First it was scuffles and water fights in Knesset; now it’s homophobia. Anastasia Michaeli just doesn’t seem to get the conventions of normal inoffensive behavior. You probably remember the model turned politician from the ugly saga in January when she threw a cup of water at Israeli-Arab lawmaker Raleb Majadele during a Knesset discussion. Or…
There is a heart-wrenching moment in “We Were Here,” David Weissman’s documentary about the AIDS crisis in San Francisco, which stands out from the rest of the film. Ed Wolf, an activist and one of the five people extensively interviewed by Weissman, remembers a conversation he had with the father of a hospitalized and infected…
Charles de Gaulle famously observed that France had “la droite la plus bête au monde” [“the dumbest right-wing in the world”]. Events over the last couple of days reveal that the French Right continues to work hard for bragging rights to that dubious moniker. At the start of the week Christian Vanneste, a deputy of…
Sixth formers (high school seniors) at JFS, the oldest and largest Jewish day school in England, are being taught that homosexuality can be cured. At least, that is how some students, parents and community leaders understand the inclusion of information about JONAH — Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (an American organization that maintains that…
When Poland’s new Sejm, or Parliament, was seated recently, the nationally televised event showed something never before seen in this conservative nation: a transsexual woman and an openly gay man being solemnly sworn in along with other parliamentarians. The seminal event was a consequence of the emergence of Palikot, a new, explicitly anti-clerical, libertarian-oriented party…
Genesis 18:1–22:24 You Shall Hear the Cry of the Oppressed The thought of commenting on Parashat Vayera immediately prompts the desire to write something soothing, to get away from the binding of Isaac, the destruction of Sodom and the strange story of Sarah’s strange pregnancy. The portion has other, gentler lessons to teach – for…
Another living link to the Holocaust was lost last week when the last surviving man to have worn the pink triangle — sewn onto concentration camp uniforms to signify homosexuality — died at the age of 98. The New York Times reported that Rudolf Brazda, who had been imprisoned in Buchenwald, died in Alsace, France,…
With leaders of Conservative Judaism predicting an end to the outright ban on gay ordination and same-sex marriage, some of the movement’s more traditional Canadian synagogues are threatening to form a breakaway coalition. Several movement leaders, speaking at an August 24 meeting in New York, said that the ordination of gay rabbis and the sanctioning…
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