RSS Feed Breaking News
Updated 11/22/09 @ 05:43AM EDT
- The head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog encouraged Iran to accept an offer to process its enriched uranium abroad, but also said he opposed additional sanctions if it did not.
- Canada's opposition Liberal Party is crying foul after the ruling Conservatives mailed out flyers extolling themselves as stronger supporters of Israel.
- Israel arrested five Palestinian Authority intelligence officers in the West Bank.
- Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Israel is conducting secret negotiations with Hamas.
- Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was welcomed Thursday in Brazil by a state governor who is Jewish.
- IAEA head to Iran: Accept enrichment offer
- Canadian Liberals object after Conservatives say they’re stronger Israel backers
- Israel arrests five P.A. officers
- Abbas: Israel talking to Hamas
- Abbas welcomed by Jewish pol in Brazil
- South African Jewish leader Mendel Kaplan dies
- Israel will send ship to NATO anti-terror force
- Obama: New Iran sanctions coming within weeks
- Female Orthodox scholars helping women talk about sex
- Obama half-brother has Jewish roots
- Lieberman: Fort Hood could be terror attack
- J Street confab shows generational divide on Israel
- What really happened at the Reform biennial in Toronto
- Rubashkin convicted on 86 charges
- Obama shifts to Israel’s corner, but tries not to show it
- Pro-Israel fliers confiscated at campus speech
Get this feed
Posted in: Nobels, politics and parochialism
10/13/09 12:52 AM
But at the time the Locarno Pact seemed that it might contribute to European peace. No one then expected Hitler to come to power. So in retrospect and hindsight Austen Chamberlain did do what Nobel's will asked for. A goodly number of the Peace laureates were men and women of courage and idealism who worked to make the World a better place. To name a few: Bertha von Suttner; Fridtjof Nansen; Jane Addams; Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann (who died much too prematurely); Carl von Ossietzky (a brave German); John Boyd Orr; Ralph Bunche; Linus Pauling; and the recently deceased Norman Borlaug. Cordell Hull probably deserved his prize. Barack Obama is in good company. Mazel Tov Mr. President! As for Herta Mueller, I never heard of her. But then there are a lot of writers that I've never heard of. But so what. I wish the English literary critic Martin Seymour-Smith were still alive and writing. He would have known about Herta Mueller and most likely would have read some works by her. Relatively foreign literature is translated and published in the United States. And we all know the star names. Philip Roth, Don DeLillo, Cynthia Ozick are fine writers and maybe their Nobel will eventually come their way. But it doesn't, they're in good company.
Posted in: Breaking the fast, Sephardi style
09/25/09 12:55 AM
This is being pedantic, but describing Italian Jews as Sephardic is ridiculous. There are some Sephardim in Italy, however, the largest community in Italy, that of Rome, is sui generis Italian. Just remember Sephardi means Spanish. There are other Jewish ethnicities beside the two major ones, Ashkenazi and Sephardi. The Italki being one of them.
Posted in: German parties pledge support to Jewish community
09/25/09 12:40 AM
When I visited West Germany for afew days in 1971, some Jews in Cologne (Orthodox observant and of German background, not Eastern European) told me that as a matter of course the majority of the then much Jewish community do not vote for any of the Christian parties, eg the Christian Democrats, the Bavarian affiliate Christian Social Union. I have no idea if that reluctance still exists.
Posted in: Brandeis, Frankfurter on new stamps
09/25/09 12:33 AM
I believe Benjamin Cardozo was a Columbia Law School graduate. I hope I'm not being too obvious, but there haven't been as yet any Muslim justices on the US Supreme Court. Until recently the Muslim population in the United States has been rather small.
Posted in: Pope will visit Rome synagogue
09/18/09 02:46 AM
I think it would be appropriate for the Pope to visit the Main Synagogue during Sukkot. That holiday called the Time of our Rejoicing was to be open to Gentiles. During Sukkot in Temple times sacrifices were offered on behalf of the World's Seventy Nations. Sukkot is supposed to have universalist connotations. I hope Chief Rabbi di Segni invites the Pope to share a meal in the sukkah. L'Shanah Tovah Tikatevu everyone. May you all be inscribed in the Book of Life.
View all comments »