Posted on: November 29th, 2006

No Citizenship For Ruth?     Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar seems to advocate throwing out the baby with the bath water. Jews are seriously praying for Mashiach ben David, yet Rabbi Amar (front page news story, Nov. 24) would reject giving ancestor Ruth the Convert rights of automatic citizenship. Ira FriedmanBrooklyn, NY  Sderot Double Standard    On Nov 22, […]

Posted on: November 29th, 2006

It is a little known fact in the Jewish world that Poland is famous for its artistic posters.

Posted on: November 29th, 2006

Interview with a suicide bomber in training

Posted on: November 29th, 2006

Nearly 40 years have passed since Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria were liberated from the occupying Jordanians by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). That's the same number of years the Jewish people wandered in the desert before they were allowed to enter the Promised Land.

Posted on: November 29th, 2006

All we need to do to solve the Agunah problem for the next generations is to ensure the widespread use of the "halachic prenuptial agreement," right? Wrong.

Posted on: November 29th, 2006

It was a Simchas Torah to remember in the Detroit area. In an explosion of simcha, while we were engaged in hakafos, fans downtown were celebrating a three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning that sent our hometown Tigers to the World Series.

Posted on: November 29th, 2006

Last week another nail was driven into the coffin of President Bush's vision of a free and democratic Middle East. The Syrians aren't even trying to hide their involvement in the assassination of Lebanon's Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel.

Posted on: November 29th, 2006

For obvious reasons, the disproportionate number of Jews who were either members of the old American Communist Party or otherwise active in left-wing politics during the Cold War has always been a sensitive issue for the Jewish community.

Posted on: November 22nd, 2006

Kahane’s Virtues    It’s quite true, as Rabbi Stephen Polter states (Letters, Nov. 17), that more people are acknowledging Rabbi Meir Kahane’s prescience, wisdom and foresight. While Rabbi Polter correctly lauds Rabbi Kahane’s virtues and designates him one of our greatest Jewish leaders, I must take issue with the advice he would have proffered to Rabbi […]

Posted on: November 22nd, 2006

We Americans now live with an entirely reasonable fear of war and terror. Indeed, there is precious little doubt that our country will become a recurrent victim of new attacks by those who openly seek the genocidal destruction of "infidels."

Posted on: November 22nd, 2006

Jimmy Carter's new book - Palestine Peace Not Apartheid - should, by all rights, be headed for the remainder bin. Martin Peretz, editor-in-chief of The New Republic, calls it a "tendentious, dishonest and stupid book."

Posted on: November 22nd, 2006

There are few places in Israel more serene and relaxing than the spa hotel atop Mount Carmel. As I sit here on the terrace taking in the spectacular view toward Haifa bay, the silence is shattered by the thunderclap of F16s echoing through the mountainside. When this disturbance recurs hourly, some find it slightly unnerving. To me it is so very reassuring.

Posted on: November 22nd, 2006

Just a month after being diagnosed with cancer, and now practically confined to a bed as a method of pain control, I couldn't sleep, so I picked up the Maharal's Drush Na'eh l'Shabbos T'shuvah, which I had been hoping to read prior to Yom Kippur.

Posted on: November 22nd, 2006

My zaidy a pilgrim? It may, at first glance, seem like a crazy statement, but it's true. In fact, all of our parents, grandparents or great-grandparents were pilgrims.

Posted on: November 22nd, 2006

The leopard isn't the largest of the big cats. It's not feared as a king of beasts. It's not the fastest, like the cheetah. Rather, the leopard is persistent. A solitary hunter, its sharp vision enables it to see what others can't. It dwells alone, stalking its prey in the darkness, able to kill animals much larger than itself. It often hauls its prey up a tree, to protect it from jackals and other scavengers.

Posted on: November 22nd, 2006

Last week, on a wet and windy night in Manhattan, hundreds flocked into the beautiful main sanctuary of Kehillat Jeshurun to hear Nobel-laureate economist and Israeli citizen Robert (Yisrael) Aumann preach the word.

Posted on: November 22nd, 2006

For those with eyes to see, there were hints as far back as the 1976 presidential campaign of the trouble to come. Early that year, Harper’s magazine published “Jimmy Carter’s Pathetic Lies,” a devastating exposé of Carter’s record in Georgia by a then little-known journalist named Steven Brill.

Posted on: November 15th, 2006

Florida Voters   Re “Jews Key In South Florida Vote” (news story, Nov. 3):   As a longtime resident of Boca Raton, a converted Jewish umbilical-cord Democrat, and chair of Jewish Outreach for the Boca Raton Republican Club, I constantly challenge the political intelligence of my fellow Jews here in South Florida.   I can tell you that […]

Posted on: November 15th, 2006

It is easy to feel sorry for the Palestinians in Gaza. Televised and print images of their apparently unrelieved misery would appear to suggest Israeli cruelty in the use of armed force. Exactly the opposite is true. By deliberately placing elderly women and young children in areas from which lethal rockets are launched into Israeli homes and schools, it is only the Palestinian leaders who openly violate the law of war.

Posted on: November 15th, 2006

The cemetery in Lodz is said to be one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe, with about 230,000 graves.