Israelis are known for their gregarious behavior and love nothing more than spending time with their group of close friends. It’s a trait that is wreaking havoc among the quickly mushrooming singles population and threatens to have long-range anthropological effects on Israel’s future society.
The much-discussed article in the July/August Atlantic magazine begins with a story that likely will be familiar to any working mother. The author, Anne-Marie Slaughter, is at an evening work event talking to very important, very professional people, and all that’s really on her mind is the plight of her teenage son, who’s floundering at home without her.
William Peter Blatty was a Georgetown University student in August 1949 when he came across a front-page story in the Washington Post titled “Priest Frees Mt. Rainier Boy Reported Held in Devil’s Grip.” Blatty, a devout Catholic, was fascinated by the accounts of the 14-year-old’s bed violently shaking and torrents of curses in Latin whenever the exorcist commanded the demon to leave the boy.
Israeli Jews have mixed feelings about the success of the role of the United States in the Middle East peace process, a survey found. According to the seventh annual B’nai B’rith World Center Survey on Contemporary Israeli Attitudes Toward Diaspora Jewry, one-third of the respondents said the U.S. had impeded the peace process over the past few years and another third said it had promoted progress. The other third did not know whether the U.S. had impeded or promoted progress.
The Claims Conference is tripling its aid to Greece’s Holocaust survivors in light of the country\’s economic crisis and funding an education program on anti-Semitism due to the recent rise of a neo-Nazi party.
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