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Updated 11/08/09 @ 07:45AM EDT
- Palestinian activists attempted to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall by knocking down a portion of the West Bank security wall.
- An evangelical Christian who promotes Messianic Judaism will be the keynote speaker at a Birthright Israel alumni event in New York this month.
- President Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu will meet, an Israeli newspaper reported a day after Obama canceled a scheduled appearance before the Jewish federations' General Assembly.
- The Union for Reform Judaism passed a resolution urging equal services for Israeli Arabs.
- The International Atomic Energy Agency has evidence that Iran may have tested an advanced nuclear warhead design, according to a British newspaper.
- Palestinians knock down portion of security wall
- Evangelical leader to speak at Birthright Next event
- Obama, Netanyahu to meet, Israeli newspaper reports
- Reform endorse qual treatment for Israeli Arabs
- Iran may have tested secret nuclear warhead design
- Report: U.S. stopped Israeli attack on weapons ship
- U.S. sees Abbas in continuing role
- Groups blast UNGA Goldstone vote
- Obama’s Nobel, Israel’s problem?
- Jews of color come together to explore identity
- FBI: Alleged spy wannabe asked for Israeli citizenship
- Family likely murdered by professional killer
- New signs that Ethiopian aliyah will resume
- U.S. appetite for Israeli food grows
- Female Orthodox scholars helping women talk about sex
- Attacks on J Street as parley approaches
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Posted in: Ruth Brin, Reform liturgist, dies
10/02/09 12:44 PM
Ruth Brin, whom I knew and deeply admired, was a Reconstructionist Jew, not a Reform Jew. She was part of the Recon movement practically her whole life, and her daughter Deborah is a Recon rabbi. Her liturgical poems were so good that they appeared not only in Recon but Reform and Conservative siddurim, but that doesn't change who she was. I hope JTA will correct this egregious mistake. --- Good shabbos and good yontif, Rabbi Arthur Waskow.
Posted in: Obama appeals to rabbis to help pass health care reform
08/20/09 01:20 PM
Once upon a time there was a President who used the phrases "economic royalists" and "malefactors of great wealth" to describe the Wall Street greedies who opposed policies the country deserately needed. Once upon a time thre was a President who dem=nopunced BY NAME the right-wing Congressmen who tried tostall the New Deal -- "Mahtin, Bahton, & Fish!" He saved caapialism by denouncing the greed of capitalists. Now we have a President who turns tail when the provision for a publlc option that he himself originally said was the only way to keep the insurance companies honest is attacked. Already two months agp when he was asked in a press conference whether he would veto a health bill that came to him without a public option, when he said he would not. i knew then it would come to this -- What's the use of asking us rabbis to fight for a bill he won;t fight for himself? Of cpurse we need to fight. But we need to be fighting DESPITE this president's weak knees, not for his periodic kneeling exercises. What needs to happen now is a direct campaign to keep the House pf Representatives standing up to the insurance companies, the senate, AND the President. If the mangled health care bill is passed with no public option, the windfall for Big Insurance and Big Pharma will outdo even their treasure hunt in the Bush Medicare windfall. Why? How? Because the bill requires practically everybody to buy insurance, and the public will have no way of keeping down what the insurance companies charge all those new and old customers. Another gravy train like Bush's medicare drug plan --- on our money. The companies get paid to support lousy care, with private companies refusing payment whenever they decide to boost corporate profits. If progressive members of the House of Representatives who understand this stand firm, no matter what the Senate does, no matter what the White House does -- then no bill can pass without a public option Better to fight this out, since at least two-thirds of the public supports a real public option. Please write your Member of the House right away with a simple, serious, straight-out message: No public option, no bill! You can tell your Congressperson exactly that: Please click here - http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/602/t/4180/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27788 If the President won't defend what's true & just, we have to. Shalom, Rabbi Arthur Waskow The Shalom Center www.shalomctr.org
Posted in: Mary Robinson: "You Just Don't Understand!"
08/18/09 01:27 PM
Kampeas somehow avoids mentioning that Robinson in her CBS interview specifically says that she fought against the "Zionism is racism" resolution at Durban and that it was removed before the end of the conference. That doesn;t seem to me in the least obtuse. It seems to me rather that Kampeas is being opaque -- -- by accident? Deliberately? How could he have possibly left that out? Her attacker on CBS thinks the Durban conference was a joke even if it had not included an attack on Zionism. Why would a serious attempt to address the world problem of racism be a joke?? Except of course for someone who doesn't think racism itself is important. The worst things he could think to say about her is that she kept a useless conference from being worse, and that she was not as great a figure in world history as Mandela. . Is that why Kampeas has expressed so much animus against her? And against Obama for naming her? Did Jack Kemp compare in history to Mandelka? Why wasn't there criticism of Obama for naming Kemp? Something is rotten in the journalistic cheese here. Rabbi Arthur Waskow The Shalom Center www.shalomctr.org
Posted in: On Iran and North Korea
08/06/09 02:15 PM
Has it occurred to anyone that Jewish tradition views the "redemption of captives" as one of the highest commitments of a Jewish community? That if it takes the sale of a Sefer Torah to pay the ransom of a Jewish captive, the community is OBLIGATED to selll the Torah Scroll?! All it took in this case was Bill Clinton on an airplane. i notice that for Dore Gold had no eyes, ears, heart, or soul for the suffering that the two women would undergo during 12 years of hard labor for a violation of North Korean law that (considering where and how they were arrested) they probably did violate. The sentence was a disgustingly draconic punishment. But did human feeling, compassion, even cross his blood-brain barrier? What vile decline in Jewish value-system! Thank God Obama and the Clintons still have rachmanes as a value and the redemption of captives as a commitment, and may God keep Dore Gold from ever again representing the Jewish people! Rabbi Arthur Waskow The Shalom Center www.shalomctr.org
Posted in: Oxfam just made Obama's Mary Robinson headache that much bigger [UPDATED]
08/06/09 01:59 PM
Eden's article of course is tendentious and has already reached the conclusion that there is something wrong with Oxfam's rejecting Ahava's head. Ahava is stealing the raw materials for its cosmetics from the Palestinian people. Its head does not deserve to be honored by an organization that cares about the poor of the wprld.. If "Ahava" -- what a name!! only in Sholom Aleichem could we find a thief called "Love" -- -- were located in the real state of Israel, THEN Oxfam's doubts would be out of line. As for the legal situation: The ICJ applies international law fairly & sensibly. It ruled, for example, that is Israel had built the Separation Wall along the Green Line, not hugely into PalestiniaN turf, it would probably be legal. And it doesn't take the ICJ to discover that the settlements are illegal. Neither the US norany other state recognizes israel's land grabs on the West bank & EastT Jerusalem. Obama';s "true feelings" abt Israel are that the real Israel is legitimate and decent, and the settlements unacceptable. An excellent position. Most American Jews agree, though not the official "leaders" of the various AJCs etc. -- Rabbi Arthur Waskow The Shalom Center www.shalomctr.org
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