InDepth

The 17th Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow just concluded and has lived up to the promise of being one of the most exciting Jewish festivals around the globe.

We, Israeli professors for justice and peace, do hereby appeal to researchers, academics, scholars and teachers, in Israel and throughout the world, to take a firm and clear stand against the continuing occupation and denial of rights.

After uncovering Nazi Germany's vast kingdom of death at the end of World War II, the victorious allies drafted a special charter for an international military tribunal at Nuremberg. Concluded on August 8, 1945, this document defined "crimes against humanity" as uniquely egregious acts that are designed to eradicate entire groups of people.

Whenever Jews come together in honor of a lifecycle event, it is a simchah.

Mention the names Leo Gottlieb, Sid Hertzberg, Ossie Schectman, Ralph Kaplowitz, Nat Milotzok and Hank Rosenstein, and the image that probably comes to mind is that of the board of directors of a Florida retirement village rather than half the roster of the 1946-47 New York Knickerbockers basketball team.

After their military defeat by regular forces, the occupied population produced terrorists who engaged in bombings, sniping, poisonings, and other attacks on occupation forces and on the civilian population.

In 1981, when Israel bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor and was condemned for it by nearly the entire world, Pastor John Hagee decided he had to stand up for Israel. And he did. “A Night to Honor Israel” was born with the purpose of giving the Christian community an opportunity to demonstrate its love and support of Israel and the Jewish people.

The cultural war between Islamic barbarism and Judeo-Christian civilization is raging even as Gaza and Sderot are under siege. The manipulation of propaganda is a key factor here. Britain – the country that turned Nazi-era European Jews back from Palestine’s shores – is now trying to boycott and isolate Israeli doctors, journalists, and university professors. The British Anglican Church, well-financed British-based NGOS (Christian Aid, World Vision, Amnesty International, etc.) and British academics have joined their voices to the Islamist-led jackal-chorus against Israel.

Until 1967, Gaza was part of Egypt. The Arabs who lived in Gaza considered themselves – get this – Egyptians. The Muslim Brotherhood was active and quite popular in Gaza – and outlawed by the Egyptian government.

The conductor gazed down at the orchestra, waved his baton and the stirring sounds of Grieg's "Triumphal March" began to fill the air.

Who was the one person most responsible for perpetuating traditional Judaism in 19th century America? The indisputable answer: Isaac Leeser.

What happens when the far Right collides with the hard Left? Will the universe explode? Will the laws of physics be distorted by some anti-Newtonian implosion of logic? No, they won’t. Not as long as the two ends of the spectrum are uniting to slam the Jews, that is.

My father, Dr. Isaac Lewin, z”l, was 37 years old in January 1943 when B’nai B’rith held a conference in Pittsburgh to which it invited 34 national Jewish organizations. It announced that the purpose of the meeting was “to consider what steps should be taken to bring about some agreement on the part of the American Jewish community with respect to the post-war status of Jews and the upbuilding of a Jewish Palestine.”

This July 4th will be different for me, and all it took was a “sieg heil” and dozens of cautionary injunctions to walk only where it is safe.

A recent Jewish Press editorial commented on an article I wrote for the Jerusalem Post calling for a reevaluation of the role of Israel’s Chief Rabbinate. The editorial provided an excerpt of my article, including my critique of the Chief Rabbinate’s extreme position on conversion to Judaism. It then raised an important question: why didn’t I entertain the need for a uniform standard? “We need to hear his [Rabbi Angel’s] views regarding the consequences of an absence of universal acceptance of halachic legitimacy…”

Now that Hamas has taken over Gaza, further exposing Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah as ineffective and quite possibly inconsequential players, its leading lights might want to erect a statue of Condoleezza Rice somewhere in beautiful downtown Gaza City.

As the Jews were about to leave the desert to enter the Promised Land, Moses told them (Deut. 29. 1-8), “You have seen everything that God did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and all the slaves and to all his land…. But God did not give you a heart to know, or eyes to see, or ears to hear, until this day. I lead you forty years in the wilderness ... and you arrived at this place…”

The New York Times is special to me. Always has been, always will be. Over the years there were times I was critical of Times editorials, and on a few occasions of its news stories. Yet my day would not be complete if I had not read the Times.

Lately, I’ve been reading some very strange things in various Jewish media outlets about the history of kiruv (outreach) in America. I’ve had to read some of these articles several times over just to be certain my eyes weren’t deceiving me.

It comes across as a classic Right-Left dispute. Liberals, led by Al Gore, claim global warming is due mainly to human activity and something must be done before it is too late. Conservatives question that and are quick to accuse the Left of scare tactics fueled by a desire to expand the powers of government. Yet if we put our emotions aside, reasonable discourse can take place and rational conclusions can be drawn.

How is it that those who were vilified and treated as pariahs are today widely praised for their actions during the Holocaust?

Repeatedly, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Chief Mohammed al-Baradei has urged Israel to accept nuclear disarmament and join a Middle East "nuclear-weapon-free zone." Although this official proposal sounds perfectly reasonable and even-handed in principle, it would, in fact, lead quickly to Israel's final demise. Still surrounded by states and terror groups openly committed to its annihilation, Israel must soon remind the world, that it has an absolutely fundamental right of self-preservation.

When traveling, it is best to do a little homework first - the more you know and prepare for a trip the more you will get out of it.

The summer wedding season is here, and even comic book characters are getting into the act.

The death in August 2001 of Hillel Kook, better known as Peter Bergson during his rescue efforts on behalf of European Jewry in the 1940’s, received a fair amount of notice in American newspapers with sizeable Jewish readerships.

At a meeting of Jewish leaders in 1939, Brandeis rebuffed a suggestion that bringing Jews to Palestine in defiance of the British was "illegal."

A recent headline in the Israeli daily newspaper Yediot Aharonot reported that certain military advisers are putting pressure on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to initiate talks with Syria for fear of a Syrian attack on Israel this summer. Those who advocate this policy are controlled by their fear and dread of another summer of the horrors of war.

In the last lap of his second term, George W. Bush has all but fallen off the major media scope. It’s not that he’s suddenly become beloved by The New York Times or that media pundits have now begun to see the light and embrace him. On the contrary, criticism of the president and his policies has become almost second nature to most of them.

It was shocking to see the writer Hillel Halkin marking the 40th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem by calling for its division. In a May 15op-ed in the New York Sun (“Mounting Figures”), Halkin wrote about the concern of Israeli political leaders with demographics. As a solution, he extended their call for territorial concessions even beyond Judea and Samaria, applying it to the capital city of Israel.

One of the many new “minhagim” in the shidduch world concerns two or more siblings who are in the proverbial parsha simultaneously. This is an increasingly frequent phenomenon due to the ever-increasing length of the average dating career.