09 Jan
Latest

Egyptian Satirist To Face Charges

  Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef faces criminal investigations after prosecutors in Cairo announced they were looking into allegations that the popular comedian had insulted Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi on his television show.   Youssef has been called Egypt’s Jon Stewart for his sharp wit and keen political satire.   According to a New York Times report, an Islamist lawyer who filed the complaint said Youssef’s monologue about Morsi constituted a “sharp attack on the person of the president.” A Muslim Brotherhood lawyer, meanwhile, filed a separate lawsuit demanding Youssef’s show, as well as the channel that airs it, be taken off the air because it allows “sarcasm against the president.”   To read more about the intersection of politics and satire, read this fascinating Moment symposium on the intersection of politics and satire.    

Continue reading

09 Jan
Latest

Interview with Israeli Poet Moshe Dor and Translator Barbara Goldberg

  Interview with poet Moshe and translator Barbara Goldberg, December 2012   Moshe Dor, born in Tel Aviv in 1932, is a major figure in contemporary Israeli literature.  Author of some 40 books, he is also a prodigious translator of American poetry.  He himself has been translated into Chinese, Arabic and 20 other languages. He received the Bialik Prize, Israel’s top literary award and twice received Israel’s Prime Minister’s Award.  Former Counselor for Cultural Affairs at the Israeli Embassy in London, Dor also served as Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at American University, Washington, DC.  His most recent book in English translation is Scorched by the Sun: Poems of Moshe Dor (The Word Works, 2012). Barbara Goldberg has authored four prize-winning books of poetry, most recently, The Royal Baker’s Daughter, recipient of the Felix Pollak Poetry Prize (University of Wisconsin Press).  The...

Continue reading

08 Jan
Latest

Top Muslim Brother Resigns Over Israel Remarks

A senior Egyptian official considered close to President Mohamed Morsi has resigned after publicaly saying that Israel's Egyptian Jews should return to their country of origin and leave Israel to the Palestinians. In his resignation, Essam al-Erian, deputy head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, officially cited a conflict of interest and a difficulty in balancing his responsibilities as an adviser with his parliamentary duties, JTA reported. In an interview with Dream TV last month, he said that Egyptian Jews "should refuse to live under a brutal, bloody and racist occupation stained with war crimes against humanity,” and instead return to their homeland. The comment set off a round of condemnation. Al-Erian, a former member of the Guidance Bureau of the Muslim Brotherhood,  was elected to parliament in the Egyptian elections last year. To read more...

Continue reading

07 Jan
Latest

Ron Dermer: Next Israeli Ambassador to the US?

Ron Dermer, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s senior advisor, is reportedly being considered as the next Israeli ambassador to the US. Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon first reported that Dermer, who immigrated to Israel in 1998 and is a Florida native, will replace current ambassador Michael Oren. Official sources in Jerusalem denied the report. Oren’s four-year term is expected to end in the spring and Dermer is considered particularly close to the Prime Minister. Dermer spoke to Moment for its July-August 2012 issue about his mentor and long-term friend, Natan Sharansky, who he met when Sharansky first got his start in Israeli politics through the formation of the Yisrael B’aliya party. Dermer  also wrote Sharansky’s best-selling The Case for Democracy. “Natan is a real believer in human rights and is a real liberal in that sense,” Dermer told Moment. “Israelis...

Continue reading

03 Jan
Latest, Uncategorized

Jerry Seinfeld’s Jewish Christmas Tree

  Jerry Seinfeld had the Jewish blogosphere fuming after his wife, Jessica, posted a photo of the family’s Christmas tree via Instagram. The photo shows the couple’s 12-year-old daughter Sascha, hoisted on her father’s shoulders, as she puts a star of David atop the tree. “Jews on Christmas. And how did you celebrate today?” Jessica Seinfeld wrote as a caption on  the photo. Other family photos include his daughter posing near a gingerbread house decorated with snowmen and stars of David Readers on Kveller, a Jewish parenting site, chimed in.  “Jerry Seinfeld's sad choice to have his kids decorate a Christmas tree with a star of david …made my stomach turn,” one poster wrote. “A Jewish star doesn't belong on the tree,” said another. Seinfeld’s eponymous television show was named one of the top 10 Jewish TV shows of all time in...

Continue reading

03 Jan
2013 January-February, World

Inside Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood

Two years after the dawn of the Arab Spring and six months after Mohamed Morsi was elected president, democracy is still a work in progress in Egypt. Moment’s Daphna Berman talks with Eric Trager of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.   What is the origin of the Muslim Brotherhood? It was founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, a schoolteacher. The goal was to create a vanguard that could Islamize all its members, then society and the state and from there, pursue a regional Islamic order. The Brotherhood has two streams of thought: One is called Duat la Qudat, which means preachers, not judges. These are people who want to focus on social services, outreach and preaching, not politics. The second stream is called the Qutbists, named for Sayyid Qutb, who believed the Brotherhood should be a...

Continue reading

Pages: 1 2 3
24 Dec
Latest

Israel’s First Gay Divorce

  Former Israeli MK Uzi Even has made history again after he and his former partner of more than two decades were granted what is being billed as the country’s first legally sanctioned homosexual divorce. The decision earlier this month is considered especially ironic, since same-sex marriages cannot be legally conducted in the Israel. Even, 72, and his partner of 23 years, Amit Kama, 52, married in Toronto in 2004, soon after Canada approved same-sex marriages. Even, the first openly gay member of Knesset, was profiled in Moment’s recent feature about gay life in Israel. To read more about Even and other trailblazers in “The New Normal,” click here.

Continue reading

20 Dec
Latest

Sandy Hook: A Teenager Weighs In

  By Benji Satloff Last Sunday night, I was settled in the couch watching the “game of the year” between the Patriots and the Forty-Niners. Suddenly, the telecast was interrupted and President Obama appeared on the screen, with a ‘Live from Newtown’ sign in the upper corner.  What had been a vibrant, exciting feeling turned dark and dismal. This was two days after the horrific shootings in Connecticut and the country was grieving.  When I found out about what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I was shocked, but I didn’t really comprehend the magnitude of the tragedy. When I came home from school, my dad sat my 12-year old brother and me down and talked to us about the killings. I wanted to know more, so I went on Yahoo and found a list of all the names of...

Continue reading

20 Dec
Latest

Are Settlements an Obstacle to Peace? Survey Looks at Palestinian and Israeli Thoughts on Peace

  Just over a quarter of Jewish Israelis think peace with the Palestinians is “possible and likely” in the coming five years, compared to double the number of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza who agree with the optimistic forecast. The numbers, published as part of a poll released by the Arab American Institute, explored Israeli and Palestinian opinions toward the peace process. The poll also found that most Jewish Israelis and Palestinians don’t consider settlement expansion—often described as a major snag in negotiations—to be a serious obstacle to peace. 41 percent of Jewish Israelis described settlement expansion as serious obstacle, compared to 87 percent of Israeli Arabs and 46 percent of Palestinians in the territories. Palestinian violence, however, received high numbers in the same poll: 79 percent of Jewish Israelis considered the threat of Palestinians violence...

Continue reading

18 Dec
Latest

Sandy Hook and the NRA’s First Jewish Female President

In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting tragedy, gun control has emerged as a pressing issue on the national agenda—though the NRA has remained conspicuously silent. Did you know that the NRA was headed by a Jewish woman from 2005-2007? Read this Moment profile of Sandra Froman, the second woman and first Jew to head the powerful lobby group.

Continue reading

«‹34567›»