Tag: Jew

Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman has compared Turkey with Iran prior to the 1979 Islamic revolution, saying Israel will “not be Turkey’s punching bag.” Writing in Thursday’s Jerusalem Post, Mr Lieberman blamed the crisis in bilateral ties between Jerusalem and Ankara on internal developments in Turkey.

Excerpt from a memoir of life in an Israeli Kibbutz with discussion of the author’s growing disillusionment with Labour Zionism. “What I did, however, come quite quickly to understand if not openly acknowledge was just how limited the kibbutz and its members really were. The mere fact of collective self-government, or egalitarian distribution of consumer durables, does not make you either more sophisticated or more tolerant of others. Indeed, to the extent that it contributes to an extraordinary smugness of self-regard, it actually reinforces the worst kind of ethnic solipsism.”

A row has broken out over a meeting about Israel at a University of London college that one man described as “anti-Semitic”. Jonathan Hoffman, vice-chairman of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain, made the claim in a blog relating to a meeting at the School of Oriental and African Studies. But others have insisted the meeting was fair and there were no anti-Semitic undertones. Other Jewish audience members spoke without being heckled.

Madonna has used a newspaper column to reveal that she was inspired to adopt African children by her conversion to the Kabbalah sect of Judasim. The U.S. pop star said learned of the plight of AIDS orphans in the southern African nation when she and a teacher at the Kabbalah Centre were seeking a project to help disadvantaged children.

The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops, looking to clarify their position on interfaith dialogue with Jews, have instead caused an uproar by issuing a recent statement that appears to endorse attempts to convert them. Jews are accusing American bishops of backtracking on a statement that explicitly directs Catholics to not attempt to convert Jews.

Leaders of the UK’s main religions appeal to their followers to support a campaign to register as organ donors. The Church of England, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, the head of the U.K. Hindu Council and the Chief Rabbi have all said that organ donation after death is both permitted and encouraged by their respective religions. The Church of England went farther, calling it a “Christian duty.”