Short Takes

Keyes Doesn't Fit

06/07/2002 | by Steve Lipman | Staff Writer

Some MSNBC viewers want to throw away the Keyes.
Arab Americans and other critics of Israeli policies who are fed up with the staunchly pro-Israel stance of Alan Keyes have started an on-line petition drive to get the talk-show host and former presidential candidate (or his views) off NBC's news channel.
MSNBC learned about the campaign from Keyes supporters, not his detractors.

Politics From The Pulpit

06/07/2002 | BY Steve Lipman | Staff Writer

In a New Jersey synagogue last Shabbat, a rabbi urged his congregants to attend a local fund-raising event for Rep. Tom DeLay, conservative Republican and House majority whip.
In a Riverdale shul, a rabbi lauded the efforts of City Councilman Oliver Koppell, who introduced a bill to brand the Palestinian Authority a terrorist organization.

Lawyers' Fee Fight Goes On

05/31/2002 | Stewart Ain | Staff Writer

The battle over lawyers' fees in the $1.25 billion Swiss bank settlement with Holocaust survivors and their heirs has taken yet another turn: a Florida lawyer is petitioning the court for $3.6 million, a figure a fellow lawyer in the case calls "shocking."

Voice Of A Generation

05/31/2002 | by Steve Lipman | Staff Writer

New Voices was a new experience for Marita Gringaus.
The Odessa native, an economics major at Arizona State University, was introduced to the independent Jewish student magazine at the United Jewish Communities’ 2001 General Assembly in Chicago. There she met Daniel Treiman, now the publication’s outgoing editor, at a “Do The Write Thing” session for aspiring Jewish journalists. Later she wrote an article about a seder she attended in Nepal, and became a regular reader.

The Power Of A Smile

05/31/2002 | by Steve Lipman | Staff Writer

Gershon Resnik, a Canadian-born New Yorker, knows some French, Italian, Hebrew and Yiddish, but the other day he greeted Israeli children in fluent Chihuahua.
With a red rubber nose, floppy pants and a big grin, he walked on stage (in Haifa, in a northern neighborhood of Jerusalem, in a West Bank city) holding a hula hoop. "I'd bark at the audience and try to get them to bark back at me," before jumping through the hoop, Resnik says.

Timing Is Everything

05/24/2002 | by Adam Dickter | Staff Writer

It was meant to be an expression of solidarity with New York and a gesture of American unity against terror.
But a special joint session of Congress, to convene in the Big Apple this fall, is being panned by local representatives as "disrespectful," "problematic" and "an insult."
As it turns out, the session is scheduled to convene Friday, Sept. 6: the eve of Rosh HaShanah.