01 Dec
History, Latest, Religion

The Heart of the Jewish People

By Doni Kandel Living in the Old City of Jerusalem for eighteen months was enough for me. While I'm eternally appreciative of Jerusalem, it is loud and overcrowded; the Old City is no exception. However, there is no more significant religious or cultural place for the Jewish people than the City of Gold. The Kotel, the wall that millions upon millions of people visit year round to celebrate, mourn, plead for answers and show gratitude, is the modern epicenter of Jerusalem’s Jewish importance. This is why the latest attack on Israel’s right to Jerusalem, that Israel has no claim to the Kotel, is not just a political chess move but an affront to the Jewish nation.  Those who decry Israel’s attempt to hold on to Jerusalem claim...

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24 Nov
Arts & Culture, Culture, History, Latest, Religion

People of the Book: The Finkler Question and the New Anti-Semitism

by Daniel Kieval In Howard Jacobson's Booker-prize winning novel, The Finkler Question, Jewish residents of London are increasingly alarmed by the growing number of anti-Semitic attacks worldwide. The characters receive streams of news reports in which anger or hatred toward Israel fuels violence toward Jews everywhere, regardless of their connection to the country. One woman, the curator of a new Museum of Anglo-Jewish Culture, worries, "There had been spillage, from regional conflict to religious hatred, there could be no doubt of that. Jews were again the problem. After a period of exceptional quiet, anti-Semitism was becoming again what it had always been–an escalator that never stopped, and which anyone could hop on at will." The "spillage" of anti-Israel sentiment into anti-Jewish sentiment pervades the novel. The only characters sometimes able to grasp the distinction are a group...

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23 Nov
Culture, History, Latest, Religion

The Catholic Church Changes Gears on Interfaith Relations

By Gabriel Weinstein Last week a group of twenty cantors from the American Conference of Cantors (ACC) serenaded Catholic officials in Rome with rousing renditions of Adon Olam and other Jewish liturgical melodies.  The concert was a part of the Interfaith Information Center’s conference on Catholic-Jewish relations. Monsignor Renzo Giuliano, priest of the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, said it was “very important to be here together and praising our god.”  While Jewish-Catholic relations have been steadily improving for decades, a new Catholic push to mend ties with Muslims is pushing the Church’s Jewish priority to second place. For thousands of years Catholic Jewish relations were marked by antagonism and contempt. For centuries, central tenants of Catholic doctrine included Supercessionism, the belief God rejected Jews and anointed Christians as his chosen people,...

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11 Nov
Culture, History, Latest, Misc

The Human Touch

By Merav Levkowitz Tuesday (November 9th) marked seventy-two years since Kristallnacht, the “night of broken glass,” which marked the beginning of the Holocaust in Germany. The first manifestation of Nazi-led violence against the Jews, Kristallnacht saw destruction and vandalism of synagogues and Jewish businesses. Over the past few days, Jewish communities around the world have gathered to remember Kristallnacht and the Holocaust. While “Never Forget” has become a mantra for the Jewish people in particular, I, as many others, fear that as time goes on, we risk distancing ourselves from the Holocaust in a dangerous way. While the Holocaust remains at the root of much of contemporary Jewish thought and action, for many of us it lives on as part of collective memory, which causes pain but is very much intangible. As American Jews in particular, the...

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08 Nov
History, Latest, Misc

The Fallen Kibbutz: A Microcosm of Israeli Society

By Lily Hoffman Simon This year marked the centennial birthday of the Kibbutz. However, the structure of these unique societal experiments has changed so dramatically that, today, their original founders would barely recognize them.  The values of a Jewish and Zionist social revolution, which birthed the kibbutz movement, don’t exist in the modern kibbutz. With all of these shifts, are the kibbutzim still a relevant force for Israeli and Jewish life? A kibbutz is a collective settlement in Israel, traditionally based on communal life, agriculture, and an emphasis on physical labour.  This ideology emerged in Eastern Europe in the 1900s, when Jewish youth began to question the value in a self-victimized, oppressed, and religiously observant Jewish lifestyle, a lifestyle which dominated the Jewish narrative and experience throughout Europe. These idealists, frustrated by the lack of Jewish autonomy,...

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04 Nov
History, Latest

Yitzhak Rabin: 15 Years Later

In a moving column in The New York Times, President Bill Clinton pays tribute to slain Israeli Prime Minister and peacemaker Yitzhak Rabin.  "I continue to believe that, had he lived, within three years we would have had a comprehensive agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians," Clinton writes. Let us take a moment today, the 15th anniversary of Rabin's assassination by a Jewish extremist, to consider the leadership and vision Rabin exemplified.  It is no trite matter; looking past years of anger, hatred and enmity while preparing to make considerable sacrifices to strive for a better future requires rare levels of conviction and humanity.  Many forget the vehemence with which such moves were opposed, that the Israeli right juxtaposed Rabin's face with a a Nazi uniform, that there were myriad uncertainties posed by dealing with Yasir Arafat.  Rabin famously...

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01 Nov
History, Latest, Religion

The De-Militarized Zone: Politics and Religion in the Middle East

By Samantha Sisskind AMMAN, JORDAN – The swastika and anti-Israel graffiti spray-painted on the wall of a church parking lot I pass on the way to my school in central Amman reminds me daily of the blurred line between religious and political beliefs, particularly here in the Middle East. In fact, while referring to it as a “line” is familiar terminology, it's woefully insufficient to suitably explain the relationship between these two facets of human identity. The inevitable overlap between politics and religion more aptly resembles a mine-laden de-militarized zone: a volatile and uncertain area separating two realms that have more in common than either is willing to admit. In a presentation given to foreign students at Jordan University, Father Nabil Haddad, a Greek Melkite Catholic Priest and Executive Director of the Jordanian Interfaith Coexistence Research Center, advocated that...

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14 Oct
Arts & Culture, Culture, History, Latest

It’s cheese! It’s mustard! It’s…a knish?

By Symi Rom-Rymer If you happened to be walking down Second Avenue in New York’s East Village last Sunday afternoon, you might have seen an unexpected sight:  a small and solemn processional of people dressed in yellow.  This was no McDonald's protest or cheese parade.  Instead, it was a celebration and memorialization of an oft-forgotten history. In the 1920s, Second Avenue—then part of the Jewish Lower East Side-- was known for two things: Yiddish theater and food.   Artistically, it rivaled Broadway in its offerings, putting on plays by renowned playwrights such as Leo Tolstoy and George Bernard Shaw even before they reached mainstream American audiences.   So great was its popularity that when Yiddish theater great Jacob P. Adler, father of famed acting coach Stella Adler, died in 1926, two thousand people flooded the streets to pay...

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23 Apr
History, Latest, topics

This Week's Links

By Michelle Albert Four car bombs exploded in front of Shiite mosques in Baghdad this morning, killing 39 people and wounding 54. The Rabbinical Council of America is meeting this Sunday to discuss the possibility of female leadership in Orthodox synagogues. This comes a few months after a woman was almost ordained as a rabbi by one of the RCA's members. The XX Factor reviews Sarah Silverman's new book, The Bedwetter. England's Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, answers questions about dealing with anti-Semitism on university campuses, Israeli use of British passports in Dubai and how he feels about being the first British Prime Minister to address the Knesset. Berlin's Free University has launched an Internet database documenting more than 20,000 works of art deemed "degenerate" by the Nazis and removed from German museums in 1937. In honor of Israel's 62nd birthday, the...

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07 Apr
Culture, History, Latest

Gay Memorial… Just for the Guys?

By Talia Ran When taught about the Holocaust, we are asked to never forget those who lost their lives during such a tragic time.  However, for some scholars, remembering certain groups may distort history. According to a recent article by the Sydney Morning Herald, there are Holocaust scholars against a bid to include images of lesbians kissing as part of a Berlin monument dedicated to the thousands of homosexuals persecuted by the Nazis. The current memorial, created in May 2008, is a single concrete pillar with a small window, behind which a video of two men joined in a "never-ending" kiss.  Original plans were for the loop to run continuously for two years, after which it will be replaced by a video of two women. According to a statement by Alexander Zinn, a board member of the foundation that maintains the...

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