The race for the Democratic presidential nomination has taken a fateful turn in the past several weeks. The rise — or re-emergence — of Sen.
John Kerry of Massachusetts, the decline of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and the withdrawal of Sen. Joe Lieberman make the quadrennial dream of Republicans that Jewish voters will vote Republican more difficult to achieve.
It\’s hard enough being single, but listening to those Valentine\’s Day gift-buying countdowns feels a lot like being Jewish and unable to participate in Christmas. So what if there are just five shopping days left before Feb. 14? It\’s like St. Valentine took over St. Nick\’s body, and now the whole coupled country is in another mall-bound tizzy. Maybe it\’s sour grapes, but I don\’t get all the hoopla.
Does the grand romantic gesture really pay off?
Attacks on Israel are escalating again. With another deadly suicide bombing in the heart of Jerusalem, the race to thwart the infiltration of terrorists is up against yet another rush: to condemn Israel at the United Nations.
\”The Passion of the Christ\” opens Feb. 25, Ash Wednesday on the Christian liturgical calendar. Despite — or perhaps because of — the controversy over the film\’s portrayal of Jews, we have an unusual opportunity to be recognized and heard in the public sphere.
Yechezkel Chezi Goldberg, a Jerusalem-based counselor for adolescents and families at risk, wrote the following essay in 2001. On Jan. 29, Goldberg was murdered in a Jerusalem bus bombing.
With her blonde shag, rhinestone-studded clothing and gleaming high heels, Jackie Kallen turns every head as she breezes through the Four Seasons bar. She\’s still got that brash, flamboyant streak that made her the most successful female boxing manager, portrayed in \”Against the Ropes,\” starring Meg Ryan.
Two year ago, when Jeremy Kagan met Yudi Simon, a Chasid, and T.J. Moses, an African American, the young men lived just four blocks from each other in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.\n\n\”But it may as well have been 50 miles,\” he said.\n\nTheir tenuous relationship is the focus of Kagan\’s new Showtime movie, \”Crown Heights,\” set around the riots that rocked that mixed neighborhood in August 1991. The fictionalized film will be accompanied by a short documentary, \”Increase the Peace,\” Kagan made about the events and the real life Moses and Simon.
The Israel that Donna Rosenthal depicts in her new book, \”The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land\” (Free Press) can sound like one very crowded apartment building, filled with interesting, passionate people from many backgrounds, often shouting in the hallways, sitting on the stoop, offering advice out their windows, sharing tragedies. But the tenants don\’t know much about those neighbors who aren\’t like them.
In 1947, a young Bedouin scrounging around some caves about 15 miles from Jerusalem came across some sealed clay urns and unearthed one of the most important archeological discoveries of the century — the Dead Sea Scrolls. The scrolls are 2,000-year-old fragments of Hebrew manuscripts written on parchment, leather and copper. Some are transcriptions of Torah portions, others contain commentaries on the Torah, and still others contain records of a separatist Jewish sect in the mid-Second Temple era that established itself high on the hills of Qumran, where the scrolls were found.
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