Orwell Lives! Rabbi Dobrusin Designated Vice-Chair of RHR-NA Rabbis for Human Rights – North America has welcomed Beth Israel’s Rabbi Rob Dobrusin as its new vice chair. Think about it: RHR-NA claims to be an organization that “acts on the Jewish imperative to respect and protect the human rights of all people” while supporting a […]

Why the First Amendment Is Valued For almost eight years members of Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends (JWPF) have exercised the individual and collective free speech rights guaranteed by the US Constitution. Early on, this writer would time and again confuse the applicability of the First Amendment by alerting our legal counsel that his […]

Criticism or Flattery? You Decide Brought to our attention by friend and sometime-vigiler S, we find a so-far unknown source in Ann Arbor with a gift for an Onion-type wit. From the website http://newsofannarbor.blogspot.com/. We find: Monday, August 8, 2011 Protesters convince synagogue to boycott, denounce Israel After regularly protesting outside the Beth Israel synagogue […]

The South Rises This writer took his pre-conceived notions about our red-state neighbors to the south and, as Johnny Cash says, “came away with a different point of view”. This turning point came at Floydfest , a four-day musical festival (July 28-31, held 5 miles south of Floyd, Virginia, and adjacent to mile post 175 […]

Meeting with Vineyard Church Ministers The June 22nd meeting between Pastor Ken Wilson, Associate Pastor Donell Wyche and two members of Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends was successful from the standpoint of respectfully exchanging opposing opinions. It was revealed that prior to this writer’s forced expulsion from the Interfaith Round Table of Washtenaw County, […]

Beth Israel and Torture Three years ago we reported during Torture Awareness Month that Rabbi Dobrusin invoked a Catch-22 formulation for using “self defense” as a reason for unplanned torture. Since June is Torture Awareness Month, this writer decided to review and independently evaluate the Rabbi’s words in his sermon of June 7, 2008. First […]

Dual Loyalty: An Issue for Voters Should Rahm Emanuel, who served the Israeli military in a civilian capacity, have been vetted prior to his appointment as Obama administration Chief of Staff and subsequent election to Mayor of Chicago on the issue of his allegiance to a foreign government? Is it proper that candidates running for […]