All of this comes to mind in the face of this week\’s effort by the Palestinians to generate anti-Israel resolutions in the General Assembly in response to the recent ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) — the judicial but injudicious arm of the United Nations — that Israel\’s controversial new security barrier is illegal and must be torn down.
When it comes to action at the United Nations, Europe — considered by many observers to be the organization\’s moral bellwether — often decides the course.
That was the case again this week as the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a resolution demanding that Israel comply with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that it must tear down its West Bank security barrier and compensate Palestinians affected by its construction.
Last year was a big one for Jewish cool. Articles in The Forward; Time Out New York; conservative Candian newspaper, The National Post; and staid British dailies, The Times and The Observer all trumpeted the reinvention of Jewishness as hip and cool. Amalgamate the headlines of those articles and you get something like: \”It\’s Hip to Be Hebrew: Edgy Jewish Chic Gets a Jewcy Makeover.\”
Swimmer Lenny Krayzelburg will go to the Athens Olympic Games, thanks to placing second in his race during the U.S. qualifying trials, a feat greeted with greater acclaim and emotion than his three gold medals in Sydney four years ago.
This week a friend confessed to me his problem with fasting on Tisha B\’av. My friend is Orthodox and Israeli — an alumnus of one of the elite hesder yeshivas — and he felt that it would be wrong for him to fast this year on Tisha B\’Av.
Last February, the head of the Mossad lost his cell phone. He left it in his car — that\’s right, the head of Israel\’s renowned top secret spy agency left his cell phone in his car. When he returned, he found someone had bashed his windows and stolen it. On it were the numbers of, well, everyone on whom Israel\’s security and defense relies.
What nice Jewish girl hasn\’t heard this from her mother: \”You should meet a nice Jewish boy!\”
My mom was no different.
She would constantly urge me, \”Go to synagogue. A Jewish mixer. Or a Shabbat dinner. That\’s where you\’ll meet lots of nice Jewish men.\”
But I never cared for organized events. I prefer to meet my men through more everyday-casual-maybe-it-will-happen situations, which is how I met Carl.
After a short respite from the fight over the Pledge of Allegiance, the Republican Party has once again thrown itself into the fray over issues of church and state. This time it\’s the Republican Party of Texas, President Bush\’s home state, which has approved a plank in its platform affirming that \”the United States of America is a Christian nation.\”
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