Britannia Radio

Daily Briefing

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

FEATURED STORY A provocateur to some, Michele Bachmann also offers Jewish voters common cause For Jewish voters, Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann's habit of letting her deepest convictions rise unfiltered to the surface is either a major draw or a drawback, depending on your politics. Read more » EDITORS' PICKS Welcoming deaf Jews The Jewish community must work to implement the new mandate set forth by the Conservative movement's law committee acknowledging that deaf and hard-of-hearing people are entitled to stand in the community as equals, write two leaders of the Jewish Deaf Resource Center in a JTA Op-Ed. How is Obama doing with the Jews? Politico tackles the perennial question, speaking with Jewish Democratic donors and activists, and concludes that President Obama's Middle East speech may have led to a "tipping point." Madoff: Judge made me 'the human pinata of Wall Street' The New York Times speaks with Bernie Madoff, who lashes out at the judge who sentenced him to 150 years in prison. The rise of the 'Zionist captivity narratives' Writing on his Jerusalem Post blog, Gil Troy looks at two recent essays -- one a critical look at Birthright Israel, the other a tale of disillusionment with growing up in a Zionist youth movement -- and identifies a new genre: the "Zionist captivity narrative." The 'delegitimization' bogeyman Writing in Haaretz, political scientist Shlomo Avineri takes issue with the notion that Israel is facing a wave of "delegitimization." "The truth is there are no significant moves afoot anywhere on Earth to delegitimize Israel," he writes. Circumcision and Judaism cut against the grain Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz argues in The New York Jewish Week that the current fight over circumcision indicates something larger about Judaism's place in today's world. "I've come to realize that circumcision is incompatible with the times, as is much of Judaism. But that's fine; Jews should be proud of how different we are," he writes. The trouble with bagels Writing in Time, Joshua Ozersky decries the current state of bagels, explaining that they have become "denuded of all their tradition and taste" and calling today's bagel "a symbol of assimilation at any cost." The Eulogizer: Don Diamond and Gilbert Sedbon JTA's Appreciation column remembers longtime actor Don Diamond of "F Troop" and veteran Reuters correspondent Gilbert Sedbon. This week in Torah: Parashat Hukkat In this week's Torah portion, God instructs Moses and Aaron regarding the red heifer and, by the end of the portion, Aaron dies. MyJewishLearning has commentary and analysis. BREAKING NEWS European Jewish groups slammed a vote by the lower house of the Dutch parliament to ban the ritual slaughter of animals, with one threatening to take legal action. The head of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Sheik Raed Salah, was arrested in London while on a speaking tour and will be deported. Tamar Fogel, whose family was murdered by terrorists in their West Bank home, met with Jonathan Pollard in prison. Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty charged that peace between Israel and the Palestinians is "further away now" than it was the day President Obama took office. Britain’s first “green” Jewish cemetery will open later this year. The Israeli government is facing questions over whether it was involved in a video attacking the Gaza flotilla that was revealed to be a hoax. More than 50 Jewish lawmakers from 22 countries discussed the political challenges of supporting Israel during a visit to Jerusalem. The Jerusalem-based Answers.com fired about two-thirds of its staff, two months after being acquired by a private company. Joseph Hochstein, editor and publisher for nearly two decades of the weekly newspaper now known as the Washington Jewish Week, has died. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a call for people around the world to send him video questions through YouTube.