Destination Unknown
Rep. Henry Waxman
November 1, 2001
What does the United States effort to enlist Arab countries into the coalition against terrorism mean for the future of strong U.S.-Israel relations?
Category
November 1, 2001
Jews in U. S. Politics
Sharon Samber
November 1, 2001
A woman who was the trusted adviser to the governor of New York in the 1920s. The ambassador to Turkey in 1889. The attorney general in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal. Belle Moskowitz, Solomon Hirsch and Edward Levi were all Jews involved in U.S. political life in different periods. Previously confined to the footnotes of political science textbooks or familiar only to political junkies, these figures and others are part of a new book charting Jews\’ impact on American political life.
The book, \”Jews in American Politics,\” (Rowman & Littlefield, $39.95) is not simply a \”locate the landsman\” exercise but an attempt to address a number of issues — such as Jewish political behavior, Jewish advocacy and the relationship between politics and Jewish identity — along with important demographic information and more than 400 biographical profiles.
Old Canon Gets New Look
Rick Richman
November 1, 2001
\”The Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey Through Language and Culture\” by Ruth R. Wisse (The Free Press, $28).
The Hebrew Bible is a canon of 24 books, written in the same language, collected by a people living in a single nation, compiled at a time of belief in an all-powerful Authority speaking through that canon.
Out of “Focus”
Naomi Pfefferman
November 1, 2001
\”David Mamet calls me Hebraically challenged,\” confides actor William H. Macy, a longtime collaborator of the esteemed playwright. \”I\’m the ultimate [gentile]. Part of me is the imploding WASP, a role I\’ve certainly played to death.\”\n\nWith his weak smile and wounded-looking blue eyes, Macy was riveting in his Oscar-nominated turn as a car dealer struggling to cover up his wife\’s kidnapping in the Coen brothers\’ 1996 film \”Fargo.\” He was the humiliated husband of an oversexed porn star in \”Boogie Nights,\” and a beleaguered 1950s sitcom dad in \”Pleasantville.\”\n\nWhich is why he was cautious when director Neal Slavin asked him to star in his noirish feature-film debut, \”Focus\” — based on Arthur Miller\’s 1945 novel about a milquetoast mistakenly identified as Jewish by his anti-Semitic neighbors.\n
Courageous Acts
Tom Tugend
November 1, 2001
On April 18, 1943, as the vaunted German army marched in to liquidate the Warsaw Ghetto, a few hundred Jewish resistance fighters, armed with pistols, rifles and homemade Molotov cocktails, confronted the Nazi soldiers and held them at bay for almost a month.\n\n
When Prejudice Eclipses Pride
Michael Aushenker
November 1, 2001
Don\’t be misled by the play\’s title.\n\n\”After Crystal Night,\” a comedy-drama now at the Odyssey Theatre in West Los Angeles, is not a story about the November 1938 Nazi rampage. Not literally, anyway. The Kristallnacht connection is metaphorical; a reminder that what happened once in not-so-long-ago Nazi Germany could happen again if Jews grow too comfortable and passive — even in America.
Preaching Tolerance
Ronald J. Nessim
November 1, 2001
Can religious leaders be devout but not fanatic? Can fervent belief and tolerance coexist? Such questions are hardly academic these days: the results of religious fanaticism now consume headlines, and lives. One set of reassuring answers can be found in the life of Rabbi Benzion Uziel. Uziel served as the Sephardic chief rabbi of Palestine and then the State of Israel from 1939 until his death in 1953.
In \”Loving Truth and Peace: The Grand Religious Worldview of Rabbi Benzion Uziel\” (Jason Aronson, Inc., $30) author and rabbi Marc Angel tells the story of this remarkable man.
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