Free Republic

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Herman Wouk has died. Wouk was famous for his sprawling World War II novels, including The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, and for his portrayal of Jewish-Americans in the novel Marjorie Morningstar. He died in his sleep today at his home in Palm Springs, Calif. Many people might remember Wouk for a certain incident in involving strawberries in The Caine Mutiny, which became a film in 1954. After having a breakdown at sea, the tyrannical Captain Queeg accuses his crew of stealing a quart of strawberries and becomes obsessed with finding the culprit. Humphrey Bogart...

Jewish Americans are flocking to firearms training in the wake of the October 27 attack on Tree of Life Synagogue that killed 11 people. For example, Haaretz reports that the Cherev Gidon Israeli Tactical Defense Academy near Scranton, Pennsylvania, is witnessing the highest demand for training it has ever seen. Yonatan Stern, “a veteran officer of the Israel Defense Forces and director of the academy,” reminds his Scranton, Pennsylvania, classes: “The fact is, we’re at war. We want Jews everywhere to be armed.” Stern indicates that “hundreds” of people interested in firearms training contacted him during the three days after...

I'm a baby-boomer. American-born Mom was the child of Polish Jews scrapping by through the Great Depression in the land of plenty. They lost everything. Nothing went to waste ever again. We barely threw a garbage bag out once a week. Her favorite times of year were the baseball and holiday seasons. She loved wintertime songs, so many written by Jewish immigrants and their firstborn. The music reminded her of good times during a rocky early life. Judy Garland's rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" captivated Mom. Carl Sigman's 1949 lyrics to "A Marshmallow World," performed by Bing Crosby, Ella...

Once we are through Thanksgiving -- one of the two truly unique American holidays – I take out my considerable collection of Christmas music and devote my listening almost exclusively to this genre. While recently listening, I spent some time thinking about what a great country I am blessed to live in -- particularly as a Jew. Many long-time readers know I wrote (during three Christmas seasons) The Jewish Joy of Christmas Music, The Jewish Joy of Christmas Lights and the Jewish Joy of Christmas Services. I highly suggest you reflect back on these columns because they will give you...

In signing onto the Iran nuclear deal, American Jews have followed the counsel of Hushai over the advice of Ahithophel While reading that Jewish Americans, Jewish clergy, and two-thirds of Jewish politicians are solidly embracing the Iran nuclear deal: ”[T]hey strongly believe the agreement offers the best hope of keeping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon”; We believe such opposition is misplaced, mired in the past, and is missing an opportunity to shape a more hopeful future”; an ancient heathen proverb came to mind, “Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.”

The New York Times has come under fire from Jewish organizations for launching a website aimed at tracking how Jewish lawmakers are voting on the Iran nuclear agreement. The online chart, which tracks whether lawmakers who opposes the accord are Jewish, is being criticized as anti-Semitic in nature and an attempt to publicly count where Jews fall on the issue, which some have sought to turn into a debate about dual loyalty to Israel.The feature, titled “Lawmakers Against the Iran Nuclear Deal,” includes a list of legislators currently opposing the deal.Critics say the chart feeds into a larger narrative promulgated...

The second American journalist killed by ISIS militants was Jewish and held Israeli citizenship, according to newly released details about his personal life. According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Sotloff had taken on Israeli citizenship when he studied in the country. That information was scrubbed from the media after he was captured, because of fears that it would decrease his chances of getting released and worsen his treatment, and only cleared by Israel's foreign ministry on Wednesday, following the release of a video showing Sotloff's execution. There had previously been some close calls. The New York Times reported that Sotloff...

SHREVEPORT, La. -- "Goin' Home." It keeps going around and around in my head as we drive around my old home town -- the slow, sweet musical theme Dvorak used for the largo in his New World symphony. By writing lyrics for it, a gifted pupil of his turned it into a kind of modern Negro spiritual, putting into words the plaintive, elegiac spirit of the music -- and the longing felt by anyone homesick for an irretrievable past: Goin' home, goin' home, I'm a-goin' home; Quiet-like, some still day, I'm jes' goin' home. It's not far, jes' close...

A Way of Life Is Disappearing in Dixie Bert Rosenbush Jr. enjoys a bittersweet form of celebrity in his hometown of Demopolis, Ala.: He’s the last living Jew there. It’s a form of prominence he shares with Phil Cohen of Lexington, Miss. In Natchez, Miss., Jerold Krause is one of just a dozen Jews left. And Selma, Ala., a town that was central to the civil rights movement, is down to its last dozen, too. It’s a paradox, in a way. Because, as Stuart Rockoff, director of the history department of the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Life, in Jackson, Miss.,...

Former New York City mayor Ed Koch died Friday morning at the age of 88. He plans to be buried in Manhattan, the three-term mayor said in 2008. His headstone and a memorial bench, placed at Trinity Church Cemetery in 2009, evoke his faith and his admiration of a murdered journalist. Koch explained his plans to the Associated Press: The marker will bear the Star of David and a Hebrew prayer, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” It also will be inscribed with the last words of journalist Daniel Pearl before he was murdered by...

ATLANTA (CBS Atlanta) — The owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times resigned after fallout from his column on why Israel should assassinate President Obama. According to an email obtained by the JTA, Andrew Adler announced he was “relinquishing all day-to-day activities effective immediately.” Jerry Farkas, office manager for the Jewish Times, told CBS Atlanta that everyone is “saddened” by what happened. “It’s a hard thing,” Farkas told CBS Atlanta. “We feel like we’re fighting fires.” In a Jan. 13 column Adler wrote for the Jewish Times about Israel’s options to head off a nuclear Iran, he suggested that...

Friday we discussed the anti-gun efforts of the National Council of Jewish Women, a group that claims to be "inspired by Jewish values." Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership would disagree. Billed as "America's most aggressive defender of firearms ownership," the "twin goals" of JPFO are: To destroy "gun control" and to encourage Americans to understand and defend all of the Bill of Rights for everyone... Founded by Jews and initially aimed at educating the Jewish community about the historical evils that Jews have suffered when they have been disarmed, JPFO has always welcomed persons of all religious beliefs...

Democratic Congressman Robert Wexler of Florida lashed out Saturday at John McCain's choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, accusing her of supporting "Nazi sympathizer" Pat Buchanan and branding the move an "affront to all Jewish Americans." "John McCain's decision to select a vice presidential running mate that endorsed Pat Buchanan for president in 2000 is a direct affront to all Jewish Americans," said a statement by Wexler.

Why are twenty-first-century women reclaiming a derogatory term? In 1980, Rabbi Jacob Rader Marcus, an octogenarian scholar of Jewish history, decided to title his new book about Jewish women in America “The American Jewess.” His publisher, Ktav, told him that was out of the question because the term “Jewess” was, well, offensive. Marcus, more concerned with historical truth than political correctness, didn’t really care. He compromised on the title, calling his study The American Jewish Woman: 1654–1980, but refused to remove the term from his text. “Many Jews today deem it a ‘dirty word’ and avoid it," he writes in...

With the Supreme Court opening this week the first extensive examination of the constitutional right to bear arms in nearly 70 years, now seems a pretty good time to ask a question that’s been perplexing me for nearly as long: Why is that American Jews are so overwhelmingly anti-gun? I’ve been stumped by this communal aversion to firearms ever since I was a 6 year old, back in 1947. While flipping through old Life magazines one day in my grandparents’ living room in the Bronx, I came across photographs taken at the liberation of concentration camps. I saw the pictures...

The limit of Obama's imagination At a time when Obama's moral voice was most needed, the reach of his wings proved to be cautiously perforated on an AIPAC line, writes Hamid Dabashi* -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late . . . Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, 'Too late.' There is an invisible book of life that...

This past Friday, 30-year-old Naveed Afsal Haq, a supposedly lone and “mentally ill” Muslim-American of Pakistani origin, took a 13-year-old girl hostage in order to gain entry to the Jewish Federation Building in Seattle. Declaring himself “angry with Israel,” Haq announced that it was a “hostage” situation, and began shooting only women, including a pregnant woman. Five women were wounded and one, 58 year-old Pam Waechter, was murdered. Several other women were shot in the abdomen. Haq's brutal attack is no ordinary crime. It is the product of an Islamic culture that denigrates women in general and a jihadist culture...

The American Jewish community has been demonstrating wall-to-wall support for Israel as it fights on two fronts. Major Jewish organizations have backed Israel's actions and are considering a community-wide emergency fund-raising effort. The United Jewish Communities (UJC), which represents 55 Jewish federations and 400 independent Jewish communities across North America, has already provided $1 million via the Jewish Agency that will be used to send children from communities near the northern border to youth villages in the central region. The UJC is considering embarking on a special fund-raising campaign, similar to the Israel Emergency Campaign that raised more than $360m....

Top White House posts go to Jews Nathan Guttman, THE JERUSALEM POST Apr. 25, 2006 After appointing Joshua Bolten to be the White House chief of staff, US President George W. Bush nominated another Jewish staffer, Joel Kaplan, to serve as Bolten's deputy, putting him in charge of the daily policy planning. The fact that White House policy is now in the hands of two Jews is not seen as significant by activists in the American Jewish community. "He is simply appointing the best people for the job," said Nathan Diament, who heads the Washington office of the Orthodox Union....

 WASHINGTON -- Hoping to highlight the contributions of Jewish culture to the nation, a determined band of South Floridians is leading a campaign to create an American Jewish History Month. With backing from Congress and President Bush, their dream appears headed for reality. This month and every January, schoolchildren throughout Florida study the long, sometimes painful, but always productive Jewish history of their state. An American Jewish history month would expand that cross-cultural experience on a national scale.... But only the president can make such a proclamation, and Bush intends to designate what he prefers to call "Jewish Heritage Month"...