Why must doing the right thing be such a costly enterprise?
Looking for a new car, a hybrid vehicle seems a natural choice. Saving significantly on gas, I figure, would be good for my personal economics, while contributing to reducing our nation’s dependence on imported oil and helping to improve the environment.
So eager was I to join the hybrid wave, I walked into a Honda dealer two years ago and put down a $500 deposit to become one of the first to buy the new hybrid Accord. The fact that it would cost about $5,000 more than the standard Accord model did not, at first, dampen my enthusiasm.
As I awaited the call alerting me that the car had arrived at the dealership, I paused to consider how long it would take for any reduction in gasoline usage to compensate for the premium affixed to the purchase price. It did not add up.
Continue reading ‘Hybrid Impediments’
Just below the radar screen, an important date is fast approaching.
From November 5 to 8, representatives of the 186-member-nation INTERPOL, the Lyon-based international police organization, will gather in Marrakech, Morocco, for their annual General Assembly. Normally, the event doesn’t make headlines, but this time could be different.
The story begins in July 1994. The building of the AMIA, the central welfare body of Argentine Jewry, was reduced to rubble in a terrorist attack. Eighty-five people were killed; many more were injured. (Two years earlier, another terrorist attack in Buenos Aires had targeted the Israeli embassy, killing twenty-nine people.)
Continue reading ‘A Litmus Test on Terrorism’
A few years ago over coffee, an acquaintance told me that his family always treated Israel differently from all other places. As a child, he was encouraged to use his critical judgment on every topic except Israel. On Israel, he knew exactly how he “had to” feel.
That clearly didn’t sit right with him. And he believed his discomfort with Israel resonated with many other people he knew.
Given this story and many others like it, I was not surprised to read the recent study on American Jews and Israel by Steven M. Cohen and Ari Y. Kelman, Beyond Distancing: Young Adult American Jews and their Alienation from Israel. Airtight analysis and manifold charts demonstrate incontrovertibly a declining attachment to Israel among younger generations. Hardly the news most Israel supporters wanted to hear on the eve of the country’s 60th anniversary.
Continue reading ‘Israel and You – Perfect Together?’
Isra Yaghoubi, Guest Writer
When Leo Frank, a New York Jew, was unlawfully lynched in 1915 by a mob in Georgia, Josephus Daniels, then Secretary of Navy, called it “the worst blot” on the history of the state of Georgia. The Brooklyn Eagle called it the act of “a mob of barbarians who have brought their civilization to a standstill”. The Evening Post declared, “Let a society be founded…with the specific aim of stamping out lynching.”
92-years later, the lynching noose is back in the public eye.
Continue reading ‘Blood at the Root’
[audio:http://ajcarchives.org/ajchomepage/audio/Simcha_Torah_Shemini_Atzeret.mp3]
Steven Bayme, AJC’s director of Contemporary Jewish Life, discusses the traditions of Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah. “Much too much is invested in a language of Jewish woes,” says Bayme. “The message of the holiday is that fundamentally the reason to be a Jew is not because terrible things have happened to Jews. The reason to be a Jew is the tremendous sense of joy and celebration in Judaic heritage.”
Also…
Download: mp3 of discussion.
Subscribe to our podcast (iTunes is preferred):
