Emergent Communities Attract the Experienced One can scarcely begrudge opinion writer Shawn Landres his computer-infused enthusiasm for alternative emergent communities (“Breaking the Code of Ritual Observance,” December 7). However, a note of caution is in order. As a news article in the same issue indicates, such groups tend to attract Jews who have already had…
Partner Organizations Own Center’s Archives Regardless of whether a merger is desirable between New York University’s Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and the Center for Jewish History, as Lawrence Shiffman and Elisheva Carlebach debate in opposing November 30 opinion articles, facts regarding ownership of the center’s resources and of its mission need clarification…
Israel Faces Difficult Decision on Refugees The dramatic headline and conclusion to a November 16 article ignores the very positive ongoing dialogue between Israel and American Jewish organizations (“Israel Turns Down Help on Darfur Refugees”). The article correctly notes that the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and a number of American Jewish organizations have offered their…
Protect Pakistan’s Nukes Three cheers for a November 16 editorial on Pakistan (“The Bomb and the Taliban”). The most compelling idea that should inform our policy toward Pakistan is the urgent need to keep that country’s nuclear arsenal out of the hands of the Islamist extremists. That requires some stability, which rests, inter alia, on…
Recognize Importance Of the Temple Mount I was pleased to read Tzvi Hersh Weinreb and Stephen Savitsky’s vigorous defense of the future of a continued, unified Jerusalem (“We Cannot Forget Jerusalem,” November 9). I was utterly dismayed, however, by their description of the Western Wall as Judaism’s holiest site. We have come to expect such…
Religious Committed to Dialogue With Israelis A November 2 editorial perceptively links Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit’s proposal to drop the law of return and the efforts of American Jewish philanthropists to disconnect the Jewish Agency from the World Zionist Organization (“One People”). Both reflect the growing distance separating Israeli and American Jewry. Let me add…
For Jerusalem’s Sake The letter sent last month by the Orthodox Union to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with regard to the possibility of his government ceding sections of Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority was not, as your editorial asserts, motivated by “anger and insecurity” (“Holier Than Thou,” October 26). Rather, it was a reflection…
I Say Pizze, You Say Pizzi As a long-time fan and admirer of Philologos, I am thrilled to have caught him on a minor inaccuracy (“One Bagel, Two Bagel?”, September 28). The plurals of Italian pizza and pasta are not pizzi and pasti, but pizze and paste. Being myself a very small-scale linguist of the…
Archbishop Tutu’s Words Speak for Themselves An October 12 editorial argues that an examination of South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s actual remarks shows that he said nothing about Israel being racist, that he did not compare Israel to Hitler and that he is not even remotely antisemitic (“The Tutu Heave-Ho”). But in fact, the full…
Unhealthy Criticism Opinion writer Noam Neusner rightly exhorts policymakers to use facts, not anecdotes, to evaluate competing proposals for reauthorizing the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (“Anecdotes Won’t Keep America’s Kids Healthy,” October 5). In that spirit, here are some key facts. Since S-CHIP’s bipartisan enactment in 1997, the percentage of children without health coverage…
Congregants on Beach Don’t Wear Bathing Suits The Pacific Jewish Center, a fine congregation, is hardly “the last remaining vestige of Venice’s erstwhile Jewish community,” as a September 28 article reports (“Prayer Shawls, Flip-Flops Mingle at ‘Shul on the Beach’”). Congregation Mishkon Tephilo, a block from the beach and founded in 1918, is not only…
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