Talabani: Iraq not ready for Israel ties

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani made clear on Friday that Iraq was not yet ready for diplomatic ties with Israel and that it would not follow the Pakistani model and begin negotiations with Israeli officials.

Speaking at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy in Washington, Talabani said Iraq would recognize Israel only after the Arab League resolutions concerning the Israeli–Palestinian conflict were implemented and after a Palestinian state was declared.

“We are committed to the decisions taken unanimously by the Arab summit in Beirut,” said Talabani in response to questions presented by Israeli reporters at the event. “Many Arab states are forming relations with Israel and if Israel will reach an agreement with the Palestinians, it will facilitate [having relations with Israel].”

Jewish Groups Oppose Rabbi’s Claim That Hurricane Was G-d’s Punishment

Jewish groups have strongly condemned remarks by a leading Israeli rabbi who said that Hurricane Katrina was God’s way of punishing the United States.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a former Sephardi chief rabbi and the influential spiritual leader of the Shas political party, made the claim during his weekly sermon on Tuesday (Sept. 6). He said that the devastation wrought by Katrina “was God’s retribution” for pressuring Israel to relinquish Gaza and the northern West Bank to the Palestinians.

Yosef, a Torah scholar who often mixes religion and politics, said that President Bush perpetrated the removal of Jewish settlers and Israeli troops from the territories, which are scheduled to be handed over to the Palestinians within weeks.

Head On Collision Rocks The Night

At 1:45 this morning a car headed down Empire Blvd. tried to make a turn up onto Troy Ave. but didn’t seem to notice an oncoming car and was to late for the other car to stop. They collided totaling both vehicles and both drivers were taken to nearby hospitals with minor injuries, just as a precautionary measure. Both drivers and passengers were not Jewish.

More Pictures in the extended article.

Campaign Day: September 8, 2005

Lurching toward the final weekend before their primary, the four major Democratic candidates for mayor filled their schedules with an eye toward a very possible runoff between Tuesday’s top two finishers.

Rep. Anthony Weiner, after voting in Congress on emergency flood funds, headed back from Washington by mid-afternoon for another televised debate among the Democratic candidates, his campaign reported.

Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields sought to solidify her base among black voters.

A Dismal Reality: It Wasn’t Supposed To Be This Way

I was traveling in China when pictures of the looters in New Orleans began to appear on CNN. They were black of course. Looting and raping and burning are what blacks do when the lid loosens. Yes, I could phrase this more cautiously: These things are what some blacks, etc. or, more cutely, not all blacks are looters, but all looters….blah blah.

Yet it happens time and again. There was Los Angeles, burned in 1992. There have been Cincinnati, Miami, Seattle, Washington DC, Chicago, Detroit, Crown Heights, Watts, Newark, on and on and on. When the law loses its grip, the looting begins.

We have come to expect it. Members of my tour group in China to whom I spoke assumed that the looters were black before watching. They had seen it before. I knew it before I saw the pictures. The looters are always black except when, occasionally, they are Latino. If they were looting for food it would be understandable. But that isn’t what is happening. Few of us eat television sets. Nike’s running shoes are not particularly digestible.

Chabad Carnival to Bring Joy to Hurricane Victims

Chabad is sponsoring a free carnival for the Hurricane Katrina evacuees now sheltered in S. Antonio, Texas, announced Rabbi Boruch Shlomo Cunin, Director of West Coast Chabad-Lubavitch.

“In response to this disaster, Chabad launched an extensive relief program to aid victims of all faiths,” said Rabbi Cunin. “In this case, we just want to bring a little happiness to all of the displaced families and children who find themselves living in airplane hangars in S. Antonio. When Chabad suggested this event to other relief organizations working in the area, they offered their enthusiastic support.”

The carnival — which is being organized by Chabad of South Texas and West Coast Chabad-Lubavitch — has received significant cooperation from many humanitarian and charitable groups, including the Red Cross, Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD), the S. Antonio Jewish community, and local religious organizations.

EXCLUSIVE: LOS ANGELES HATZOLAH RESCUE TEAM GOES DOWN TO NEW ORLEANS TO AID IN HURRICANE RELIEF

New Orleans– members of the Los Angeles Hatzalah Volunteer Rescue Team flew down to New Orleans this week, to aid in the relief of the hurricane Katrina’s wake. 70 miles from where they landed, the Los Angeles Hatzalah Volunteer Rescue Team rented a car and converted it into an emergency response vehicle and were assigned a code name, “One Whiskey Zulu”.

Once they arrived, they immediately began aiding in the rescue and relief of the victims of the hurricane.

Here are some pictures of what is going on down there. “a picture is worth a thousand words” so there is no need for further writing, the rest of this article lies in the pictures.
also, don’t forget to check the Los Angeles Hatzolah Web site at: HATZOLAH of Los Angeles | Emergency Medical Services

More pictures in the extended article.

New Orleans Jews begin rebuilding

About 15 members of what was the 9,000-strong New Orleans Jewish community are estimated to still be in the Hurricane Katrina-blighted city, and arrangements were being finalized Monday to “pluck them out,” said Adam Bronstone, the director of community relations at the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans.

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post by telephone from Houston, Texas, to where some 5,000 of the New Orleans Jews are estimated to have relocated, Bronstone said the federation had reestablished contact with “a lot” of the community, and he was fairly confident that all community members were safe, even if they hadn’t made contact, because they’d had sufficient time and the capability to leave ahead of the devastation.

Magen League Holds Anti-Missionary Seminar
in the Crimea

SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine – With a traditional sounding of the shofar, Chief Rabbi of Sevastopol Benyamin Wolf launched a region-wide seminar conducted by the Magen League aimed at resisting missionary activity. This is the third such seminar to be held by this organization in Ukraine this year. The event involved representatives of Jewish communities and organizations from throughout Crimea, including the chairman of local communities, directors of local ‘Chesed’ charities, leaders of youth organizations and editors of Jewish publications.

Led by the President of the Magen League, Professor Alexander Lakshin, and the organization’s Director in Ukraine, Igor Kuperberg, the two-day seminar allowed participants to get acquainted with the basic strategy of missionary activity, aimed at converting Jews to other religions, as well as the tactics they use and the ways the local communities can take action to counter such propaganda.

Israel Hoping To See Wish List In U.N. Reforms

Israel and its supporters are hoping that a comprehensive reform package to be adopted next week during the United Nations General Assembly will open the door to some of the key changes that Jerusalem has been demanding for years.

“We see in this General Assembly [what may be a] unique opportunity to see some of the changes take place,” Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Dan Gillerman, told the Forward. “We are not naive and know we will not achieve all of them, because things take time at the U.N., but this is the 60th G.A. and there is an ambitious reform agenda, so this is a real chance.”

Gillerman warned, however, that Israel would not agree to a reform package that failed to address its concerns.

Pullout protester dies of injuries

The youth who set himself on fire a week ago in Jerusalem to protest the disengagement died of his injuries Tuesday evening. The youth, a 21 year-old immigrant from the United states, was hospitalized in intensive care in critical condition in the Hadassa Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem.

Mati Goldstein, a Magen David Adom paramedic who responded to the incident on August 31 in Jerusalem’s Gad Street, told Ynet: “I got the call and immediately made my way to the scene. I saw a man with burns all over his body. At first he had a hard time talking. He said he was hot. Later he said he he set himself on fire in protest of the disengagement plan.”

The New York Times Take On The Labor Day Parade

…At Crown Bagel, on Crown Heights’s central spine of Kingston Street, Hasidic Jews ate bagels with lox, bagels with guacamole and bagels with egg salad as music pulsed in the distance. They had not been to the parade, nor were they interested. “It’s not my style,” said Jacob Batz, the manager. “It’s loud.”

But others embraced the Caribbean vibrancy. A group of four rabbinical students donned do-rags with the colors of the Jamaican flag and stood outside the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway enjoying the music. “A lot of women, a lot of music, a lot of everything,” said David Lieder, 20, who was with Joel Lerner, 19, Avi Lapidus, 18, and Joseph Gelovitz, 20….

Swastikas painted on Chabad house, billboard

A Richmond Hill synagogue and billboards marking the site of a planned community campus were struck by anti-Semitic vandals last week.

Swastikas and SS lightning bolts were spray-painted in two-foot-high letters on a building housing the congregation of Chabad Lubavitch of Richmond Hill at Bathurst Street and Elgin Mills Road as well as on a sign outside the new Joseph and Wolf Lebovic Jewish Community Campus at Bathurst and Weldrick Road. The incidents took place in the early morning hours between Aug. 31 and Sept.1. Officers gathered evidence at the two crime scenes and Constable Don Yirenkyi of York Regional Police said the events are being treated as related hate crimes.

Chabad To Remake Historic Inn in Pa.

Rabbi Shraga Sherman knows about the murder and he’s heard about the ghosts. But it’s going to take a lot more than that to scare him away from the Colonial-era General Wayne Inn, a supposedly haunted building that he’s transforming into a synagogue, Jewish community center and upscale kosher restaurant.

Sherman, director of Chabad Lubavitch of the Main Line, is spearheading a $1.5 million renovation to give his growing Orthodox congregation a new home in the Philadelphia suburbs.

The plan is welcomed by the Lower Merion Historical Society, which has seen a parade of restaurant owners pull out of the National Historic Site, where guests have included George Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette and the inn’s namesake, Revolutionary War Maj. Gen. “Mad” Anthony Wayne. The building has been vacant since 2002.

1 Dead, 5 Hurt In Labor Day Pre-Party’s

A 24-year-old Brooklyn man was killed and five other people wounded in separate incidents during pre-dawn celebrations leading up to today’s West Indian Day parade, law enforcement sources said.

Winfield Gaston, was fatally shot in the head around 10:20 p.m. as revelers took to the streets in Brooklyn for the pre-festival festivities known as J’ouvert.

“The West Indian Parade is [today], but they party the night before,” said a 33-year-old teacher who heard the fatal shots fired in front of his apartment building on Winthrop Street near Flatbush Avenue in Flatbush.

When silence is a sin

For months visitors to Gush Katif — may it be speedily rebuilt — were reporting that the people in Gush Katif had tremendous Emunah, faith in G-d.

That was before the catastrophe. Back then I questioned, was it really Emunah? It seemed to me that with the thousands of bombs falling and the miraculously small number of dead and injured, it was more like G-d was ‘in your face’ type of relationship. Gush Katif was a land of revealed miracles. No need for Emunah when there are multiple miracles every day. And you can add to the miracle of the impotent bombs, the miracle of growing world quality produce in sand.

Booming Jewish community attracts interest

Montana, and most likely Bozeman, is the next place in the world that the Chabad Lubavitch movement plans to place a full-time rabbi, according to a rabbi who has spent the past two summers working with Montana’s far-flung Jewish community.

Chabad, headquartered in Brooklyn, N.Y., considers Montana to be “the No. 1 spot in the world for its next rabbi,” said Rabbi Chaim Bruk.

Bruk will probably be that rabbi, he said. He and seminary student Arik Denebeim, 20, have been traveling around Montana for the past month and was back in Bozeman and Big Sky over the Labor Day weekend.