JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Huckabee on Jerusalem

By Uriel Heilman · August 19, 2008

JTA Israel correspondent Dina Kraft interviews former Gov. Mike Huckabee during his two-day visit to Israel.

The former GOP presidential candidate is visiting Israel courtesy of the Jerusalem Reclamation Project, the U.S. fund-raising arm for Ateret Cohanim, a Jewish organization that buys Arab properties in eastern Jerusalem to boost the Jewish presence in Arab neighborhoods of the city.

Critics say organizations like Ateret Cohanim are an obstacle to peace, making it more difficult for the Israeli and Palestinians to divide sovereignty over Jerusalem.

But Huckabee says bringing Jews into Arab neighborhoods is good for eastern Jerusalem. He also says he doubts a two-state solution ever will solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

[audio:/images/archive/huckabee.mp3] Audio sound funny? Upgrade your Flash player.

To subscribe to JTA's Behind the News podcast, click here.

2 Comments | Share This | Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Jerusalem, Podcast, Politics |

The News Shticker

By Uriel Heilman · August 19, 2008

• Kenneth Cole features what is probably the first hasidic Jew in a Kenneth Cole ad:
• Oy gevalt, you should only know how many Yiddish and Hebrew influences have found their way into American English already, writes the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a piece on the upcoming Survey of North American Jewish Language by linguist Sarah Bunin Benor sociologist Steven M. Cohen, faculty members at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
• On JTA Election Central, Eric Fingerhut asks whether a typo in an Associated Press report on vice presidential speculation unconsciously channels the feelings of many Democrats about Joe Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic VP pick.
• Australia's The Age newspaper discovers the "double mitzvah" of Friday night.
• The Jerusalem Post ran a story about how the haredi followers of Rabbi Aharon Leib Steinman say the fighting in Georgia stopped as soon as Georgia's prime minister got a blessing by phone from the rabbi.
• U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice wants to see Saudi women compete in the Olympic Games. Those burkas might make it a bit difficult in the pool and on the uneven bars, however.
• Linday Lohan's dad confirmed his daughter is considering converting to Judaism. "She's exploring right now. She's explored the Church of Scientology, she tried Kabbalah, and now this," said Michael Lohan. "I think it's just another phase. But either way, she's involving God in her life, and I'm happy about that."
• The Press-Enterprise of San Bernardino, Calif., reports on the uncertain future of a local synagogue.

3 Comments | Share This | Shticker |

Defending Helen Thomas

By Ami Eden · August 19, 2008

Yesterday we flagged Tom Shales' review of the new HBO short on Helen Thomas, the dean of the White House press corps. Most notably, he knocked the film for dodging Thomas' criticisms of Israel and America's pro-Jerusalem policies.

Well, today, Greg Mitchell, editor of Editor & Publisher, slams Shales and defends Thomas:

In suggesting that the Rory Kennedy HBO documentary on Helen Thomas performed "cosmetic surgery" on the legendary reporter's alleged major "flaw" – a rabid anti-Israel bias – Tom Shales of The Washington Post revealed, instead, what the Thomases of the world are up against in the media. To criticize Israel at all in the U.S. media generally provokes this kind of outraged and outrageous response. Of course, in Israel itself, Israelis criticize their own government and policies all the time.

Shales accuses Thomas of "stridency in criticizing Israel and defending its enemies" but offers no evidence. There might well be a few quotes out there that would make my head explode, but I'd like to see them.

Mitchell proceeds with a point-by-point rebuttal to Shales' piece. In the end, though, what he seems to be saying is that Thomas stood out in her criticisms of Israel, but in a good way – reflecting not ideological zealotry but the general "persistence, tenacity and guts" that she demonstrates in her job (and was praised by Shales in his review).

"One reason" Thomas is such a good example of these stellar journalistic traits, Mitchell argues, is that "she dares to criticize Israel, just like her colleagues – in the Israeli press."

4 Comments | Share This | Israel, Media |

More on the Andy Neff minyan

By Uriel Heilman · August 19, 2008

After reading JTA's column by a Bear Stearns "refugee" that includes a story about a mincha minyan at Bear Stearns moving over to J.P. Morgan when Bear collapsed, the editorialists at The New York Sun note the irony of the once-anti-Semitic "House of Morgan" hosting a daily Jewish prayer service.

Andrew Neff's piece in JTA, the Sun's editorialists write,

...sent us scurrying to our bookshelf to retrieve a copy of Ron Chernow's book, "The House of Morgan," which speaks of a "strain of anti-Semitism running through the Morgan story" and quotes an early biographer of J. Pierpont Morgan as writing that "He had a deep-seated anti-Semitic prejudice and on more than one occasion needlessly antagonized great Jewish banking firms." The Chernow book goes on to report that as late as the 1970s, Arab oil potentates prized Morgan Guaranty's "resolutely Christian past (the bank had no high-ranking Jewish officer until the 1980s)."

Count this latest turn as one of the many ways that capitalism is conducive to overcoming prejudice. And an example of how New York derives its energy and success from the way it has functioned as a place where minority groups can participate in great institutions without surrendering their identities or their faith.

0 Comments | Share This | Religion |

How Israel loses

By Uriel Heilman · August 19, 2008

With Israel's chances of taking home an Olympic medal dwindling rapidly – their best remaining chances are in various water sports – Israelis are thinking about what it means to lose.

A Top Ten list about losing by 10 Israeli Olympians, compiled in Ha'aretz by Nir Wolf, doesn't exactly portray Israeli athletes as gracious in defeat.

Maybe Israelis just don't know how to lose because the national ethos is that the Jewish state cannot afford defeat, writes former CNN correspondent Jerrold Kessel in Ha'aretz. He writes: "Rather than decrying 'another failure' and 'medals down the drain,' shouldn't we be awfully proud when an Israeli shooter or swimmer places 12th in the world - the 12th best of more than six billion?"

The Jerusalem Post offers this tribute to Israeli sailors Nike Kornicki and Vered Buskila, who finished in fourth place in the 470 Class competition at Beijing.

1 Comment | Share This | Beijing Olympics |