Judaism

Rabbi tells rationale for accepting Torah as divine

Reason to Believe: Rational Explanations of Orthodox Jewish Faith by Chaim Jachter, Menorah Books, New Milford, CT, © 2017,ISBN 978-1-940516-71-4, p. 234 plus appendices, $24.95 By Fred Reiss, Ed.D.  WINCHESTER, California – If believing is having faith in the evidence, then one might suspect that religion and reason share no common ground, but this is not the […]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Fred Reiss, EdD, Jewish Religion

Chris Cornell’s daughter sings a moving rendition of “Hallelujah” in honor of her late father and Chester Bennington

Chris Cornell’s 12-year-old daughter, Toni Cornell performed a gorgeous tribute to her father on the Aug. 4 segment of ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Cornell sang a moving rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” alongside the band OneRepublic. The performance was a celebration of the lives of Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington, who both unexpectedly died earlier

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Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Obituaries & memorials

Isaac Artenstein: Telling frontier Jewish stories

Isaac Artenstein from Bettina Hanna on Vimeo. By Mimi Pollack SAN DIEGO — Filmmaker Isaac Artenstein likes to tell good stories, especially unknown ones, and if those stories inform and entertain others, even better. He feels that the Jews of the Southwest have an untold story as the narrative has been mostly about the Anglo

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Jewish History, Mimi Pollack, San Diego County, USA

‘Cosmopolitan’ is a dog whistle word once used in Nazi Germany and Communist Russia

The White House press briefing on Wednesday was a little strange. Trump policy advisor Stephen Miller was at the podium to defend the president’s new immigration proposal, which would prioritize high-skilled immigrants who already speak English. Miller faced pushback from reporters, including a heated back-and-forth with CNN’s Jim Acosta, who quoted the Statue of Liberty’s

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Jewish History, USA

Argentine WWII Records Could Shed Light on Nazi Germany

Argentina’s foreign ministry is transferring digital copies of nearly 40,000 documents about World War II and the Holocaust to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington, D.C. “There are two avenues of interest to us when it comes to Argentina,” Anatol Steck—project director for Central Europe, Latin America and Israel at the international

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International, Jewish History

Elementary school teacher charged with molesting students

Court says Meir Zehnwirth inappropriately touched at least 2 girls he taught at the talmud Torah school in Tiberias By Times of Israel staff Meir Zehnwirth was charged with indecent assault on minors while he taught at the Talmud Torah elementary school in Tiberias on July 31, 2017. (Israel Police) An elementary school teacher at

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Jewish Religion, Middle East, Science, Medicine, & Education

French actress Jeanne Moreau has died at 89

Jeanne Moreau, the quintessential French actress whose mother was an English cabaret club dancer, has died at 89. Moreau, a petite chain-smoker who worked with most of the world’s top directors of the first few decades after World War II, Orson Welles, Jean-Luc Godard and Wim Wenders among them. In one profile story, Britain’s Guardian

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International, Obituaries & memorials, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

A beloved actor known as “the greatest American playwright of his generation” has passed away at the age of 73

Rest in peace, Sam Shepard. On Monday, news of the acclaimed playwright, actor and director’s death made headlines as the Broadway world went into mourning. Shepard penned 44 plays in his career and authored several books, essays and short stories in his lifetime. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his work, a play

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Obituaries & memorials, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Marty Sklar, pioneering Walt Disney imagineer, dies at 83

LOS ANGELES — Martin “Marty” Sklar, the pioneering Walt Disney Co. imagineer who played an instrumental role in the design of Disney theme parks, has died, the company announced Thursday night. He was 83. During his 54 years at Disney, Sklar worked closely with Walt Disney and led the creative development of the Burbank company’s

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Obituaries & memorials, USA

In pictures, the 70th anniversary of the SS Exodus in Haifa

Israelis honor the sacrifice made by over 4,500 Holocaust survivors and potential immigrants who were sent back to Germany by the British By Laura Ben-David Survivors gathered around the Exodus memorial, July 18, 2017. (Laura Ben-David) Froma Galant with Natan Sharansky at the Exodus memorial, July 18, 2017. (Times of Israel/Laura Ben-David) A survivor at

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Jewish History, Middle East

‘We are Jews Again’ tells of Refuseniks’ progress

“We Are Jews Again,” Jewish Activism in the Soviet Union by Yuli Kosharovsky, translated by Stefani Hoffman, edited by Ann Komaromi, Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY, © 2017, ISBN 978-0-8156-3519-2, p. 319, plus appendices, notes, bibliography, and index, $37.95 By Fred Reiss, Ed.D. WINCHESTER, California –  Many Jews participated in the 1917 Russian Revolution, ousting

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jewish History

Finds in Jerusalem shore up biblical account of Babylonian conquest

On the eve of the Hebrew commemoration of the destruction of the Temples, archaeologists discover remnants of a blaze indicating the city was grander than thought By Amanda Borschel-Dan The structure in which shattered jugs were found during the summer 2017 Israel Antiquities Authority dig, attesting to the destruction. (Eliyahu Yanai, Courtesy of the City

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Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Middle East

1,600 years ago, soldiers may have quaffed wine from this desert press

A large Byzantine-era wine press uncovered in the Negev region is only the second of its kind to be found By Amanda Borschel-Dan Digging in the ancient 1,600-year-old wine press in Ramat Negev, summer 2017. (Tali Gini, Israel Antiquities Authority) While Israel is famous for greening the desert, a recent find of a 1,600-year-old wine

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Jewish History, Middle East