The day after a watershed decision by the Jewish Federations of North America to allow some of its trips to visit the West Bank, the organization is hearing an unusual sound: Applause from both sides of the Jewish communal aisle. Hawkish and dovish Jewish leaders are cheering the October 26 board vote for wildly different…
Here are some corrections and updates to my earlier post on who voted how in the Conference of Presidents vote on J Street’s application for membership. 1.) I’ve learned from several sources that Mercaz USA, the Conservative movement’s Zionist arm, in fact voted “No,” breaking with the denomination’s other wings. 2.) On the other hand,…
Anyone can change the course of events, especially when they see injustice. That was the mantra of Gordon Zacks, who died Saturday in the Columbus, Ohio area at the age of 80. A founder of the Republican Jewish Coalition and an unofficial adviser to George H.W. Bush, Gordon wrote the book on character, courage and…
As if the responsibility of running America’s largest Jewish federation were not enough, Eric “Ricky” Goldstein, who was chosen January 23 as the next CEO of UJA-Federation of New York, bears an additional burden: He is seen as the symbol of a new generation of leaders coming to the fore in the Jewish community. Goldstein,…
Defying predictions, America’s Jewish federations mustered to mount an unabashed show of strength when they gathered in Jerusalem November 10 for the annual General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA). It wasn’t exactly the sort of defiance their Israeli hosts were accustomed to seeing at an American Jewish philanthropists’ convention. Prime Minister…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed some 1,500 leaders of the top North American Jewish philanthropies to Jerusalem for their annual assembly with an angry denunciation of the Iranian nuclear negotiations that their government is leading in Geneva. In a rambling, repetitive, hour-long speech that was by turns impassioned, sarcastic and bitter, Netanyahu attacked the…
Those who read my Friday blog post about the Israel-Diaspora deliberations going on in Jerusalem this week might have noticed that I mentioned a paradox in the way the discussions are going, but I never detailed the substance of the paradox. The sun was setting over the Mediterranean before I had a chance to finish…
Jerusalem is having an unusually mild fall. November began amid sunny skies, temperatures in the high 60s, light breezes and just the slightest hint of feathery drizzle to announce that after a bone-dry October, the rainy season was finally about to return. Diaspora Jews are returning too. No, not the waves of immigration that generations…
אין די 1980ער האָט מען געזונגען דאָס באַקאַנטע ליד פֿון פּיטער, פּאָל און מערי בײַ מאַניפֿעסטאַציעס צו באַפֿרײַען די סאָוועטישע ייִדן
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