Новости за 03.08.2016

Talk is cheap and it’s never cheaper than during election season. Not even the most sacred words escape devaluation. But in one brief speech on the final night of the Democratic National Convention last week, the word “sacrifice” could not possibly have been worth more.

Have you noticed a skip in the step of your local theater geeks today? It’s because there’s a brand-spanking-new Stephen Sondheim musical in the works.

Oberlin College has placed professor Joy Karega on paid leave pending an investigation into anti-Semitic statements she made on social media, the college said in a statement today. She will not teach at Oberlin this coming fall semester.

The supposedly flourishing ties between Israel and the Sunni Arab states burst into the open last week when a prominent former official from Saudi Arabia, a theocratic Islamic monarchy that doesn’t recognize Israel, sat down with a top Israeli diplomat and the official in charge of overseeing the country’s military presence in the West Bank.

Thrillers are good beach reading because, like the beach, they are supposed to provide a vacation from real life. The hero is quicker, smarter, and stronger than any real secret agent; the villain, more ingeniously villainous. But most important, the hero is supposed to win: He stops the ticking time bomb, thwarts the terrorist, rescues the girl. This is a comforting antidote to the way the world works—especially lately—because in reality, the bad guys very often get away with it. Every successful suicide bombing is a thriller gone wrong. Читать дальше...

On Sept. 22, 1866, a ship carrying 157 American Christians landed at the port of Jaffa. After more than a month at sea, this group had at last arrived from Maine, excited to help the European Jews who were immigrating here to settle and farm. They saw it as an opportunity to participate in the fulfillment of the biblical prophecy of the tribes of Israel returning to the Holy Land.

The Knesset moved very early Tuesday to reverse a 2013 Yesh Atid-sponsored bill, set to take effect starting 2018, that would’ve cut funding to Haredi elementary schools that didn’t spend at least 11 hours per week teaching English, math, and science. Following the formation of the current governing coalition in 2015, the Knesset’s ultra-Orthodox parties demanded that the law, which would have affected 40,000-50,000 of Israel’s 440,000 ultra-Orthodox students, be struck down, according to The... Читать дальше...