Jewish & World News

If the Gallup polling company is to be believed, Jews are the most secular people in the world. Gallup's Global Index of Religion and Atheism carried out surveys in 57 countries on five continents, and found that since the last worldwide survey in 2005, nine percent fewer people around the world consider themselves religious, while outright atheism has risen by three percent. Even so, the majority, 59 percent, still see themselves as religious.

NY Times By Clyde Haberman New York - Since long before the Islamist terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001, a storefront mosque has been sitting on West Broadway in TriBeCa, a dozen blocks from the World Trade Center. No one seems to have ever minded its being there.

The Arab Israeli lawmaker who accused the Jewish state of having 'racist' and 'fascist' policies enjoys rights and freedoms he wouldn't find anywhere else in the Middle East. By Jacob Dayan LA Times The Jewish state of Israel is a diverse nation that has absorbed people from more than 140 countries. Among its population are about 1.5 million Arabs, including Israeli Knesset member Ahmad Tibi, who in a May 23 Times interview lashed out at Israel, using inflammatory words like "racist" and "fascist." As is his style, Tibi failed to back up his white-hot rhetoric with hard facts.

Washington Post Opinion By Richard Cohen: “Jews are a famously accomplished group. They make up 0.2 percent of the world population, but 54 percent of the world chess champions, 27 percent of the Nobel physics laureates and 31 percent of the medicine laureates.” So began a New York Times column by David Brooks from January. My own library has several books about Jewish brainpower -- the usual awesome statistics -- but nothing on why the dumbest Jews work for the Israeli government. The latest proof of that, call it the Cohen theorem, is the refusal to allow the famed linguist Noam Chomsky to enter the West Bank from Jordan. Chomsky wasn’t found with explosives hidden in his underwear or secreted under his shirt, as is the quaint custom in certain parts of the world. All he was found to have were views harshly critical of the country he was attempting to visit. “Israel doesn’t like what you say,” Chomsky said he was told by the border police. He said he was asked all sorts of ...

For the last 34 years of his life, Albert Einstein was the most famous spokesman and advocate for the Zionist movement. Many may find it surprising that a pacifist and opponent of nationalism like Einstein was the champion of the Zionist cause in the decades leading up to the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948. That involvement with Zionism, however, also serves as a cautionary tale, adding light on the present relationship between US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. 

Last Friday, 100 days after coming in to head the MTA, Jay Walder issued a glossy report with his plan for the future, full of "making every dollar count" ideas. It would've sounded terrific -- if we hadn't heard it before. Gov. Paterson and other state leaders may be content with Walder's program -- after all, it lets them continue to ignore the MTA's real problem, labor costs. Walder sounded tough: "We will attack the MTA's cost structure," he said, creating a "leaner and stronger transit system" to "do what every business in the state has had to do to survive" and attack the reality that "customers and taxpayers do not believe that every dollar the MTA receives is being spent wisely." The savings, he promised, would go for better services and technology. "The time for the MTA to pat itself on the back has long passed," for New York is way behind on transit compared with other cities. Fine stuf...