National News

A Hero’s Fall From Grace

03/01/2002 | by Stewart Ain | Staff Writer

Christoph Meili, the Swiss bank guard whose actions led in 1998 to a $1.25 billion settlement with Holocaust survivors and their heirs, is finally going to get his reward.
Brooklyn Federal Judge Edward Korman is expected to approve as early as next week a $1 million payment to Meili in settlement of a suit he filed against the bank after it had him fired for rescuing incriminating bank documents meant for the shredder.

Pearl Killing: ‘Wake-Up Call’

03/01/2002 | by Eric J. Greenberg | Staff Writer

In the wake of the killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who reportedly died with the words “I am a Jew” on his lips, several experts on Islamic terrorism and Jewish leaders are warning that Islamic militants have declared a war against Jews.
In issuing what they say is a “wake-up call” to Jews, the experts cautioned that ignoring the warning will mean more innocent people like Pearl, who suspects say was targeted because he was Jewish, will be murdered.

Graham Apology Not Enough

03/01/2002 | by Eric J. Greenberg | Staff Writer

The revelation of anti-Semitic sniping by the Rev. Billy Graham during a private taped conversation with President Richard Nixon in 1972 has stung Jewish and non-Jewish interfaith leaders, who say they feel betrayed by one of America’s most respected religious leaders.
And despite the ailing 83-year-old Rev. Graham’s speedy apology, critics said the tape is still disturbing because it apparently sheds light on his true feelings about Jews, even as he was acting like their friend and supporting the Soviet Jewry movement and Israel.

Still Out In The Cold

02/08/2002 | by Steve Lipman | Staff Writer

Yossi Goldberg played soccer and basketball as a boy growing up in Israel, but figure skating was in his blood — his mother was a figure skater in Lithuania.
That, says Goldberg, founder and president of the Israeli Figure Skating Association, is why he has devoted a dozen years to a winter sport in a Mediterranean country.

Monitoring The Mormons

02/08/2002 | by Steve Lipman | Staff Writer

Only a few thousand Jews live in Utah, international center of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, better known as the Mormons.
But, says a researcher in Salt Lake City, several thousand Jews are on the Mormon Church’s membership rolls — Jews who were posthumously baptized and converted into the Mormon faith.

‘Asleep At The Switch’

09/14/2001 | by Eric J. Greenberg | Staff Writer

Stunned counterterrorism experts said the terrorist air attacks were worse than anything they ever could have imagined.
They also blamed a “massive failure” in U.S. intelligence gathering and lax American airport security for the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.
And they called for the U.S. to launch a unified, international effort against terrorism.