New York News

Peres: Bibi ‘Prisoner Of His Coalition’

10/16/1998 | by Eric J. Greenberg | Staff Writer

Former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres stressed the need for a Palestinian state, a national unity government in Israel, and reducing the power of religious parties, during a wide-ranging speech last week at Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel.

Jewish Saint Causes Stir

10/16/1998 | by Eric J. Greenberg | Staff Writer

Catholics will now be able pray to a Jewish-born nun for divine intervention. That’s because on Sunday, Pope John Paul II made Edith Stein, a German-born Jewish convert to Catholicism, into an official saint of the Catholic Church.
It is the first time in history that the Vatican has elevated a Jewish convert to sainthood, said Rabbi Leon Klenicki, interfaith affairs director of the Anti-Defamation League. But the canonization of Stein, who died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, has re-opened wounds in the Catholic-Jewish relationship.

Deconstructing The Summit

10/09/1998 | Jonathan Mark | Associate Editor

Rabbis Question Report On Movements’ Harmony

10/09/1998 | by Stewart Ain | Staff Writer

Are relations among the leaders of Judaism’s branches as bad as they’ve been portrayed?
A recent, well-publicized report on hundreds of examples of rabbinic cooperation nationwide emphasized that the situation may be improving. But even some of the rabbis involved in cooperative efforts questioned the report’s positive spin.

O’Connor: Vatican Should Open Archives

10/09/1998 | by Eric J. Greenberg | Staff Writer

In what is being hailed as a major development in interfaith affairs, John Cardinal O’Connor, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York, is calling for the Vatican to quickly open its secret Nazi-era archives.
The comments by Cardinal O’Connor mark the first major initiative by a Christian leader in the long-running struggle to gain access to the Catholic Church’s sealed documents in Rome. Jewish leaders have been calling for access to try and determine the relationship between the Vatican and Nazi Germany during and after World War II.

Radical Shift Toward Gender Sensitive Siddur

10/02/1998 | Jonathan Mark | Associate Editor

God may still be a He, but He is no longer a Lord, Father or King. For the second time in 13 years, the Conservative movement has overhauled its official prayer book, Siddur Sim Shalom, changing some of the prayers, but not all, into “gender-sensitive” language — God is now a Sovereign, a Guardian.