With public bickering over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict already having spilled over into university student senates, corporate pension boards and even local farmers markets, the latest battlefield in the debate over the conflict is municipal transit systems.
The Arab-language television blared with protesters filling Cairo’s streets and the conversation flew — in the front of the patio in Arabic, in the back in Hebrew. Alhambra’s quiet Main Street may be a long way from the Middle Eastern unrest, but the issues were close at hand for Jordanians and Israelis who came to Wahib’s Restaurant for a lunchtime spread.
President Obama, marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, pledged to combat the “scourge of anti-Semitism” and other bigotries.
Israeli filmmakers Erez Kav-El and Talya Lavie received awards at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah.
Senate Democrats urged Republicans to reject a colleague\’s call for an end to foreign aid, including aid to Israel. \”Both Republicans and Democrats are committed to reining in the federal deficit, but assistance to Israel is not a matter of \’pork barrel spending,\’ \” said the letter sent Tuesday to the GOP chairmen of the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations and Budget committees, respectively Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky and Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. \”Rather U.S. foreign aid to Israel demonstrates America\’s rock-solid commitment to ensuring Israel\’s right to exist.\”
An American-born Orthodox rabbi is suing the board of an Australian synagogue for wrongful dismissal. Rabbi Yossi Engel, a Brooklyn, N.Y., native who served at the Adelaide Hebrew Congregation for seven years until his contract ended in 2006, is claiming more than $600,000 in compensation. Engel believes his termination was a breach of halachah, or Jewish law, which he says guarantees life tenure for rabbis.
Heavy snow in New York caused the postponement of a special U.N. General Assembly meeting commemorating International Holocaust Day. The United Nations building was shut down due to the bad weather. Other Holocaust commemoration events planned for Thursday in New York also were postponed, according to reports. The General Assembly in 2005 designated Jan. 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an annual day to honor the victims of the Nazi era.
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul wants to end all foreign assistance, including aid to Israel. Paul, a Republican newly elected in Kentucky, was on CNN Wednesday outlining where he would cut the $500 billion in government spending he says is critical to sustaining the U.S. economy. His focus was on the departments of energy, education and housing.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) cited anti-Israel rhetoric in proposing legislation conditioning U.N. funding on reform. \”I am going to reintroduce legislation that conditions our contributions — our strongest leverage — on real, sweeping reform, including moving the U.N. regular budget to a voluntary funding basis,\” Ros-Lehtinen, the chairwoman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, said Tuesday. \”That way, U.S. taxpayers can pay for the U.N. programs and activities that advance our interests and values, and if other countries want different things to be funded, they can pay for it themselves.\”
Members of a Palestinian terror cell were indicted for the murder of an American tourist in a forest near Jerusalem. Four Palestinians from villages near Hebron were indicted Wednesday in Jerusalem District Court for the murder of Christine Logan, 40, also identified by some media outlets as Christine Luken, and for the attempted murder of her hiking partner Susan Kaye Wilson. The two women were attacked Dec. 18, 2010, while hiking at Khirbet Hanut, an archaeological site near Beit Shemesh. Wilson pretended to be dead and survived the ordeal and provided descriptions of the attackers. The suspects reportedly have confessed to the attack.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.