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Janet Tassel
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November 6, 2016
The Boston FatwaWhen Rabbi Jonathan Hausman arranged for an event called "National Security Chaos" a few days ago at his synagogue in Stoughton, Massachusetts, he didn't expect to become the target of a fatwa. The evening's speakers included Rep...
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August 7, 2015
The GOP and the MillennialsBased admittedly on personal bigotry, I have tended to think of the generation known as millennials -- kids born in the '80s and '90s -- as aliens, or maybe zombies. Moreover, methought (vide Jesse Watters' videos), they are air-headed an...
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July 6, 2015
Gay Whale Swallows JONAHThis year, June, not April, was the cruelest month. Traditionalists and right-thinkers were overwhelmed by the unfathomable Supreme Court rulings, the vulgar rainbow-hued White House, and the culture -- or what remains of it. A lesser-known ...
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May 6, 2015
The Hill-Billy Cash PumpHillary Clinton: We knew her as a grim, charmless harridan; a pear-shaped harpy. Now, after reading Peter Schweizer's new book, Clinton Cash (HarperCollins, New York, May 2015), we see the ultimate Hillary, one of the world's truly scary wome...
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April 2, 2015
Cry for ArgentinaTo Kill Without a Trace Gustavo Perednik, Mantua Books, 2014, 350 pp. On the chilly morning of July 18, 1994, at a busy intersection in Buenos Aires, a white Renault van sped in front of Mrs. Nicolasa Romero, who was walking her son, Nahu, t...
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March 15, 2015
Jew-Bashing 101When I found myself hoping that my college-bound granddaughter will not "come out" as Jewish, I realized I had time-traveled back to the Germany of the 1930s -- and I wasn't singing "Willkommen." My fears were only heighten...
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October 19, 2014
Body and Soul: The State of the Jewish Nation"The Hebrew Bible is the blueprint of Jewish civilization. And it's the foundational document of some of the best in civilization as we know it. There in the Bible is the pledge of the Jewish people, 'If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let...
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May 2, 2014
Darkness at BrandeisConfession: some of my best friends are graduates of Brandeis. Now they are ashamed. Once, they were proud. They had graduated from a prestigious Jewish-sponsored but non-sectarian university, whose logo reads "Emet: Truth ...
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March 16, 2014
Lies, Damn Lies, and J StreetA film is coming your way called The J Street Challenge. If you don't see it coming your way, say something to your pastor, rabbi, or librarian to insist that it be shown. A production of Americans for Peace and Tolerance, with APT's ...
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March 2, 2014
The Israeli SolutionTo Caroline Glick, senior contributing editor at the Jerusalem Post, the concept of a "two-state solution," carving an invented state of Palestine from the tiny body of Israel and hopefully expecting the two resulting entities to live in ha...
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February 5, 2014
Hope and Change? Not for GaysBlake Smith, 58, of Bakersfield, California, is an ex-gay. In a New York Times article in late 2012, he said that for most of his life, "every inch of my body craved male sexual contact." However, after Smith entered into reparative counseling...
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January 24, 2014
Here We Go Again: Kosilek's NutsMichelle (nee Robert) Kosilek has won his battle for a sex change. To quote the Boston Globe, "A federal appeals court upheld Friday a landmark order that the state must provide a taxpayer-funded sex change for a transgender prisoner convicted ...
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December 29, 2013
The Temple Mount, DismountedIn June 1967, Israeli paratroopers entered Jerusalem's Old City after Israel's miraculous victory in the Six-Day War. The Old City had been under Jordanian control for nineteen years, an era of wanton destruction of synagogues and of ethnic cleansing...
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October 27, 2013
Behold the Lord High Executioner!Gilbert and Sullivan, meet Hajj Abd Al-Nabi, the official executioner of Egypt. He comes to us courtesy of our friends at MEMRI-the Middle East Media Research Institute. Hajj Abd Al-Nabi: "I am the executioner of the Arab Republic of Egypt. I ...
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April 17, 2013
What Right of Return?On Sunday evening, April 14, Boston University hosted a forum titled "What 'Right' of Return?" Prompting this gathering was a conference held at B.U. the previous week, called unambiguously "The Right of Return," headlined by the infamous Professor J...
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April 2, 2013
To Hell with ChristiansIt's a bad time to be a Christian in the Middle East. Even worse to be a Christian pastor. Now consider this: An American Christian pastor in Iran who converted from Islam. You're right; a scary scenario. Such is the plight of 33-year-old Pastor Sa...
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March 25, 2013
The Near-Martyrdom of Lars HedegaardThis was a busy week for Boston's rabbis. Since it was almost Passover, there were the same-sex and outreach seders to arrange, as well as the blast e-mails damning guns and blessing Obama's trip to Israel. However, in a suburb of Boston the...
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March 4, 2013
The Latest from Massa-choose-sexMan and woman created He them. Oh yeah? Well, here in Massachusetts that biblical stuff is long gone, trashed for representing patriarchal imperialism, binarism, gender apartheid, cissexism, and other detestable things. Accord...
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February 8, 2013
The Third Sex in MassachusettsOne afternoon in May, 1990, Robert Kosilek murdered his wife, Cheryl. Brutally. He strangled her with piano wire, virtually decapitating her, and left her body in a mall parking lot in a suburb of Boston. Since his conviction, Kosilek, now 64, has b...
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December 7, 2012
Textbooks, Lies, and Vulnerable KidsLast week, a panel convened in Newton, Massachusetts, the well-heeled suburb of Boston. Newton, which Barney Frank represented in Congress for decades, is the epicenter for Jewish liberals, who spring up like gluten-free organic mushrooms on th...
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March 9, 2012
The One State Conference at Harvard: March Madness"I'm looking for Rick Santorum. I guess he preferred to go to AIPAC." Thus lamely, Stephen M. Walt broke the ice in the opening panel of Harvard's One State Conference Saturday. With these lines, Walt, the co-author of The Israel Lobby and prof...
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January 15, 2012
Taqiyya for KidsIt was the first week in October in Newton, an upscale suburb of Boston, and Tony Pagliuso's daughter, a sophomore at Newton South High School, was visibly disturbed. When Tony asked her the problem, she showed him a passage from the chapter she was ...
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September 4, 2011
Erasing Jews from JerusalemOur friends at the invaluable Palestinian Media Watch (PMW-Palwatch.org) have been diligently following the latest in the Palestinian policy of historical revisionism: erasing Jewish connection to the Temple Mount -- ginning up energy for the big day...
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June 12, 2011
J Street's Boston GambitJ Street, the Soros-funded front lobbying group that describes itself as "pro-peace" and "pro-Israel,'' is desperately seeking legitimacy by wangling its way into local Jewish Community Relations Councils, made up of grassroots groups. Unlike typical...