The pushback to Beinart’s essay was immediate and came from varied camps in the Israel debate By RON KAMPEAS WASHINGTON (JTA) — Should Jews shun other Jews? And should they shun Jews who call on Jews to shun other Jews? Peter Beinart’s call in Monday’s New York Times for a boycott of goods manufactured in [...]

Internet archive offers window into physicist’s life and work By LINDA GRADSTEIN JERUSALEM — Ever wonder about Albert Einstein’s love life? Now you can get a firsthand glimpse by searching the newly improved Einstein Archives Web site, which re-launched Monday with expanded offerings. The online archive now makes available digitally 2,000 documents from Einstein’s papers [...]

Amid the mundane lives of Tel Ilan villagers, strange things are happening. Esteemed Israeli author Amos Oz ventures into Kafkaland, at times, in his new collection of stories, Scenes from Village Life (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). Unexpected and inexplicable events transpire at climactic moments in these eight stories. Oz is a world-class writer, so the reader [...]

A cartoon by Paul Noth in the new issue of The New Yorker shows Moses leading the Israelites through the Sea of Reeds. Our illustrious ancestor has split the water; he holds a staff in his raised hand, as he leads a long column of his people fleeing Egypt. Immediately behind Moses, at the head [...]

Artist Claude Riedel will speak about his craft and Jewish mysticism, at the Rimon Artist Salon on March 25 By ERIN ELLIOTT BRYAN / Community News Editor Acclaimed glass artist Claude Riedel has been creating sculpture and stained glass windows for more than 30 years. He first created a ner tamid (Eternal Light), the Jewish [...]

The First Lady of Fleet Street: The Life of Rachel Beer, by Eilat Negev and Yehuda Koren, Bantam Books, 368 pages, $30. Reviewed by NEAL GENDLER Rachel Beer, daughter of the hugely wealthy Sassoon family, was born six or seven decades too soon. A woman of ambition, strong will, great intelligence and even musical talent, [...]

For my family at least, Judaism isn’t and can’t be a simple matter of biology By SUSAN GOLDBERG But will the children be Jewish? “Of course they will,” I thought. So, I’m sure, did many of my girlfriends who were raised in the Conservative Jewish tradition. For us, the so-called “matrilineal principle” held sway: we [...]

A Jew, a Christian and a Muslim walk into a theater… stop me if you’ve heard this one. Laugh in Peace Tour Actually, Bob Alper, an intentionally funny rabbi, will return to the Twin Cities with his Laugh in Peace Tour on Thursday evening, March 15 at the Varsity Theater in Dinkytown. Alper, a rabbi [...]

Minnesota’s junior senator and his wife, Franni, visited the Jewish state and Palestinian Territories in February By MORDECAI SPECKTOR In late February, Al Franken made his first senatorial visit to Israel. In the course of a busy week, Franken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian National Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. “We [...]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Obama discussed Iran and other issues during their March 5 meeting in the White House Oval Office. (Photo: Ron Kampeas) By RON KAMPEAS WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agree, at least in principle: Keep the talk on what to do about Iran [...]