Yearly Archives 2013

The nomination of Samantha Power for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations has drawn the Jewish community’s attention to her controversial 2002 remark about hypothetical U.S. action against Israel to protect Palestinians from genocide. But Power’s confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate is also likely to address a broader… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — How do you confront hatred when it has no fixed address? Abraham Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League national director, attempts to pin down an answer to the question in his latest book, “Viral Hate.” Co-authored with privacy lawyer Christopher Wolf, the book chronicles the complications of countering… Read more »

A Star of David in the architecture of the Van Ostade Jewish Housing Project in The Hague. (The Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, www.cidi.tv)

THE HAGUE, the Netherlands (JTA) — On a cold winter night in 2008, Wim Kortenoeven was startled by the crackling of a large fire raging near his home on the edge of this city’s last remaining Jewish enclave. Rushing from his apartment, Kortenoeven walked 70 yards and crossed the… Read more »

Dina Gachman

(JTA) — The year I unwittingly decided to become Christian started innocently enough. “There’s a sleepover at First Methodist on Friday and everyone is going,” I said to my parents. I was in the sixth grade, one of three Jews in class at our Texas public school. We lived… Read more »

NEW YORK (Corriere della Sera Online) — His Wikipedia page remembers him, in at least 10 languages, as “the Italian police commissioner who saved thousands of Jews from being deported to Nazi extermination camps during the Second World War and for this was deported to the Dachau Concentration Camp,… Read more »

A Better Place customer charging his electronic vehicle in the company's headquarters in Ramat Hasharon, Israel, February 2010. (Roni Schutzer/Flash 90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — It was supposed to be the car of the future, a near-silent, battery-powered vehicle that would wean the West off its dependence on Middle Eastern oil and save the environment in the process. And an Israeli company seemed destined to build it. Better Place, founded… Read more »

Mimi Gold, an Israeli Reform rabbi who won a Supreme Court case entitling her to a state salary, has yet to receive a paycheck a year later. (Facebook)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israel’s plans to move ahead with the funding of non-Orthodox rabbis appeared to be a landmark  achievement for Reform and Conservative leaders, who have long chafed at their second-class treatment by the Israeli government. But even as they welcomed last week’s news that the Ministry… Read more »

Demonstrators in Berlin protesting the deaths of pro-Palestinian activists in a clash with Israeli commandos aboard the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, June 2010. (Sean Gallup/Getty)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israel’s settlement building is increasingly isolating the country in Europe, leading to European Union policies that could reinforce Israel’s delegitimization, according to the top EU representative to the peace process. Andreas Reinicke, the EU’s special envoy for the Middle East peace process, said increasing frustration with… Read more »

Samantha Power, recently nominated as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, listens to President Obama as he announces the nomination of Susan Rice to be the next National Security Advisor at the White House, June 5, 2013. (Alex Wong/Getty/JTA)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Samantha Power brings to foreign policy an activist impulse that many in the pro-Israel community wish was more prevalent among American diplomats. Except Power, a former White House national security council staffer nominated this week by President Obama to represent the United States at the United… Read more »

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — As the new Superman movie “Man of Steel” flies to an opening on Father’s Day weekend, we earthbound Jewish men have the superhero’s creators — Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Jewish teenagers from Cleveland — to thank for setting such a super high bar. Especially… Read more »

Ned Lazarus and Hahanni Rous standing under the chuppah made from the fabric sheets brought by their guests, 2004. (Courtesy Nahanni Rous)

NEW YORK (JTA) — When Amanda Melpolder began planning her wedding to Jeff Greenberg, she hoped the ceremony would be unlike others. Melpolder had become involved in an independent minyan in Brooklyn after converting to Judaism several years ago, and she and Greenberg wanted their their wedding this June… Read more »

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, who is to be named national security adviser, meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, October 2009. (Moshe Milner/GPO/Getty)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Susan Rice has said that a “huge” portion of her work at the United Nations was defending Israel’s legitimacy. Her new job will likely be no less Israel-centric. President Obama plans Wednesday to name Rice his national security adviser and replace her at the U.N. with… Read more »

Dr. Cyril Karabus with his wife, Jennifer, three days after returning home to South Africa from nine months of detention in the United Arab Emirates, May 2013. (Moira Schneider)

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (JTA) — Cyril Karabus stepped into the arrivals hall at Cape Town International Airport to a rapturous welcome. A multiracial crowd numbering in the hundreds had turned out to greet him. A minstrel troupe was singing “Hevenu Shalom Aleichem.” And a rabbi stepped forward to… Read more »

Confetti falling over Arvind Mahankali of Bayside Hills, N.Y., after he won the 2013 Scripps National Spelling Bee in National Harbor, Md., May 30, 2013. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

(JTA) — An Indian-American boy spelled the Yiddish-derived word “knaidel” correctly to win the 2013 Scripps National Spelling Bee. Arvind Mahankali, 13, of Bayside Hills, N.Y., defeated 10 other finalists on Thursday in National Harbor, Md., after spelling the word for a traditional Jewish dumpling. Mahankali won $30,000 in… Read more »

Sen. Frank Lautenberg attending a Holocaust memorial ceremony in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, May 1, 2008. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — In 1982, Frank Lautenberg was running for New Jersey’s U.S. Senate spot at a time when  Democrats in the state were down on their political fortunes. The Jewish community knew and liked Lautenberg, a data processing magnate who died Monday at 89 after serving more than… Read more »

A daughter, MIRA CLEMENTINE RAY, was born May 11, 2013 to Julie and Prasenjit Ray. Grandparents are Nancy and Jerome Glaser of Los Angeles and Kumkum and Asit Baran Ray of Charleston, W. Va.… Read more »

... and at their wedding in 1953.

Sally and Sid Brodkin will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary on June 14 with a celebration at home with their family. They were married on June 14, 1953 at the Benson Chateau in Brooklyn, N.Y. The couple lived in Forest Hills, Queens for five years, Williston Park on Long… Read more »

A son, YANAI DRUKER, was born March 8, 2013 to Oren and Meirav Druker of Moshav Dekel, Israel. Grandparents are Lora Stern Druker and Yoram Druker of Moshav Dekel and Marcello and Diana Wasser of Kibbutz Nirim, Israel. Great-grandparents are Carol and Alvin Stern of Tucson and Araham and… Read more »

GILA SILVERMAN won a first place award from the Arizona Press Club for non-metro social issues reporting for her article in the Dec. 28, 2012 edition of the ARIZONA JEWISH POST, “Be kind: Ben’s Bells replace dreidel for Winterhaven Festival of Lights.”  The judge wrote, “This easily could have… Read more »

Sue Ross with her grandson Aiden Glesinger at the Green Tie Gala.

Happy 65th Birthday, Israel! Israel was not created in order to disappear — Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. —John F. Kennedy Tucson celebrated Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day, with extra flair this year. Besides highlighting Israel’s innovations… Read more »