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Daily Briefing

Monday, December 13, 2010

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Today's Daily Briefing Sponsored by: You! For only $180, you can use this prominent spot to announce an honor or celebrate a milestone. To make your announcement, click here. Featured Story Poll: Slight majority of Israeli Jews unfavorable to Obama A slight majority of Jewish Israelis has negative views of President Obama, but his supporters are more numerous than previously reported, according to a poll. Read more » Editors' Picks The Nixon tapes: Kissinger under the spotlight The latest round of Nixon tapes offers plenty of evidence (as if more were needed) of the former president's prejudices, but Henry Kissinger also is facing scrutiny over his disregard for Soviet Jews, JTA's Ron Kampeas writes on the Capital J blog. Stow the insecurity Have Jews become so insecure with who we are as a people and our connection to the land and people of Israel that for catastrophes elsewhere in the world we say yes, but for Israel we question? Jewish National Fund CEO Russell Robinson wonders in a JTA Op-Ed. Reviving a ritual A movement to restore lost tradition has motivated a new generation of Jewish volunteers to learn a set of skills that was common knowledge for many of their great-grandparents: the rituals of bathing, dressing and watching over the bodies of neighbors and friends who have died, The New York Times reports. The Eulogizer: Former Knesset speaker, Bernard Madoff's son, a young mother, classic sportswriters Remembering Dov Shilansky, Mark Madoff, Shana Greatman Swers, Vic Ziegel and Maury Allen. Reality check The people running Israel and Palestine have other priorities than making peace, Op-Ed columnist Thomas Friedman writes in The New York Times. It is time America left them alone to pursue those priorities -- and to live with the consequences. The two ADLs The Anti-Defamation League could reach younger Jews by focusing on anti-Semitism rather than Israel's detractors, the editor of New Voices, a national Jewish student publication, writes in an Op-Ed for The New York Jewish Week. Young, Jewish and Irish Ireland's tiny Jewish community is getting a new burst of life, but young Jews still leave the country to marry, the Irish Times reports. Breaking News Several hundred people have signed on to a petition seeking the removal of Richard Goldstone and Desmond Tutu as patrons of two Holocaust centers in South Africa. Henry Kissinger is heard saying on newly released Nixon tapes that the genocide of Soviet Jews would not be an American concern. Mark Madoff, the son of disgraced Jewish financier Bernard Madoff, was found dead in what is believed to have been a suicide. Israel should have instituted a second settlement building freeze in exchange for U.S. guarantees, Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni said on ABC News. The death of another prison guard bus passenger raised the toll from the Carmel Forest fire to 43. An Israeli putting on tefillin set off a bomb scare on a New Zealand ferry. The United States recruited ex-Nazis and collaborators and helped them avoid prosecution in larger numbers than previously known, according to newly declassified documents. Israel's first real winter storm caused major damage throughout the country, especially to the Tel Aviv beachfront and an ancient pier in Caesaria. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu distanced himself from remarks made by Defense Minister Ehud Barak on dividing Jerusalem. Israel's Cabinet postponed a vote on a bill requiring the recognition of all military conversions. The United States will criticize the sides in Israeli-Palestinian talks when they take unilateral actions, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said. Syria's government told Iran that it would not join the Islamic Republic or its proxy Hezbollah in a war with Israel, according to a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable. A former director of B'nai Brith Canada in Quebec who pleaded guilty to a child pornography charge received the minimum 45-day jail term. Washington-area Jews commemorated the launch 40 years ago of a vigil for Soviet Jewry. Rumors that Venezuela is helping Iran develop a nuclear bomb were ridiculed in a new cache of diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks. Israel sent a humanitarian aid delegation to aid victims of floods and mudslides in Colombia. Australia's media regulator is proposing to prohibit content that advocates terror after an investigation found that a radical Islamic TV station breached the broadcasting standards code. An Israeli soldier wounded during a clash with armed Palestinians on the Gaza border was hit by friendly fire, a preliminary investigation reportedly has found. Yad Vashem honored the "extraordinary act" of Aboriginal activist William Cooper, who led a rare individual protest against the Nazis in Australia. Rabbi Joel Kaplan, the Chabad emissary to Thessalonika, Greece, has taken up the newly created post of chief rabbi to the tiny Jewish community in Albania.