiving, Mardi Gras, the Hotdog Eating Contest day at Nathan?s in Coney Island ? a new one can now be added: April, the Poetry Month. Now in its 15th year, the newly minted holiday was…
Warren Handel writes from Edwardsville, Ill.: ?Perhaps I am mistaken, but I had always understood the term ?denomination? to refer to varieties of Christianity. When did the term come into use to describe varieties of Judaism? What terminology did it replace?? Mr. Handel is not mistaken. Religious groupings such as Lutheranism, Calvinism, Presbyterianism, Methodism and…
Keeping religion at arm?s length from the government is one thing. Keeping one religion at arm?s length from another, especially at the grassroots level of participation, is something else again. Whether we call it ??cultural appropriation?? or ? less ominously, perhaps ? cultural borrowing, there happens to be a lot of traffic between faiths in…
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