The owner of a sukkah that needed new infrastructure, Edmon J. Rodman looked into the national debate on job creation for a bipartisan solution. (Edmon J. Rodman) LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Each Sukkot we read in Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, that there “is a time to tear down, and a time to build up.” For my sukkah it was time for both. Last year the legs of my sukkah were bowed and its roof supports looked flimsy. This… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) — Here is a weekly roundup of Jewish newspapers from around the world. JEWISH SECRETS: A community art project now on display at a Montreal cafe asked young Jews to anonymously divulge their Jewish secrets on postcards. Among the spilled secrets cited by The Canadian Jewish… Read more »
A building at Columbia University, which is being investigated for an alleged incident of "steering" at its affiliated Barnard College. (Creative Commons) NEW YORK (Tablet) — “You’ll feel very uncomfortable,” Barnard Professor Rachel McDermott allegedly told an Orthodox Jewish student at the college when the undergraduate inquired about a course called “Arabs and the Arab World” taught by a controversial Columbia University professor, Joseph Massad. “Why don’t you look at ancient… Read more »
Protesters marching in lower Manahttan in an Occupy Wall Street demonstration, Sept. 26, 2011. (Paul Stein/Creative Commons) NEW YORK (Tablet) — As the Occupy Wall Street protest enters its third week, with demonstrations popping up in more than 10 cities, the protesters are aggressively pushing a comparison to the Arab Spring. Some say the movement has channeled the zeal (or perhaps the naivete, others would argue)… Read more »
Dov Lipman, left, a Modern Orthodox leader in Beit Shemesh, and a haredi Orthodox man, Moshe Friedman, engage in a shouting match near the Banot Orot school. (Michael Lipkin) BEIT SHEMESH, Israel (JTA) — This time it started with cries of “Sluts!” and “Shiksas!” and the throwing of eggs and bags of excrement at young girls who attend a recently opened Modern Orthodox elementary school in this Jerusalem suburb. The assailants: religious extremists from the haredi Orthodox neighborhood… Read more »
Rabbi Berel Pewzner, left, and Rabbi Berel Grunblatt on the seventh-floor balcony of the Hotel Cabin, where Rosh Hashanah services in Reykjavik were held, September 2011. (Alex Weisler) REYKJAVIK, Iceland (JTA) — Nearly half an hour after Rosh Hashanah services were set to begin, the congregation in this chilly city still was one man short of a minyan. But as the small group of Jewish expats and their Icelandic spouses mingled and waited, no one complained. After… Read more »
KFAR SABA, Israel (JTA) — The Israeli Labor Party’s new leader, Shelly Yachimovich, makes a grand entrance at the annual Rosh Hashanah toast for party activists. Well over an hour after the guests begin munching on puff pastries, she is greeted like a conquering hero as she wades into… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Republican presidents have been guiding Israel toward the peace table — sometimes not so gently — almost since the Jewish state was born more than six decades ago. But in the recent round of debates, the crop of candidates vying for the GOP nomination have been… Read more »
Steve Jobs shows off the white iPhone4 at the 2010 Worldwide Developers Conference. (Matt Yohe via CC) WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. (JTA) — Social networking sites began buzzing immediately after word spread of the death of Apple Inc. visionary Steve Jobs Wednesday evening. Rabbis took time out of their busy preparations for Yom Kippur to halt their sermon writing and post personal reflections on what the contributions of… Read more »
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee seen here answering questions from reporters on Sept. 13, 2011, is withholding funding from the Palestinians because of the Palestinian Authority's statehood push in the United Nartions. (Courtesy Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans) WASHINGTON (JTA) — If the Palestinians don’t pull back from their statehood push, congressional cuts in aid are inevitable, U.S. lawmakers say. Just how comprehensive such cuts will be, however, could end up depending on Israel’s stance on the issue. Lawmakers, lobbyists and congressional staffers told JTA that hundreds… Read more »
"The Pickering Potchkers" won the grand prize and the ribs competition at the 23rd annual Kosher BBQ Contest and Festival in Memphis, Tenn. (Stuart Lazarov) MEMPHIS, Tenn. (JTA) — If there’s anything that can bring the Jews of Tennessee together, it would be barbecue. Earlier this month, the 23rd annual Kosher BBQ Contest and Festival drew thousands of Jews from Tennessee and around the country. It attracted a group of Muslims, too. Turns out… Read more »
The Klezmer fusion band Butterfly Effect entertaining Israelis on Herzl tour at Fogashaz, one of the "ruin pubs" of Budapest's Jewish quarter. (Alex Weisler) BUDAPEST, Hungary (JTA) — Sometimes it takes a Zionist organization to show Israeli Jews that Israel isn’t the only place where Jews have a future. At least that’s what the World Zionist Organization and Habonim Dror, the labor Zionist youth organization, managed to do with a whirlwind trip this… Read more »
A member of the Muslim Student Union disrupts a February 2010 speech by Michael Oren at the University of California, Irvine. (StandWithUs) (JTA) — The misdemeanor convictions of 10 California college students for disrupting a speech by Israel’s ambassador to the United States is already leading partisans of both sides on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to predict changes in the way the fight over the issue plays out on campus. “When you… Read more »
A CARLEBACH HOMECOMING: A new synagogue in Chabad’s Brooklyn stronghold is trying to channel some of the spirit of the late Jewish music path-breaker Shlomo Carlebach — himself a former Chabad emissary who wandered off in more New Age-y directions. The basement shul — which its rabbi says is… Read more »
PHILADELPHIA (Jewish Exponent) — By now, the whole world knows the name and face of Joshua Fattal, the 29-year-old Elkins Park, Pa., native who spent 26 months in an Iranian prison before being reunited with his family last week in Oman and arriving back on U.S. soil on Sunday.… Read more »
Daniel Libeskind's design for the national Museum of the Jewish People (Courtesy Ori Soltes) WASHINGTON (Washington Jewish Week) — Washington needs a major national museum of the Jewish people — at least that’s what a group of local heavy hitters and international Jewish celebrities believes. They have been trying for more than five years to get that museum built, and a decision to… Read more »
Waving the lulav and etrog, symbols of the fall harvest, is one way to Sukkot pleasure -- especially for kids. (Dasee Berkowitz) NEW YORK (JTA) — But are you happy? No, this isn’t your mother wanting another update on your life. It’s not Dr. Phil’s provocative question through your TV/computer screen as you sit (safely) on your couch. And it isn’t someone reading you the Declaration of Independence wondering if you… Read more »
Jessica Chastain and Sam Worthington star in "The Debt." (Laurie Sparham/Focus Features) LOS ANGELES (Jewish Journal) — As Jessica Chastain was preparing for her role in the Mossad thriller “The Debt,” her voluminous research led her to the story of a survivor who witnessed the destruction of her entire family in the Holocaust. “It was a woman’s memory of something she… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) — Will the Jewish vote, normally overwhelmingly Democratic, be up for grabs in 2012? That question became a subject of intense debate when a Republican was elected recently to the House of Representatives from New York’s 9th Congressional District for the first time in 90 years.… Read more »
Palestinians in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah, faced off against Israeli soldiers during their weekly protest on the same day that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas submitted a bid for Palestinian statehood to the United Nations, Sept. 23, 2011. (Isasm Rimawi/Flash 90/JTA) RAMALLAH, West Bank (JTA) — A larger-than-life sky-blue chair with the word “Palestine” dominates the center of Manara Square in downtown Ramallah. The Palestinian flag, a national symbol once banned by Israel, flies everywhere. Long banners of flags crisscross the square, huge flags decorate the sides of buildings, and… Read more »
