Israel - What blessing should a pious Jew make on the popular snack Bamba and its many surrogates? This arcane dispute has been thrust to the forefront of a power struggle between two sons of Sephardi Jewry's most influential halachic authority - Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual mentor of Shas. Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef and Rabbi David Yosef, the two sons, are vying to become the next chief sephardi...

Tel Aviv, Israel - Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch (Israel Beiteinu) ignited a firestorm of controversy today after telling an undercover police officer disguised as a drug addict that he resembled an Araboush - a derogatory Hebrew term for Arabs. "You really look like an Araboush," a smiling Aharonovitch told an undercover officer he encountered during a tour of a rundown south...

Long Island, NY - U.S. Rep. Peter King in January turned down an offer from President Barack Obama to be ambassador to Ireland, sources said Tuesday. A source with knowledge of the Seaford Republican's thinking said Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel called King the week before the inauguration with the offer. King turned it down, the source said, because he couldn't go along with Obama foreign...

Postville, IA - An attorney for the embattled Agriprocessors Inc. in Postville wants a judge to exclude from his client’s trial all evidence and testimony collected from a massive May 2008 immigration raid. Jim Clarity argues that the raid violated the constitutional rights of every worker arrested during the operation, because agents used an administrative warrant to enter the slaughterhouse...

New York City - Rabbi Leib Glanz, the city jail chaplain under investigation for organizing a bar mitzvah in the Tombs, resigned today because of the scandal. Glanz's move came just a day after Department of Correction Chief Peter Curcio resigned for allowing the rabbi to set up the bar mitzvah in the lower Manhattan jail for an inmate's son. "Rabbi Glanz tendered his resignation today...

London - British Airways has asked its 40,000 staff to work without pay for up to a month as the ailing airline seeks to cut costs. The group, which made a record £401 million loss in 2008 amid surging fuel prices and a collapse in premium-fare passengers, is seeking to reduce costs dramatically and has already offered staff unpaid leave or a reduction in hours. Willie Walsh, BA’s chief...

Winnetka, IL - A couple says their lawsuit against a neighbor stems from his assault conviction and alleged anti-Semitism. Peggy and James Horstman are suing Paul Hoffman, 68, who was convicted in February of attacking James Horstman while the 55-year-old mowed his lawn, the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday. Hoffman was sentenced to a year of court supervision. Peggy Horstman, who is...

New York - U.S. stocks fell, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to its biggest two-day tumble since April. “The assumption that the economy was turning, that we were going to see growth again, was a little premature,” said Clarence Woods Jr., chief equity trader with Baltimore-based MTB Investment Advisors, which manages $12 billion. “The rally was way too much, too...

New York - The banks were bailed out last fall, the automobile companies last winter. For Edward McClelland, a writer in Chicago, deliverance finally arrived a few days ago. Mr. McClelland’s credit card company was calling yet again, wondering when it could expect the next installment on his delinquent account. He proposed paying half of his $5,486 balance and calling the matter...

New York - It is now widely acknowledged, after years of denial, that alcoholism is increasingly prevalent in the Jewish community. In suburban Baltimore, two centers are already dedicated to the treatment of recovering Jewish drug addicts and alcoholics. It is estimated that approximately 10 percent of Jewish men have problems with excessive alcohol intake and dependence. Although this figure...

Durham, NC - U.S. engineers have created a technology that allows a person to write a note in the air with their cell phone and send the message to an e-mail address. Duke University engineering researchers said their invention is designed for people who have their hands full of items -- briefcase, laptop, a coat or luggage -- who need to make a note, but don't want to stop and put down all of...

New York City - The New York City Office of Emergency Management has been preparing for the worst since 1996. Yet today it found a new way to communicate with city dwellers — by creating its own page on the social networking Web site Facebook. The office’s official page carries preparedness information, community event listings and volunteer opportunities. “More than half of the...

Brooklyn, NY - The nation’s leading ultra-Orthodox umbrella organization is preparing to go to bat for a disgraced prison chaplain who is accused of giving favors to Jewish inmates. Agudath Israel of America has drafted a letter to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg expressing support for Rabbi Leib Glanz, a rabbi affiliated with the Satmar Chasidic movement who is a chaplain in New York City...

Albany, NY - A judge says he won't rule on last week's takeover of the New York Senate by a coalition of Republicans and dissident Democrats. State Supreme Court Justice Thomas McNamara is dismissing the case, saying it's improper for the court to get involved in a legislative tussle. He recommends the legislature resolve the question of who's in charge of the chamber. Meanwhile, Gov. David...

Berlin, Germany - A Nazi labor camp near Berlin where SS guards massacred more than one thousand inmates over 60 years ago was consecrated Tuesday as a Jewish cemetery. The Lieberose camp, a satellite of the larger Sachsenhausen concentration camp north of Berlin, was open from 1943 to February 1945. During that time SS officers shot and killed 1,300 sick and invalid Jewish inmates. "It was...