As Iran nuclear talks extended, Iranian leader repeats threat to destroy Israel (JNS.org) A day before U.S. State Department spokesperson Marie Harf confirmed Tuesday that the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 nations were extended until July 10, an Iranian leader reiterated the Islamic Republic’s desire for Israel to be “wiped off the map.” […]
Jewish news briefs: July 7, 2015 Read More »
International, Middle East, USABy Isaac Yetiv, Ph.D. LA JOLLA, California — The Founding Fathers in their wisdom made the “Separation of Powers” one of the pillars of American democracy. The US Constitution clearly and unequivocally stipulates that “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and
SCOTUS, POTUS usurp powers of COTUS Read More »
USANEW YORK — Looking back after 50 years of service to the Anti-Defamation League, retiring national director Abraham Foxman expressed passionate worry to journalist Edwin Black about the safety and security of Jews overseas and Israel’s position in the world. Excerpts from his exit interview follow, edited and condensed for continuity, clarity, and length. Edwin
Foxman looks back on 50 years with the ADL Read More »
Edwin Black, International, Middle East, USABy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Roads to hell. We know they’re paved with good intentions. Jews wanting to improve things for themselves and others have been as guilty as anyone. The latest example is Jews, including some Israelis, who participate in BDS for the sake of humanity as they see it. We’ve been paving those
Hurting ourselves in the name of ‘humanity’ Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Jewish Religion, Middle EastBy Morton Klein and Daniel Mandel NEW YORK — Few seem to have noticed that President Barack Obama has scattered to the winds bipartisan Israeli reservations regarding establishing a Palestinian state. In a recent interview on Israel Television Channel 2, President Obama was quizzed on his public rejection of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election
Obama presidency has harmed Israel Read More »
Middle East, USA
By Kenneth L. Marcus/JNS.org WASHINGTON, D.C. — Does it matter how we define our words? Sometimes it does. The U.S. Department of Education understands this point, as do the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Universities need to learn it, too. Last year, the Education Department paid CDC to develop a uniform definition of
Defining campus anti- Semitism Read More »
Science, Medicine, & Education, USANearly half of U.S. Democrats believe Israel is a ‘racist’ country, survey finds (JNS.org) Nearly half of U.S. Democrats—47 percent—believe Israel is a “racist” country, while only 13 percent of Republicans agree with the same statement, according to a new survey conducted by pollster Frank Luntz. The survey, whose results were first reported by the
Jewish news briefs: July 6, 2015 Read More »
International, Middle East, USABy Rabbi Ben Kamin ENCINITAS, California — There is a published report that Tywanza Sanders, who was a 26-year-old member of ‘Mother Emanuel’ Church in Charleston, made a plea to the “alleged” killer of nine African Americans studying scripture that day. Sanders purportedly begged the assailant to spare the lives of the people in the
Trump slanders Mexicans in racist rant Read More »
USABy Rabbi Dow Marmur JERUSALEM — The collusion between secular Israelis and extreme Orthodoxy has a long and ignominious history. The mixture of cynical indifference and a seemingly visceral belief that authentic Judaism must be Orthodox continues to dominate the political realm in the land. To repeat the old adage: Many Israelis insist that the synagogue
Orthodox out- maneuver Reform in Israeli politics Read More »
Jewish Religion, Middle EastBy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Israel has long been described as the one democracy in the Middle East. It remains that, no matter how critics try to twist policies they do not like into a condemnation of the process that created them. Now it’s also an island of relative calm between two serious wars that
Israel between two Arab wars Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle EastBy Rabbi Dow Marmur JERUSALEM — Writing in the New York Times (June 20) Ross Douthat distinguishes between dynamists and catastrophists. Dynamists, he writes, “see 21st-century modernity as a basically successful civilization advancing toward a future that’s better than the past.” Catastrophists, on the other hand, “see a global civilization that for all its achievements
Positive and negative opinion abounds in Israel Read More »
Middle EastBy Joe Spier CALGARY, Alberta, Canada — In the early part of the movie Exodus, blondish, blue-eyed Paul Newman, miscast as Haganah operative Ari Ben Canaan, leads a band of Holocaust survivors aboard the Cyprus docked sea vessel, Exodus, intent upon breaking the British blockade and making the illegal run to Palestine. The British discover the
Exodus 1947: The ship that sank the British mandate Read More »
Middle East, USANetanyahu tours Be’er Sheva with Steve Forbes, hails city’s tech ‘revolution’ (Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—joined by billionaire Steve Forbes, owner of the Forbes magazine—on Thursday toured Be’er Sheva and the southern Israeli city’s Advanced Technologies Park at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU). Netanyahu discussed the area’s potential in the field
Jewish news briefs: July 3, 2015 Read More »
International, Middle East, USA
Story by Donald H. Harrison; photos by Shor Masori ST AUGUSTINE, Florida — In this, the oldest European city of North America settled by Spaniards in 1565, I wondered whether any of the earliest soldiers might have been conversos — that is, former Jews who were forced to convert to Catholicism in order to remain
Jewish knick knacks in N. America’s oldest city Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, USA