Local News
The Jewish Federation of Greater Binghamton will host three 92nd Street Y programs in January and February: "Andy Borowitz Presents the Funniest American Writers" with Nora Ephron, Calvin Trillen and more on Sunday, January 22, at 4:30 pm; "Walter Isaacson on Steve Jobs" on Tuesday, January 24, at 8 pm; and "Lawrence Summers with Thane Rosenbaum" on Thursday, February 2, at 8 pm. All programs will be held at the Jewish Community Center, 500 Clubhouse Rd., Vestal.
When I tell people that I’m part of a crew of volunteers who make phone calls for the Federation Campaign, the answer is usually the same: "Oh, that’s difficult; I could never do this." True, asking for money is not the easiest thing to do – even if it’s for a good cause and not for yourself.
Cigarette smoke makes me violently ill. After breathing in too much, I feel like I’m suffocating, as if someone is pressing a pillow over my face. In the past, I’ve walked out of restaurants, stores and malls because of the smoke.
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Israel News
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff approved an agreement to allow students, teachers and researchers in Brazil to teach and research the Holocaust, antisemitism and other Jewish-related subjects. Under the agreement, Hebrew-language and Jewish themes such as the Holocaust, antisemitism, racism, xenophobia and intolerance will be part of curricula in some schools, universities and other educational institutions in Brazil.
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National News
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Two groups each known for their internal divisions on religion-state issues found themselves in a degree of accord recently: the justices of the United State Supreme Court and the organized Jewish community.
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International News
BUDAPEST (JTA) – A whistle-blowing rabbi and a reform-minded lay leader are at the forefront of new efforts to shake up Hungary’s entrenched Jewish establishment. Late last year, Rabbi Zoltan Radnoti reportedly alerted authorities to complaints of embezzlement and tax fraud in the operation of Budapest’s main Jewish cemetery on Kozma Street.
LVIV, Ukraine (JTA) – The more I thought about it, the more it began to seem like a reasonable choice: I would roam around Europe for six months, visiting Jewish museums, talking to youth groups and covering various community happenings.
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Features
Gauging whether or not a work of fiction has enough Jewish content to be reviewed in the paper can be a difficult task. Does any book by a Israeli author qualify – for example, "Scenes From Village Life" by Amos Oz (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) – even if there is nothing specifically religious about the short stories? Is it enough for a work to feature several Jewish tales and characters, as does "God Bless America: Stories" by Steve Almond (Lookout Books)?
Thinking about Michel Leclerc and Baya Kasmi’s French romantic comedy, "The Names of Love," and trying to decide how best to explain the delicate balance it seeks between over-the-top humor and poignant drama, keeps leading me back to "The Concert," another recently released French picture that presented a comic story within a tragic framework. In "The Concert," a former concert conductor steals the reputation of a famous orchestra to reclaim the music he loves and find redemption for his Jewish friends who died during the rise of Communism in Russia.
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