October 2012

Netanyahu’s accomplishments deserve some credit

By Ira Sharkansky FREIBURG IM BREISGAU, Germany– I’m directing this column against my Internet friends and many others who think that Benyamin Netanyahu is an extremist, against Barack Obama who has told a number of people that Netanyahu  is a pest, and against analysts who assert that Israel is a marginal issue in the American election.

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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East

How an educational edict helped shape the Jewish people

The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70-1492 by Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ; ISBN 978-0-691-14487-0 ©2012, $39.50, p. 273, plus appendix, bibliography, and index    By Fred Reiss, Ed.D. WINCHESTER, California — How many Jewish doctors and lawyers do you know? How many Jewish farmers? I would hazard

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Fred Reiss, EdD, Jewish Religion

Lifting off and lifting up

By Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal SAN DIEGO — Space exploration has always fascinated me so I followed the launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket last Sunday with great interest. On Wednesday, SpaceX’s Dragon capsule docked at the International Space Station with close to 1,000 lbs of supplies. It was the first private commercial non-NASA supply mission

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Jewish Religion

Commentary: Why we’re for Obama

  The three co-chairs of “Rabbis for Obama” write that President Barack Obama’s values are Jewish values and American values, and that we need his values in the White House for four more years. Obama’s record, they write, reflects the embodiment of Jews’ deepest obligations: tikkun olam, tzedakah, shalom—to repair the world, to pursue justice,

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USA