‘Les Miserables’ of Passover
The Passover story, told to the songs of Les Miserables, by the Maccabeats:
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Jewish ReligionPrint media should curtail ‘sexy women’ photos
By Danny Bloom CHIAYI CITY, Taiwan — It’s not just television and movies that often portray women in a poor light. Print newspapers and magazines are part of the problem, too. Many of the important feminist leaders of the 20th century, from Gloria Steinem to Betty Friedan, were Jewish , and this is no coincidence,
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Travel and FoodPresident Obama’s intellectual visit to Israel
By Rabbi Ben Kamin ENCINITAS, California — For most of Jewish history, we have been getting what we did not deserve. The people who gave the world the God-concept and the scriptural tradition, which inspired old tribes to cease sacrificing human beings in order to gratify their spooky deities, have been reviled. The Jews, who
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Middle EastPresident Obama’s call for peaceful protest in Israel
By Shoshana Bryen WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Obama’s visit to Israel, and particularly his speech to 500 university students, was a winner at many levels including one he probably had not even considered. In how many countries can the President of the United States call forth the passions of the local people and have confidence
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Middle East, Shoshana BryenObama’s week: Sequester con game, fence-mending in Israel
By Isaac Yetiv, Ph.D. LA JOLLA, California — In my previous writings, I repeatedly denounced the mainstream media “dereliction of duty,” their blind unconditional support for the president and his party, their selective reporting of the news, their self-imposed silence and even coverups of Obama’s deficiencies, failures, and scandals. This silence, much akin to the “omerta” en
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USAFund names Hillel directorship for Lori Bolotin
SAN DIEGO (Press Release)– Hillel of San Diego and the Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego have announced that Sandra and Arthur Levinson have established the “Lori Bolotin Development Director for Hillel of San Diego Endowment Fund” at the Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego. The position of Development Director will be named, in
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San Diego CountyBetter a rebellious child than an indifferent one
By Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal SAN DIEGO — After receiving last week’s D’var Torah about hamantaschen, my son, Rabbi Adam Rosenthal, emailed me noting that I was already avoiding dealing with the text of Leviticus, which is primarily concerned with the laws of animal sacrifices, in my weekly column. Since I am on a streak, why
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Jewish ReligionIf Obama’s speech had come four years ago
By Rabbi Dow Marmur JERUSALEM — What would be the relationship between Israel and the Palestinian Authority today, had Obama made the speech he now made in Jerusalem at the beginning of his first four-year term as president rather than at the beginning of the second? Not only would much of the allegedly toxic atmosphere
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Middle EastSome impressions of Obama’s Israel visit
By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — The visit to Israel of US President Obama caused great excitement for a variety of reasons. The first was why had he come? Was it to reach an agreement regarding dealing with Iran’s steady progress towards a nuclear bomb or to exert pressure towards a solution of the
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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Middle EastAn 18th century Passover plot in Prague
By Rabbi Baruch Lederman SAN DIEG0 — The local baker was plotting to poison the Jews of Prague. His fiendish plan was to use our own holiday against us. He knew that the Jews did not eat bread during that holiday of Pesach, and that the day after the holiday, they came in droves to
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Jewish ReligionJNS news briefs: March 22, 2013
Acre mayor shot in apparent assassination attempt (JNS.org) Acre Mayor Shimon Lankri was shot in the chest on Thursday night in what the police have called an apparent assassination attempt, Israel Hayom reported. Lankri, 51, suffered moderate wounds and was rushed to the Western Galilee Hospital in Nahariya. He is hospitalized under police guard. The
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InternationalAvenue Q: not a street for kids
By Cynthia Citron SANTA MONICA, California — It’s really a puzzlement trying to figure out who the producers of Avenue Q had in mind for an audience for their puppet show, since the production is too cloyingly cutesy for grownups and too explicitly sexual for kids. (In fact, the show comes with a warning: “Not
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Cynthia CitronSolel, Beth Am utilize On-Line Learning
SPRINGFIELD, N.J. (Press Release)–Congregation Beth Am and Temple Solel in San Diego County, California, have partnered with Behrman House, the leading publisher of textbooks and multi-media educational materials for Jewish religious schools, to bring the company’s Online Learning Center (OLC) to the fingertips of Hebrew students and teachers alike. Behrman House introduced the OLC last year
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Jewish ReligionThe President and Israel’s scientific accomplishments
By Shoshana Bryen WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Obama has had an opportunity during his visit to see some of Israel’s pioneering technology. The list (with thanks to Tom Gross) includes energy alternatives; search and rescue technology; a bionic exoskeleton that allows paraplegics to walk; and a “third eye” camera that helps prevent automobile collisions. If
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Science, Medicine, & Education, Shoshana Bryen