Tony Blair
Photo: AP
US Jews split over Blair
ADL Director Abraham Foxman: Blair's Mideast envoy role leaves 'a lot of questions'
US Jewish leaders are divided over the initiative to send former British prime minister Tony Blair to the Middle East, to act as a peace envoy, the New York Jewish News reported on Friday.
The report quoted Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), as saying that Blair's role "leaves a lot of questions."
"Does it mean that the US will be less involved? Is Middle East policy being handed off to the Quartet? If so, that would be very troubling," Foxman said in the report.
Foxman also expressed concern over Blair's often-repeated view that global Islamic terrorism could not be defeated until the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was resolved.
A new way of praying
American Jews are increasingly being influenced by a new way of praying, in which women read from the Torah, the Chicago Jewish News reported last week.The source of inspiration is the Shira Hadasha minyan in Jerusalem's German Colony, where men and women are physically separated, but women read the Torah, and provide commentaries on it, the report said. In addition, "nearly the entire service is conducted in song," the article added.
"They figured out how to create a space for more people to have their voices heard in davening," Jewish educator Jane Shapiro, who prayed at the center, told the Chigago Jewish News.
"I thought it was beautiful, magnificent... It was transformative to see women who were obviously Orthodox so engaged in prayer," she added.
US Jewish communities support Sderot
"Jewish organizations are creating funds for the city under siege (Sderot)," the LA Jewish Journal reported last week."The Chabad Sderot Relief Fund, for one, seeks to provide aid and convince American Jews that Sderot's suffering is not part of an insignificant conflict but vital to the State of Israel," the report said.
Rabbi David Eliezrie, of a California-based Chabad center, told the Jewish Journal: "There is no question that when people sense crisis, they are willing to reach deeper into their pockets. That is human nature. When you see, for instance, this issue with Sderot, when you hear the stories and you see these people suffering, it becomes so much more to you."
"They are not on the front lines for themselves, they are on the front line for all Jews," he said.
In its one year memorial coverage of the Second Lebanon War, the Jewish Journal gave extensive coverage of the US Jewish community's efforts to support Israel during the conflict, and plans to continue to provide aid.
