Amanda Knox (pictured above), the University of Washington undergraduate who has spent four years in an Italian prison for the murder of her roommate–a crime it would seem she did not commit–is on her way home to Seattle. As much as has been reported about this case for years, I …
The Sudan Tribune recently reported that Salva Kiir Mayardit, the president of the newly formed nation of South Sudan, told visiting Knesset member Danny Danon that the future South Sudanese embassy in Israel will built in Jerusalem. He also pledged to pay a visit to Israel.
At present, several …
Mithal al-Alusi, human rights leader and former Iraqi Parliamentarian, contacted me last weekend to convey his thoughts about the dire situation for proponents of human rights and liberal values in Iraq. He also urged President Obama to “do something about Iran.”
Alusi was elected to Parliament in 2005 following the murder of …
From The Jewish Standard
by HEATHER ROBINSON
Yitzhak Zahavy is competing this Sunday in a grueling sports event because he can. He can, he says, because three of his comrades gave their lives to save his. He is competing to honor them.
Zahavy, who was born in …
I’m off to Israel for a week as part of JNFuture’s first Jewish Leadership Institute mission. While I can’t wait to meet with members of the Knesset, enjoy the beach in Tel Aviv, and pray at the wall Friday night in Jerusalem, I am terribly sorry I won’t be here in NYC …
From The Jewish Standard
by HEATHER ROBINSON
Starting this fall, Ramapo College of New Jersey will offer its students a minor in human rights and genocide studies. It will be the first program of its kind in New Jersey’s state college system, according to Michael …
This terrific editorial, which ran last week in The New York Times, should be required reading for anyone who thinks he or she can make peace in the mideast by putting the squeeze on Israel and/or employing high-level diplomacy. I would analogize the latter to attempting to make peace between a wife and her …
From The Jewish Standard
by HEATHER ROBINSON
From using “Jewish guilt” to interrogate criminals to reporting to the New York Police Department from the scene of suicide bombings in Israel, Mordechai Dzikansky’s career has been unique.
“You have to be unconventional and you have to take risks …
Recently I interviewed a Syrian-American acquaintance, a restaurateur in his mid-thirties, Ahmad (name has been changed for security reasons) about what it was like to grow up in Syria (he immigrated to the U.S. as a young adult) under the regime of Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez Assad. I also spoke with him about the unfolding …
Blood donation is a mitzvah
From The Jewish Standard
by HEATHER ROBINSON
Judaism has always insisted on “safety first.” Starting with such Torah-based commands to build a parapet around one’s home to prevent objects from falling off roofs and to cover holes on roadways and fields, Jewish law requires that not just care …