Here’s a sad story:

An Italian woman artist who was hitch-hiking to the Middle East dressed as a bride to promote world peace has been found murdered in Turkey.

Joshua Faudem’s documentary on the bombing of Mike’s Place, “Blues by the Beach,” is coming out at the end of the month. It’s being released exclusively online, not in theaters or on DVD. Here’s the trailer.

Click here to purchase the full film.

Here’s a press release: Read the rest of this entry »

“We have been through some tough times, but the doctors and nurses have been at our side throughout the six months we have been here,” a Palestinian mother from Nablus today told former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Roselyn, at Jerusalem’s Hadassah University Hospital-Ein Kerem. Saad, her 8-year-old son, is recovering from a bone marrow transplant he underwent to save him from a hereditary blood disease. “Save the Children,” a joint project of Hadassah and the Peres Center for Peace, provided much of the support for Saad’s treatment and long hospital stay in the Pediatric Oncology and Hematology Department. Pictured with Saad and his mother are, from left: Dr. Michael Weintraub, Head of the Department of Oncology and Hematology; Prof. Shlomo Mor-Yosef, Director General, Hadassah University Medical Center; and President and Mrs. Carter.

An interesting spat has broken out over my recent article about how a Brooklyn minyan, Altshul, is grappling with how to pray for Israel.

In one corner, wearing the blue and white shorts, is Ariel Beery (of Blogs of Zion, PresenTense Magazine).

In the other corner, wearing the shorts of many colors, is Daniel Septimus, the force behind Mixed Multitudes, the blog over at My Jewish Learning.

A quick recap:

• Beery fires the opening salvo with some harsh words about how those falling out of love with the prayer (and, one assumes, with Israel generally) are moving away from identification with the Jewish people and becoming more like Protestants.
• Septimus comes back with a post more incredulous that substantive, and the conversation moves to the comments. Beery: Judaism (in its Zionist incarnation) sees the Jews as a corporate body first, then a religious group. Septimus: How can you expect all Jews to relate to the collective in the same way?
• Altshul arrives at a resolution: They will have a moment of silence during which people can say either the traditional prayer for the state or an alternative version (it’s the first one on this page) or presumably none at all. Beery: That’s the worst solution of all, sacrificing “collective purpose for individual comfort.” Septimus: There will be no Jewish peoplehood if it requires that we all agree.

What I don’t get about Beery’s view is this: He has a problem with Judaism as religion because it’s too narrow and limiting (”acts to tear apart our historical community”), but on the prayer for Israel he wants one version for everyone. Why no parallel worry that a prayer for Israel serves to separate the Zionistically Jewish from the spiritually/culturally/religiously/humanistically Jewish?

According to ContactMusic, late Playboy pinup and B-movie starlet Anna Nicole Smith embraced Jewish mourning rites after her son Daniel died from a drug overdose in 2006.

In a new book called Anna Nicole Smith: Portrait Of An Icon, the tragic star’s stylist pals Pol Atteu and Patrik Simpson reveal the actress found great comfort in Judaism after her son’s death in September 2006. They even feature photographs of the late star posing in front of a mirror that has been covered in accordance with Jewish mourning rites. Atteu and Simpson write, “Anna embraced all religions, and followed the Jewish tradition out of respect for (companion) Howard K. Stern by covering all the mirrors in the house because she was in mourning.”

It’s hard enough cooking for Passover. How about writing a Passover cookbook? Kosher by Design’s Susie Fishbein talks to the New York Times about making do without grains, corn, seeds or legumes — chametz, that is. In its Passover Dining section, the Times also discovers that kosher wine actually can be delectable, especially if it’s from northern Israel; offers an idea for Indian gefilte fish and pairs chicken with a maror pesto.

Jimmy Carter’s plan to meet the Hamas leadership in Damascus is “sensible,” says the Hamas foreign minister, and “brings honesty and pragmatism” to the Middle East.

In a Washington Post op-ed today, Mahmoud al-Zahar offers some choice insights into the thinking of the Hamas leaders Carter is so eager to engage in dialogue:

Our movement fights on because we cannot allow the foundational crime at the core of the Jewish state — the violent expulsion from our lands and villages that made us refugees — to slip out of world consciousness, forgotten or negotiated away. Judaism — which gave so much to human culture in the contributions of its ancient lawgivers and modern proponents of tikkun olam — has corrupted itself in the detour into Zionism, nationalism and apartheid.

A “peace process” with Palestinians cannot take even its first tiny step until Israel first withdraws to the borders of 1967; dismantles all settlements; removes all soldiers from Gaza and the West Bank; repudiates its illegal annexation of Jerusalem; releases all prisoners; and ends its blockade of our international borders, our coastline and our airspace permanently. This would provide the starting point for just negotiations and would lay the groundwork for the return of millions of refugees. Given what we have lost, it is the only basis by which we can start to be whole again.

The Post’s editorial board isn’t buying it. On the facing page, the Post slams Carter and slams Hamas — but justifies publishing its op-ed in the name of “clarifying” who we’re dealing with.

Mr. Zahar lauds Mr. Carter for the “welcome tonic” of saying that no peace process can succeed “unless we are sitting at the negotiating table and without any preconditions.” Yet Mr. Zahar has his own preconditions: Before any peace process can “take even its first tiny step,” he says, Israel must withdraw to the 1967 borders and evacuate Jerusalem while preparing for the “return of millions of refugees.” In fact, as Mr. Zahar makes clear, Hamas is not at all interested in a negotiated peace with the Jewish state, whose existence it refuses to accept: “Our fight to redress the material crimes of 1948 is scarcely begun,” he concludes.

In that fight, no act of terrorism is out of bounds for the Hamas leader, who endorses the group’s recent ambush of Israeli civilians working at a fuel depot that supplies Gaza. The “total war” of which he speaks was initiated and has been sustained by Hamas itself through its deliberate targeting of civilians, such as the residents of the Israeli town of Sderot, who suffer daily rocket attacks.

These facts would hardly need restating were it not for actors such as Mr. Carter, who portray Hamas as rational and reasonable. Hamas is “perfectly willing” for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas “to represent them in all direct negotiations with the Israelis, and they also maintain that they will accept any agreement that he brokers with the Israelis” provided a referendum is held on it, the former president told the newspaper Haaretz. Compare that claim with Mr. Zahar’s own words on the opposite page. In fact, Mr. Zahar has called Mr. Abbas “a traitor” for negotiating with Israel — a label that is, in the Palestinian context, an incitement to murder.

On Wednesday morning Senate Democrats held their annual powwow with Jewish organizational leaders. Shortly after the meeting, U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan briefed members of the Jewish media.

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ESPN looks back at the almost-successful attempt to get the United States to boycott the 1936 Berlin Olympics:

Seventy-two years ago this summer, Hitler’s Germany played host to the Games of the Eleventh Olympiad in Berlin.

The games are now best remembered for the brilliance of Jesse Owens — who won four gold medals — and the success of the Nazis’ propaganda machine. For the first time in the history of the modern Olympics, the Games were held hostage by the political goals of the host nation.

What’s largely forgotten is the fact that a powerful American movement to boycott the Nazi Olympics nearly succeeded. The final vote of the AAU’s delegates was 58.25 to 55.75 in favor of participation. If three more delegates had voted to boycott the Games, the Nazis would have presided at a meaningless event.

The Free-Lance Star in Fredericksburg, Va., published an ode to good old fashioned fried matzah:

In a holiday filled with ritual foods, matzo is the oldest symbol of salvation in the Passover Seder. In fact, the Seder can’t end until the last piece of matzo has been recovered from its ceremonial hiding place and eaten.

My memories of matzo are long and fond. My dad’s mother, Nanny Ann, used to make matzo brei for us whenever she visited.

She was stout and matronly, given to much fretting and hand-wringing unless she was busy in the kitchen.

But for those looking for something more avant-guarde, check out Gothamist’s roundup of New York eateries offering creative matzah-based dishes.