To the Editor: We at Be’chol Lashon are glad to see that the JTA covered the important story of Rabbi Gershom Sizomu’s candidacy for National Parliament in Uganda. It is a historic event to have a rabbi run for national office outside of Israel and as such deserves the attention of Jews worldwide. Furthermore, Rabbi… More ▸
To the Editor: I was pleased to see that you chose to publicize that Ugandan Rabbi Gershom Sizomu is running as a member of the National Parliament in Uganda. Indeed Rabbi Sizomu is an outstanding, charismatic leader with tremendous vision for his community and his nation, and will make a positive strides in the development… More ▸
Israelis are outraged over a 30-year-old British conspiracy theory on the origins of the legendary Entebbe operation. Experts on the Entebbe rescue, including Benjamin Netanyahu, are weighing in to debunk the theory. A BBC report published June 1 quoted a recently declassified British government memorandum as suggesting that Jerusalem secretly collaborated with the Popular Front… More ▸
Last month, we airmen and veterans of Squadron 103, one of the oldest units of the Israeli air force, bid farewell to a comrade, Lt. Col. Moshe Naveh. His untimely death shocked us all, and as I drove to his funeral memories of our joint service came to mind. It was on the third day… More ▸
In his three decades at the helm of the Thanksgiving Coffee Co. in Fort Bragg, Calif., Paul Katzeff has pioneered the process of buying coffee beans directly from Third World growers and funneling money back to them after sales to promote economic self-sufficiency and social justice. But Katzeff had never helped Jewish coffee farmers, who… More ▸
The plane rolled out its landing gear at 5:40 a.m., and I was all set for my visit in Entebbe. It felt good to be Jewish and landing in Uganda without hiding under the cover of darkness as the commandos had done nearly 30 years before, when Israeli soldiers rescued more than 100 hostages from… More ▸
When the Palestinians and their allies bring forth anti-Israel resolutions in the United Nations, they know they can count on the support of countries in the developing world, and certainly in Africa. But that support is no longer unanimous: On July 20, when the U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to order Israel to tear down… More ▸
Capping a Jewish story of struggle and survival, Uganda’s Jews just got dunked in the mikvah. Four Conservative rabbis from the United States and one from Israel joined the community’s spiritual leader, Gershom Sizomu, in supervising the conversion of most of Uganda’s 600 Jews, a several-day affair that concluded Tuesday. Sizomu, who recently returned to… More ▸
Even the most casual student of Zionism learns the story of how Theodor Herzl was willing to accept Uganda as the future homeland of the Jewish people. As is often the case, however, the reality behind this confounding fact about the founder of modern political Zionism is a little more complicated. Herzl first became interested… More ▸
Deputy Foreign Minister Binyamin Netanyahu this weekend visited the airport in Entebbe, Uganda, where his legendary brother, Yonatan, was killed during the rescue operation of July 4, 1976. The deputy minister, now back in Israel, has declined so far to give details of his emotional return to the site of his brother’s death. He was… More ▸
