by The Town Crier [➚] · Sunday, October 17th, 2004
Edgar Bronfman Sr. chimes in on the case of Hungarian Gold Train.
Unfortunately, since taking office, the Bush administration has ardently worked to block the Gold Train survivors from achieving restitution. Justice Department attorneys have deployed an array of technical devices — asserting the same arguments of statute of limitations, sovereign immunity and proof of property that the United States so adamantly deplored and successfully urged other nations to forswear.
[...]
It is not too late for the Bush administration to right this wrong. Officials should work in the current mediation with survivors to achieve a fair and immediate settlement, paying reasonable compensation. These Holocaust survivors are elderly, many frail and ailing, some dying. Continued delay is the enemy of justice. In this greatest of moral issues, courtroom antics, legal tricks and political posturing have no place.
Read more…
by The Town Crier [➚] · Sunday, October 17th, 2004
Rabbi Phillip Berg, of the Kabbalah center has suffered a massive stroke and is now wheelchair bound, which will unfortunately impair his ability to bless the stage prior to Madonna’s performances. Refuah Sheleima.
by Mobius [➚] · Friday, October 15th, 2004
Loudmouth conservative talk show host Bill O’Reilly (known best for his inventive “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” catchphrase) has been hit with a sexual harrassment suit by one of his former employees. Amidst the charges waged in the suit against O’Reilly is that he engaged in phone sex with the unwilling young woman, on one occassion of which he uh… suggested he’d molest her with a falafel sandwich.
O’Reilly’s peculiar fetish has thus now entered the sexual canon as falaphilia:
fa·la·phil·i·a n.
- Obsessive fascination with ground spiced chickpeas shaped into balls and fried.
- Erotic attraction to or sexual contact with garbanzo beans, coriander, and cumin.
- An abnormal fondness for being in the presence of middle eastern foods. Also called taboulehmania, hummulingus.
- Sexual contact with or erotic desire for a falafel.
Oy va mothaf’n voy. (c/o BoingBoing)
by Mobius [➚] · Friday, October 15th, 2004
Reuters reports,
Israeli wildlife experts are desperately searching for hundreds of stolen baby crocodiles sold as household pets amid fears they might be released into the country’s waterways.
Full story.
by Mobius [➚] · Friday, October 15th, 2004
Reuters reports,
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told parliamentarians jokingly that he is having trouble finding a bulletproof vest that fits his generous girth.
Asked by a lawmaker whether he wears a vest to protect himself from a possible assassin, the 76-year-old Sharon smiled and said: “There is no bulletproof vest in my size.”
Full story.
by The Town Crier [➚] · Thursday, October 14th, 2004
As noted earlier this week, Congress passed the Global Anti-Semitism Awareness Act which would require the State Department to appoint set up a special office and appoint an envoy to monitor the growing problem of anti-Semitism worldwide, explore its causes, and produce an annual report. The bill, which is now requires the president’s signature to become law, is according to state department spokesman Richard Boucher is not necessary and that “separate reports on different religions or ethnicities were not warranted.”
AP: State Department Opposes Anti-Semitism Law | WN: US diplomats baulk at Jewish bill
by The Town Crier [➚] · Thursday, October 14th, 2004
Tonight’s anti-terrorism concert launched by pro-israel students at Duke Univeristy coming ahead of the conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement will be simulcast live on the web. The concert will feature popular group Sister Hazel, and will have live testimonials by terror victims in New York, Israel, Lebanon and Sudan. To see the concert tonight, surf to www.hillel.org or www.hollywood.com.
by Bradford [➚] · Thursday, October 14th, 2004
As part of my personal efforts this election season to generate a larger voter turnout, and particularly to energize progressive Americans, I’ve been taking part in a number of community debates targetted at the Jewish community. The next (and last) one is tomorrow evening during a Shabbat dinner/debate on the campus of Emory University.
I like to solicit the input of others when I prepare for these encounters, so now I turn to the Jewschool readership. Any things you’d like me to go out of my way to bring up? Any substantive pointers? In particular, how would you go about neutralizing the Bush-support amongst Jews, which is due to the issue of Israel?
by Danya [➚] · Thursday, October 14th, 2004
It seems that John Kerry might have been eligible for that ever-tantalizing first aliyah in the Torah service had things turned out a little differently. Seems that his paternal grandparents were (at one point(?)) not only Jews, but Jews with yichus.
Evidently Kerry’s grandfather was born Fritz Kohn, but, living in anti-Semitic Austria at the turn of the century, converted to Catholicism and changed his name to Fredrick Kerry. As the story goes, he married Ida Lowe, a Jewess (don’t you love that term?) descended from the Maharal of Prague. She also converted and they raised their children Catholic.
The full story’s got a bit of a tragic twist, actually. You can read it here.
What, if anything, does this mean? Maybe not much, but if feeling the blood-bond prompts any of those bubbies down in Florida to vote Democrat, I, for one, don’t mind if he plays the Jew card ’till he plotzes.
by Mobius [➚] · Thursday, October 14th, 2004
by The Town Crier [➚] · Wednesday, October 13th, 2004
Top Hamas mastermind Imad Kawasme was caught alive today in Hebron. Kawasami headed a wide-ranging infrastructure that dealt with dozens of terrorists, many of whom participated in major and minor attacks against Israelis. Among the attacks Kawasme supervised were the double bus bombing several weeks ago in Be’er Sheva, the Rosh HaShanah attack last year in Negohot and the Otniel yeshiva attack, and many more. Although he sent many young people on suicide missions, he himself apparantly did not want to die, and surrendered himself to the Israel Defense Forces.
by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, October 13th, 2004
Check out my debut story in JPost — an interview with UK beatbox champion and Bjork-collaborator Shlomo.
And while we’re on the subject of beatboxing, watch this chosid go to town.
by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, October 13th, 2004
Friday, October 15, 11 AM–4:30 PM
Stardust, 6 Rechov Rivlin
Click here for more info
by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, October 13th, 2004
The JTA reports,
The Israeli army admitted it was wrong when it said a video showed a Palestinian rocket being loaded into a U.N. vehicle.
A spokeswoman for the Israel Defense Forces made the admission Tuesday while speaking to a Knesset committee. Israel recently asked U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to investigate the possibility that ambulances affiliated with UNRWA, the U.N. agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, were being used to transport rockets.
Welp, it’s not like they don’t have good reason to be suspicious.
by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, October 13th, 2004
The NJDC is finding itself mired in controversy over the advertisement they’re running here on Jewschool which is otherwise making its way around the web. The JTA asks,
[D]oes “Bubbie,” a cartoon Jewish Democrat who knocks Republicans into oblivion, cross a line in a campaign season that already has seen pitched advertisement battles in the Jewish community?
[...]
“I find this to be absolutely vile, offensive and repugnant,” said Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition. “The only positive thing that can come out of this effort is that it will now turn off far more people to their work and to their efforts than it would attract people.”
No word from Brooks yet on Sinclair Broadcasting comparing Democrats to holocaust deniers though, eh?
Leave it to Uncle Abe to be the, ahem, voice of reason:
“I’m saddened, disappointed and offended,” said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. “It pits Christians against Jews, it uses stereotypes we should know better about projecting.”
Ah yes, because evangelical Christian Zionists are entirely a fiction.
Go Bubbe, go!
by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, October 13th, 2004
The Global Antisemitism Awareness Act, which will “create a special office [within the state department] to monitor anti-Semitic abuses around the world and compile annual reports rating countries on their treatment of Jews,” has passed in both the house and senate. The bill moves on to Resident Bush’s desk this week.
Gotta love how the article, which appears in a South African publication, takes an antisemitic slant with the narrow focus of its title and the use of ‘force’ regarding the creation of the new office. Some people…
by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, October 13th, 2004
by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, October 13th, 2004
Tenacious D’s Jack Black exhibits his unfortunate ignorance of Judaism when he tells Female First:
“I did some drugs and stuff but I was already into acting before that. I was doing cocaine and stuff but it was all just dying to fit in and to be ‘hardcore’. [...] I volunteered for therapy. I was raised a Jew and never had confession, so I went in there and spilled my guts about all the things I was guilty about – stealing money from my mom to buy cocaine.”
Jack, bubbahleh, it’s called Vidui. You don’t have to confess to a stranger, only to G-d. Go hang with a Chabadnik or sumfin’ and learn ’bout yer faith brah… It’s all there waiting for you to find it.
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