Free Republic

SPRING VALLEY - For the second time in a week, the Orthodox Jewish tradition for the Purim holiday has alarmed non-Jewish members of the Spring Valley community. When News 12 went to the home on Wednesday, the doll was found folded over on the porch. The homeowner declined comment. Residents say the doll was hung by children for Purim to symbolize the death of the ancient tyrant Haman and was not meant to offend. Hundreds took to social media after a black-faced doll was found hanging nearby, on Paikin Drive in Spring Valley. Rockland NAACP President Wilbur Aldridge says he...

Obama and Netanyahu will meet in an unannounced meeting, the London Telegraph reported Sunday. There has been no confirmation. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will meet on Sunday in an unannounced meeting, The London Telegraph reported Sunday. There has been no confirmation or denial from Washington - but the Prime Minister’s spokesman Mark Regev told Arutz Sheva on Sunday that the newspaper’s report they will meet on Sunday is “incorrect.” Concerning a meeting in the near future, he issued a “no comment” response. The reported meeting is to take place as 25 countries deploy warplanes and warships...

I got married last week. Hence my absence from this space for the first time in seven years. It was a beautiful wedding in Acre, Israel, overlooking the ocean at sunset. My father wrote the music for the processional, which brought everyone to tears. My bride looked stunning, of course. We broke the glass, we danced, we ate and we celebrated until deep into the night. Outside the wedding hall stood a guard. Every wedding in Israel requires an armed guard to prevent terrorist attacks. Only the armed guards prevent the infliction of mass casualties at joyous events; only the...

JOHANNESBURG, Aug. 19 -- President Bush's $15-billion anti-AIDS program will begin investing significant money in making circumcision available to African men seeking to protect themselves from HIV, top U.S. health officials said Sunday. Recent research showing that circumcision dramatically cuts the rate of HIV infection is highly convincing, a delegation of U.S. officials, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, told reporters in Johannesburg. Countries taking part in the President's Emergency Program For AIDS Relief have been invited to seek money to expand access to the procedure. Circumcision funding would be small at first, with budgets in the...

LOS ANGELES - Mel Gibson's only daughter, Hannah, married blues-rock guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd this weekend. Gibson, 26, and Shepherd, 29, of Benton, La., exchanged vows in California on Saturday, People magazine reported on its Web site. Shepherd's albums include "Ledbetter Heights" and "Live On." He proposed to Gibson on New Year's Eve 2004 in Rome, according to The Times of Shreveport, La. Gibson, 50, and his wife, Robyn, have seven children. Hannah is their oldest child and only daughter. The wedding came almost two months after Gibson, 50, star of the "Lethal Weapon" movies and director of "The Passion...

IAF fighter jets dropped over 20 tons in bombs late Wednesday night on a Hizbullah bunker, possibly the hiding place of the group's leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, in the Bourj al-Barajneh refugee camp in southeast Beirut. It was still unclear who was in the bunker at the time and what their fate was, but IDF sources said the bunker was totally destroyed and that all that was left was a crater. The IDF obtained intelligence information late Wednesday night that Hizbullah leaders possibly including Nasrallah had taken refuge inside the bunker. A wave of aircraft immediately took to the air...

Just saw on CNN that 23 tons of explosives were dropped on a Hezbollah bunker. Top Hezbollah officials are believed to have been inside. No story on the website yet.

First Jewish wedding in Leipzig since WWII Original article: www.ejpress.org/article/3660 By Oliver Bradley in Berlin Updated: 16/Oct/2005 19:51 The German city of Leipzig has hosted its first traditional Jewish wedding in more than 67 years. The couple - music scholar Rostislav Uciteli, 26, who grew up in Moldova and 25-year-old Maria Schapiro, a travel agent from Russia - said they were proud to take part in the groundbreaking ceremony. They have both lived in Germany for about 10 years. American-born Rabbi Joshua Spinner, who runs the Lauder Foundation Yeshiva (Jewish Seminary) in Germany, conducted the wedding, which took place...

For the first time since expelling its Jews in the 15th century, Portugal has once again begun producing kosher olive oil under strict rabbinical supervision. The product, which is being marketed under the name Ribeiro Sanches Kosher, is manufactured by Penazeites, one of the country’s most important manufacturers of olive oil, in the central Portuguese town of Penamacor. The oil bears a “triangle-K” kosher symbol and is under the supervision of Rabbi Elisha Salas, an emissary of the Jerusalem-based Shavei Israel organization (www.shavei.org),who serves as rabbi of the Jewish community of Oporto, Portugal’s second-largest city. The olive oil is also...

SANTA ANA, Calif. - (KRT) - Mike Salta had no idea he was so cutting-edge.His only child, Jonathan, was turning 13 on July 12. So just about two months before the big birthday, Salta turned to his wife and said, "He's becoming a teenager. Let's give him a special one." And with that, Salta became one of the growing legion of parents throwing elaborate parties for their children's 13th birthdays. It's a celebration that has become known as the faux mitzvah - "faux" because the feted child isn't Jewish.The event is a takeoff on the Jewish tradition of the bar...

PEORIA -- The smile never left Jon Scheyer's face even as the pain from his sprained knee, cut fingers and sprained thumb was whisked away by the delirium Saturday night. "This has been a dream of mine since I was a little kid," Scheyer said after leading Glenbrook North to its first state basketball championship with a 63-51 victory over Carbondale before a crowd of 10,110 at Carver Arena. "It is unbelievable. Carbondale thought we were a one-man team, but they found out different [Saturday night]." Scheyer wound up scoring 27 points to give him 134 for the state tournament,...

Does Free Republic have a Jewish ping list? If so, I'd like to be added, even though I'm not a Jew. If not, perhaps one is needed. What do you think about this?

Geraldo's Nuptials By Lloyd Grove Washington Post Mazel tov to 59-year-old Fox News star Geraldo Rivera -- who will wed his 28-year-old girlfriend, television producer Erica Levy, at New York's historic Central Synagogue on Aug. 10, The Post's Christine Haughney reports. "You can't be my age and getting married and not be an optimist," Rivera, the son of a Jewish mother and Puerto Rican father, told us yesterday. He noted that he had been to the altar four times previously and had four children to show for it. "I don't know, maybe there will be one more with Erica," he...