Clinton says U.S. is not setting deadlines for Iran (Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) The U.S. is “not setting deadlines” for Iran and still considers negotiations to be “by far the best approach” to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Bloomberg in an interview published Monday. Speaking to
JNS News Briefs: September 10, 2012 Read More »
InternationalBy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — The New York Times changes from moment to moment the stories at the top of its portion on my home page. If I had not seen an item on Gaza (“‘Forgotten Neighborhood’ Underscores the Poverty of an Isolated Enclave“) in that prized spot we could have spent this time on
Why some New York Times stories are chosen Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle East
By Rabbi Ben Kamin SAN DIEGO — Some time ago, I read an analysis of the traffic flow on New York’s Fifth Avenue. Apparently, the average speed (horse-drawn, of course) in 1905 was ten miles per hour. In 1985, polluted by emissions, it was five miles per hour. This reality comes to mind several times
Is the computerized world really more advanced? Read More »
Travel and Food
By Donald H. Harrison SANTA ANA — Wounded Army National Guard Sgt. Ivan Garcia received a Purple Heart on Saturday, Sept. 8. The day before, Garcia’s civilian colleagues at Waxie Sanitary Supply in Santa Ana gathered to express their heartfelt relief that he had managed to come home to them alive from Afghanistan. Waxie’s
A grateful company welcomes its wounded warrior home Read More »
Donald H. Harrison
By Rabbi Yeruchem Eilfort CARLSBAD, California –I have a confession to make. Most people who know me at least fairly well already know that I am conservative in my political leanings. But with that being said I am very proud to be able to call many of my closest friends liberal Democrats. In fact, I
It’s a blessing that Jews are in both parties Read More »
USA, Yeruchem Eilfort-Rabbi
Editor’s Note: Tamara Greenspan Bennett of San Diego is among 101 authors in the anthology, Thin Threads: Real Stories of Hadassah Life Changing Moments, published by Hadassah in celebration of its centennial. Each of the stories is perhaps two or thee pages long, and the appendices of the book include biographical statements about all the
An emotional anthology about Hadassah’s impact Read More »
San Diego CountyBy Zach and Ali Shuman RANCHO SANTA FE, California — It is the “apparent” random intersection of events that many times leads to profound and permanent changes in the course of your life. Such was the case for us as we recently completed the first-ever donor mission to Israel sponsored by Taglit Birthright Israel. Several
The unintended, happy consequences of a Birthright trip Read More »
Travel and Food
By Loren Kantor STUDIO CITY, California — In Jewish Mystical Teaching, the 22 letters of the Hebrew Alphabet are the energetic building blocks of creation. Like the periodic table of elements, God formed all things in the universe through combinations of Hebrew letters (just as atoms of oxygen and hydrogen combine to form a molecule
Notes from the Woodcutter: The Aleph Read More »
Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts
Story and photo by Judy Lash Balint NITSAN, Israel — There’s the Zionist dream and then there’s the Zionist reality. There are those who dream about living in Israel but can’t quite make it for compelling personal reasons, or who just missed the boat when they had the chance. Others, like Moshe and
Through it all, they’ve been together Read More »
Middle EastBy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — It isn’t pretty. Israel did what it could to keep the photographers away. It doesn’t play well against the history of Jews having to move from place to place, and encountering borders closed against them. Jewish officials have problems with their own population, ambivalent about providing refuge and the prospect
African migrants in Sinai stir emotional debate Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle East
By Rabbi Baruch Lederman SAN DIEGO — When we adhere to G-d’s commandments, we are a truly blessed nation, as the following true account illustrates: Back in the mid nineties a Jewish advertising executive in New York came up with an idea. What if the New York Times – considered the world’s most prestigious newspaper
The enduring Sabbath tradition Read More »
Jewish Religion
By Ariel Schnitzer RAMLE, Israel — If it weren’t for the Hebrew exit sign that hung above the entrance, I would have never imagined I was in Israel, or rather, the Israel that I had always known. Boys played soccer, girls gossiped in tight groups. The setting was all too familiar–after all, I had
The meeting of cultures in an Arab Israeli town Read More »
Travel and Food
By Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel CHULA VISTA, California –In Yiddish we say, “A Mentsch tracht, Gott lacht,” which can be translated as, “Man plans, God laughs.” If Heaven has sitcoms for the angels and God to watch, life on planet Earth must be really funny at times. God must be feeling relieved. Getting booed from
God must be feeling relieved Read More »
Michael Leo Samuel-Rabbi, USA
By Rabbi Yeruchem Eilfort CARLSBAD, California — Over the past two weeks we have again witnessed some of the great machinery of American Democracy at work; the conventions of the Republican and Democratic Parties. The conventions have certainly become highly entertaining, and frankly, fun to follow. The festive and positive atmospheres, which are buoyed by
God and Jerusalem returned to platform on fortuitous date Read More »
USA, Yeruchem Eilfort-Rabbi