Category
May 12, 2011
One Calabasas High vandal said to be Jewish
One of the three Calabasas High School students who confessed to defacing their school with anti-Semitic and racist graffiti last month is Jewish, a detective from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department involved in the investigation told the Jewish Journal on Thursday. “One of them has a mother who fled Iran because she is Jewish,” Detective J. T. Manwell of the Lost Hills/Malibu station said. “So it’s kind of complicated.”
Entebbe and bin Laden raids underscore U.S.-Israel alliance
Nearly 35 years ago, on July 4, 1976, the streets of America were aglow. The nation was celebrating the bicentennial — the 200th anniversary of its independence. In Israel, too, the streets were radiant. Israel Defense Forces commandos had rescued some 100 hostages held captive by Palestinian terrorists at Uganda’s Entebbe Airport.
Barak’s Independence Party kicks off
The Independence Party, the new Israeli political party formed by Ehud Barak, held its inaugural meeting. The party met Thursday in Tel Aviv. Barak, a former Labor Party chairman and currently Israel\’s defense minister, was elected chairman by the party\’s 80 members.
Magen Tzedek encouraging, not replacing, kashrut
We appreciate Rabbi Shafran\’s embrace of the importance of the work of Magen Tzedek when he states in his JTA Op-Ed, \”to be sure Jewish ethical values in food production are no less important (than) halachic concerns, and are indeed embodied in independent halachic mandates. But they are distinct from kashrut.\” With that statement, Rabbi Shafran has conceded the very point that Magen Tzedek seeks to demonstrate for the Jewish community — Jewish ethical values are no less important than halachic concerns.
Leopold settles with heir over Schiele painting
The Leopold Museum has agreed to settle with one of the heirs of an Austrian Jewish art collector for her share in a valuable painting. The museum based in Vienna will pay $5 million to the granddaughter of Austrian Jewish art collector Jenny Steiner for her share in the 1914 painting \”Houses by the Sea\” by Austrian painter Egon Schiele. The painting was looted by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
Magen Tzedek seal engaging in a kashrut cover-up
There is something ironic, to put it politely, about an effort championing ethics that speaks from both sides of its mouth. That would be the new certification seal for kosher food products, created by a op rabbi and actively being promoted by his movement, that aims to “help assure consumers that kosher food products were produced in keeping with the highest possible Jewish ethical values and ideals for social justice in the area of labor concerns, animal welfare, environmental impact, consumer issues and corporate integrity.”
Italy will not recognize unilateral Palestinian state, Berlusconi says
Italy will never recognize a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said. Berlusconi at a celebration of Israel\’s 63rd birthday praised the Jewish state as the only democracy in the Middle East. He was the guest of honor Wednesday at an Israeli Independence Day reception hosted by Israeli Ambassador Gideon Meir.