Yesterday I heard Robert Siegel of NPR doing two Christmas stories. One was about NORAD tracking Santa’s movements, as it does every year. And in another story he signed off by saying, “Happy Christmas.” Siegel is of my generation: a…
Jack Ross writes: I meant my post the other day about Wilhelmine Germany all in good fun, but I have to say that the folks on the message board who made such remarks as “would that we could send you…
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) sent out an email today saying that the chain that owns Long John Silver’s restaurant in Minnesota has apologized for giving out a toy to child patrons with a bible passage on it. A…
A good thing that Yahoo carries stories from the Agence France-Presse. Otherwise I wouldn’t know that American Jews have any power. From a story on Madoff destroying Elie Wiesel’s foundation, which allegedly serves international understanding (but surely denies that gypsies…
My wife is a lot smarter about social stuff than I am. For instance, today she said that journalists should ask Ricky Jay how Madoff did it. That Ricky Jay understands the con; and Madoff’s con was first to create…
Will I be the first to say that Bernie Madoff is a cipher, or to use the Yiddish equivalent, nebbish? Probably not. Kurt Andersen points out that the Times only mentioned Madoff 6 times before his downfall, and almost all…
Obama has named James Steinberg and Jacob Lew as deputy secretaries of state under Clinton. I suppose I will have to wait for the Israeli press to tell me whether both men are Jewish. Steinberg helped write Obama’s speech to…
Adam Horowitz writes: Check out this amazing letter from the Israeli peace activist Nurit Peled-Elhanan. She sent it to the recipients of the Sakharov Prize. Peled-Elhanan helped start the organization the Bereaved Families Forum, a network of Palestinian and Israeli…
Adam Horowitz writes: While the rest of the world sees the Israeli colonization of the West Bank as one of the core issues to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, more and more Israelis are seeing it a great chance to get away….