What with non-stop hoopla at the convening of the United Nations General Assembly this week in New York, we offer a quick recap of the main issues to help you sift through the news coverage. Predictably, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has created the most amount of...
Remember this name: Mithal al-Alusi. He is a Sunni member of the Iraqi parliament who visited Israel two weeks ago to attend a counter-terror conference, and his life is now in danger. Not that this is the first time. In September 2004, al-Alusi made his first...
[caption id="attachment_1002" align="alignleft" width="194" caption="Do Not Touch."][/caption] I confess to making a dumb and painful mistake in Israel last month: trying to harvest a sabra fruit with my bare hand. I somehow failed to notice the tiny, hairlike darts that cover the entire fruit, one of...
By InTheMoment contributor Larry Kessner. Maybe in the Czech Republic, poets can become president, but not here. Maybe in France they like their presidents to be descendants of historians, education ministers, and even kings, but not here. Here, if you spring from the loins...
Tzipi Livni has won the Kadima party primaries (Moment columnist Gershom Gorenberg explains how they work, or don’t work, here) with nearly 50% of the vote, according to Israeli exit polls. Livni, 50, will replace beleaguered Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as the party Chairwoman. Her next...
Have you gotten a call from the Republican Jewish Coalition recently? If you live in a contested state like Florida, Michigan, or Ohio, you just might have. You might have thought it was just another pollster, and were ready to hang up...
By Inthemoment contributor Larry Kessner. OK, I understand why the Jews are nervous about Sarah Palin. Forget all the chatter about Obama being "out of the mainstream" because he's Kenyan/Kansan/Hawaiian/Malaysian-ite-whatever-whatever. He's not out of my mainstream. The top of my class was full of Obamas....
This weekend, the Iranian men's wheelchair basketball team competing at the Paralympic Games in Beijing quit the tournament. The reason given was "dissatisfaction" with their "schedule," although there is speculation that they quit because of the possibility they would play the Israeli team in the...
At some point before I cast my ballot this November, I am going to have a dream about Sarah Palin. It is just inevitable—she is everywhere right now. And though I may be a would-be Palin dreamer, I am not alone. As of Friday, Slate...
Yesterday we wrote about Rabbis for Obama. Today, according to a Forward article, we should focus on Rabbis for McCain. Well, sort of. Says the Forward: A group of leading ultra-Orthodox rabbis in Israel is preparing to release a statement that urges the country’s American expatriates...