From the Internet…..

GEORGE WASHINGTON was the FIRST President to write to a synagogue. In
1790 he addressed separate letters to the Touro Synagogue in Newport,
RI, to Mikveh Israel Congregation in Savannah, GA, and a joint letter
to Congregation Beth Shalom, Richmond, VA, Mikveh Israel Philadelphia,
Beth Elohim, Charleston, S. C., and Shearith Israel, New York. His
letters are an eloquent expression and hope for religious harmony and
endure as indelible statements of the most fundamental tenets of
American democracy.

 

 

THOMAS JEFFERSON was the FIRST President to appoint a Jew to a Federal
post. In 1801 he named Reuben Etting of Baltimore as US Marshall for
Maryland.

 

 

 

JAMES MADISON was the FIRST President to appoint a Jew to a diplomatic
post. He sent Mordecai M. Noah to Tunis from 1813 to 1816.

 

 

 

MARTIN VAN BUREN was the FIRST President to order an American consul
to intervene on behalf of Jews abroad. In 1840 he instructed the U.S.
consul in Alexandria, Egypt to use his good offices to protect the
Jews of Damascus who were under attack because of a false blood ritual
accusation.

 

 

 

JOHN TYLER was the FIRST President to nominate a U.S. consul to
Palestine. Warder Cresson, a Quaker convert to Judaism who established
a pioneer Zionist colony, received the appointment in 1844.

 

 

 

FRANKLIN PIERCE was the FIRST and probably the only President whose
name appears on the charter of a synagogue. Pierce signed the A ct of
Congress in 1857 that amended the laws of the District of Columbia to
enable the incorporation of the city’s FIRST synagogue, the Washington
Hebrew Congregation.

 

 

 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN was the FIRST President to make it possible for rabbis
to serve as military chaplains. He did this by signing the 1862 Act of
Congress which changed the law that had previously barred all but
Christian clergymen from the captaincy. Lincoln was also the FIRST,
and happily the only President who was called upon to revoke an
official act of anti-Semitism by the U.S. government. It was Lincoln
who canceled General Ulysses S Grant’s “Order No. 11” expelling all
Jews from Tennessee from the district controlled by his armies during
the Civil War. Grant always denied personal responsibility for this
act attributing it to his subordinate.

 

 

 

ULYSSES S. GRANT was the FIRST President to attend a synagogue service
while in office. When Adas Israel Congregation in Washington D.C. was
dedicated in 1874, Grant and all members of his Cabinet were present.

 

 

 

RUTHERFORD B. HAYES was the FIRST President to designate a Jewish
ambassador for the stated purpose of fighting anti-Semitism. In 1870,
he named Benjamin Peixotto Consul-General to Romania. Hays also was
the FIRST President to assure a civil service employee her right to
work for the Federal government and yet observe the Sabbath. He
ordered the employment of a Jewish woman who had been denied a
position in the Department of the Interior because of her refusal to
work on Saturday.

 

 

 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT was the FIRST President to appoint a Jew to a
presidential cabinet. In 1906 he named Oscar S. Straus Secretary of
Commerce and Labor. Theodore Roosevelt was also the FIRST President to
contribute his own funds to a Jewish cause. In 1919, when he received
the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts while President to settle the
Russo-Japanese War Roosevelt contributed part of his prize to the
National Jewish Welfare Board

 

 

 

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT was the FIRST President to attend a Seder while in
office. In 1912, when he visited Providence, RI, he participated in
the family Seder of Colonel Harry Cutler, first president of the
National Jewish Welfare Board, in the Cutler home on Glenham Street.

 

 

 

WOODROW WILSON was the FIRST President to nominate a Jew, Louis
Dembitz Brandeis, to the United States Supreme Court. Standing firm
against great pressure to withdraw the nomination, Wilson insisted
that he knew no one better qualified by judicial temperament as well
as legal and social understanding, confirmation was finally voted by
the Senate on June 1, 1916. Wilson was also the FIRST President to
publicly endorse a national Jewish philanthropic campaign. In a letter
to Jacob Schiff, on November 22, 1917, Wilson called for wide support
of the United Jewish Relief Campaign which was raising funds for
European War relief.

 

 

 

WARREN HARDING was the FIRST President to sign a Joint Congressional
Resolution endorsing the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate
supporting the establishment in Palestine of a national Jewish home
for the Jewish people. The resolution was signed September 22, 1922.

 

 

 

CALVIN COOLIDGE was the FIRST President to participate in the
dedication of a Jewish community institution that was not a house of
worship. On May 3, 1925, he helped dedicate the cornerstone of the
Washington, D.C. Jewish Community center.

 

 

 

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT was the FIRST President to be given a Torah as a
gift. He received a miniature Torah from Young Israel and another that
had been rescued from a burning synagogue in Czechoslovakia. Both are
now in the Roosevelt Memorial Library in Hyde Park. The Roosevelt
administration’s failure to expand the existing refuge quota system,
ensured that large numbers of Jews would ultimately become some of the
Holocaust’s six million victims. Fifty-six years after Roosevelt’s
death, the arguments continue over Roosevelt’s response to the
Holocaust.

 

 

 

HARRY S. TRUMAN, on May 14, 1948, just eleven minutes after Israel’s
proclamation of independence, was the FIRST head of a government to
announce to the press that “the United States recognizes the
provisional government as the de facto authority of the new state of
Israel.” Truman was also the FIRST U.S President to receive a
president of Israel at the White House, Chaim Weizman, in 1948 and an
Ambassador from Israel , Eliahu Elat in 1948. With Israel staggering
under the burdens of mass immigration in 1951-1952, President Truman
obtained from Congress close to $140 million in loans and grants.

 

 

 

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER was the FIRST President to participate in a
coast-to-coast TV program sponsored by a Jewish organization. It was a
network show in 1954 celebrating the 300th anniversary of the American
Jewish community. On this occasion he said that it was one of the
enduring satisfactions of his life that he was privileged to lead the
forces of the free world which finally crushed the brutal regime in
Germany, freeing the remnant of Jews for a new life and hope in
Israel.

 

 

 

JOHN F. KENNEDY named two Jews to his cabinet - Abraham Ribicoff as
Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, and Arthur Goldberg as
Secretary of Labor. Kennedy was the only President for whom a national
Jewish Award was named The annual peace award of the Synagogue Council
of America was re-named the John F. Kennedy Peace Award after his
assassination in 1963

 

RICHARD M NIXON appointed the US’ FIRST Jewish Secretary of State,
Henry Kissinger.  This President saved Israel from destruction with an
emergency airlift of arms during the devastating Yom Kippur War of
1973.  This decision forever changed America’s strategic relationship
with the State of Israel, as demonstrated by the punishing Arab Oil
Embargo, in reaction to US support for Israel.

 

JAMES EARL CARTER successfully negotiated Israel’s FIRST-ever peace
treaty with an Arab country, the Camp David Peace Accord between
Israel, and her most dangerous enemy, Egypt, saving countless lives.
After 33 years, the treaty still holds.

 

 

 

GEORGE H.W. BUSH in 1985 as Vice President had played a personal role
in “Operation Joshua,” the airlift which brought 10,000 Jews out of
Ethiopia directly to resettlement in Israel. Then, again in 1991, when
Bush was President, American help played a critical role in “Operation
Solomon”, the escape of 14,000 more Ethiopian Jews. Most dramatically,
Bush got to the U.N. to revoke its 1975 “Zionism is Racism”
resolution.

 

 

 

BILL CLINTON appointed more Jews to his cabinet than all of the
previous presidents combined and put Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen
Breyer, both 1st appointed to the federal bench by Jimmy Carter, on
the Supreme Court.

 

 

 

GEORGE W. BUSH was the first president to assemble the largest group
of Jewish neo-conservatives under one administration in US history.
They included Richard Perle, Chair of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy
Board, and Deputy Defense Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, along with Under
Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith and Dov Zakheim, in addition to
Edward Luttwak and Paul Adelman and National Security Advisor Elliott
Abrams. The man who most Americans heard as the President’s spokesman
was Ari Fleisher. After 9/11, perhaps President Bush’s most important
Jewish appointment was Michael Chrtoff, US Secretary of Homeland
Security and co-author of the US Patriot Act. On a lighter note, Bush
was the first president to celebrate Chanukah in the White House
residence, which he repeated several years while in office.

 

 

 

BARAK OBAMA will certainly be remembered for successfully nominating
Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, making the high court the most
Jewish in American history, with three Jewish justices. He has also
surrounded himself with perhaps the largest inner-circle of close
Jewish advisors, including David Axelrod, former Senior Advisor to the
President, Rahm Emanuel as former Chief of Staff and now Sabbath
observant Jack Lew as the President’s new Chief of Staff. Although
catching serious flack from various segments of the American Jewish
community regarding statements he has made regarding the
Israel-Palestine peace process, it can be argued that no American
President has done more for Israel’s security, from the toughest Iran
sanctions legislation in history to thwart their nascent nuclear
weapons program, to directing funds for innovative Israel defense
systems, including Iron Dome, designed to shoot down new
Iranian-backed short range missiles being launched from the
Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. On a lighter note, starting in 2009,
Obama was the FIRST president to host a Passover seder in the White
House residence, marking perhaps the FIRST time that gefilte fish was
served on Presidential fine china, and it is a tradition which is now
in its third year, with Obama at the head of the table.

 

Today the Washington DC-based think tank Center for Security Policy held its Mightier Pen Award in midtown Manhattan and yours truly was in attendance.

Also in attendance was NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, who has been taking heat from critics following an associated press report that the NYPD conducted extensive surveillance of Muslim communities in New York city and beyond.

On WOR-AM radio on Monday, Kelly said, “People have short memories to what happened here in 2001.”

At the lunch today, Kelly stood and received a standing ovation from about 100 security-minded folk in attendance as well as TV journalist Lou Dobbs and former New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

Regarding the controversial intel-gathering, Kelly has refused to back down — a stance that garnered him praise from speaker Andy McCarthy, former chief assistant US attorney, and CSP Director Frank Gaffney.

McCarthy offered a rousing defense of the intelligence gathering, which included New Jersey mosques, pointing out that the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center was plotted by Muslim extremists in Jersey City mosques.

Americans, McCarthy said, “are more concerned with preventing attacks than ... indicting terrorists after" Americans have been killed and added that New Yorkers will have to decide "whether we want our security managed by the Associated Press and CAIR [The Council on American Islamic Relations] or whether we want it managed by Ray Kelly.”

Gaffney stressed that New York City has been extremist Muslim terrorists’ number one target and told Kelly, “I hope your example will be an inspiration to the policing done across America.”

Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of Fox News, won the Mightier Pen Award.

GEORGE WASHINGTON was the FIRST President to write to a synagogue. In 1790 he addressed separate letters to the Touro Synagogue in Newport, RI, to Mikveh Israel Congregation in Savannah, GA, and a joint letter to Congregation Beth Shalom, Richmond, VA, Mikveh Israel Philadelphia, Beth Elohim, Charleston, S. C., and Shearith Israel, New York. His letters are an eloquent expression and hope for religious harmony and endure as indelible statements of the most fundamental tenets of American democracy.

THOMAS JEFFERSON was the FIRST President to appoint a Jew to a Federal post. In 1801 he named Reuben Etting of Baltimore as US Marshall for Maryland.

JAMES MADISON was the FIRST President to appoint a Jew to a diplomatic post. He sent Mordecai M. Noah to Tunis from 1813 to 1816.

MARTIN VAN BUREN was the FIRST President to order an American consul to intervene on behalf of Jews abroad. In 1840 he instructed the U.S. consul in Alexandria, Egypt to use his good offices to protect the Jews of Damascus who were under attack because of a false blood ritual accusation.

JOHN TYLER was the FIRST President to nominate a U.S. consul to Palestine. Warder Cresson, a Quaker convert to Judaism who established a pioneer Zionist colony, received the appointment in 1844.

FRANKLIN PIERCE was the FIRST and probably the only President whose name appears on the charter of a synagogue. Pierce signed the A ct of Congress in 1857 that amended the laws of the District of Columbia to enable the incorporation of the city’s FIRST synagogue, the Washington Hebrew Congregation.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN was the FIRST President to make it possible for rabbis to serve as military chaplains. He did this by signing the 1862 Act of Congress which changed the law that had previously barred all but Christian clergymen from the captaincy. Lincoln was also the FIRST, and happily the only President who was called upon to revoke an official act of anti-Semitism by the U.S. government. It was Lincoln who canceled General Ulysses S Grant’s “Order No. 11” expelling all Jews from Tennessee from the district controlled by his armies during the Civil War. Grant always denied personal responsibility for this act attributing it to his subordinate.

ULYSSES S. GRANT was the FIRST President to attend a synagogue service while in office. When Adas Israel Congregation in Washington D.C. was dedicated in 1874, Grant and all members of his Cabinet were present.

RUTHERFORD B. HAYES was the FIRST President to designate a Jewish ambassador for the stated purpose of fighting anti-Semitism. In 1870, he named Benjamin Peixotto Consul-General to Romania. Hays also was the FIRST President to assure a civil service employee her right to work for the Federal government and yet observe the Sabbath. He ordered the employment of a Jewish woman who had been denied a position in the Department of the Interior because of her refusal to work on Saturday.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT was the FIRST President to appoint a Jew to a presidential cabinet. In 1906 he named Oscar S. Straus Secretary of Commerce and Labor. Theodore Roosevelt was also the FIRST President to contribute his own funds to a Jewish cause. In 1919, when he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts while President to settle the Russo-Japanese War Roosevelt contributed part of his prize to the National Jewish Welfare Board.

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT was the FIRST President to attend a Seder while in office. In 1912, when he visited Providence, RI, he participated in the family Seder of Colonel Harry Cutler, first president of the National Jewish Welfare Board, in the Cutler home on Glenham Street.

WOODROW WILSON was the FIRST President to nominate a Jew, Louis Dembitz Brandeis, to the United States Supreme Court. Standing firm against great pressure to withdraw the nomination, Wilson insisted that he knew no one better qualified by judicial temperament as well as legal and social understanding, confirmation was finally voted by the Senate on June 1, 1916. Wilson was also the FIRST President to publicly endorse a national Jewish philanthropic campaign. In a letter to Jacob Schiff, on November 22, 1917, Wilson called for wide support of the United Jewish Relief Campaign which was raising funds for European War relief.

WARREN HARDING was the FIRST President to sign a Joint Congressional Resolution endorsing the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate supporting the establishment in Palestine of a national Jewish home for the Jewish people. The resolution was signed September 22, 1922.

CALVIN COOLIDGE was the FIRST President to participate in the dedication of a Jewish community institution that was not a house of worship. On May 3, 1925, he helped dedicate the cornerstone of the Washington, D.C. Jewish Community center.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT was the FIRST President to be given a Torah as a gift. He received a miniature Torah from Young Israel and another that had been rescued from a burning synagogue in Czechoslovakia. Both are now in the Roosevelt Memorial Library in Hyde Park. The Roosevelt administration’s failure to expand the existing refuge quota system, ensured that large numbers of Jews would ultimately become some of the Holocaust’s six million victims. Fifty-six years after Roosevelt’s death, the arguments continue over Roosevelt’s response to the Holocaust.

HARRY S. TRUMAN, on May 14, 1948, just eleven minutes after Israel’s proclamation of independence, was the FIRST head of a government to announce to the press that “the United States recognizes the provisional government as the de facto authority of the new state of Israel.” Truman was also the FIRST U.S President to receive a president of Israel at the White House, Chaim Weizman, in 1948 and an Ambassador from Israel , Eliahu Elat in 1948. With Israel staggering under the burdens of mass immigration in 1951-1952, President Truman obtained from Congress close to $140 million in loans and grants.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER was the FIRST President to participate in a coast-to-coast TV program sponsored by a Jewish organization. It was a network show in 1954 celebrating the 300th anniversary of the American Jewish community. On this occasion he said that it was one of the enduring satisfactions of his life that he was privileged to lead the forces of the free world which finally crushed the brutal regime in Germany, freeing the remnant of Jews for a new life and hope in Israel.

JOHN F. KENNEDY named two Jews to his cabinet - Abraham Ribicoff as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, and Arthur Goldberg as Secretary of Labor. Kennedy was the only President for whom a national Jewish Award was named The annual peace award of the Synagogue Council of America was re-named the John F. Kennedy Peace Award after his assassination in 1963.

RICHARD M NIXON appointed the US’ FIRST Jewish Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger.  This President saved Israel from destruction with an emergency airlift of arms during the devastating Yom Kippur War of 1973.  This decision forever changed America’s strategic relationship with the State of Israel, as demonstrated by the punishing Arab Oil Embargo, in reaction to US support for Israel.

JAMES EARL CARTER successfully negotiated Israel’s FIRST-ever peace treaty with an Arab country, the Camp David Peace Accord between Israel, and her most dangerous enemy, Egypt, saving countless lives. After 33 years, the treaty still holds.

GEORGE H.W. BUSH in 1985 as Vice President had played a personal role in “Operation Joshua,” the airlift which brought 10,000 Jews out of Ethiopia directly to resettlement in Israel. Then, again in 1991, when Bush was President, American help played a critical role in “Operation Solomon”, the escape of 14,000 more Ethiopian Jews. Most dramatically, Bush got to the U.N. to revoke its 1975 “Zionism is Racism” resolution.

BILL CLINTON appointed more Jews to his cabinet than all of the previous presidents combined and put Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, both 1st appointed to the federal bench by Jimmy Carter, on the Supreme Court.

GEORGE W. BUSH was the first president to assemble the largest group of Jewish neo-conservatives under one administration in US history. They included Richard Perle, Chair of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, and Deputy Defense Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, along with Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith and Dov Zakheim, in addition to Edward Luttwak and Paul Adelman and National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams. The man who most Americans heard as the President’s spokesman was Ari Fleisher. After 9/11, perhaps President Bush’s most important Jewish appointment was Michael Chrtoff, US Secretary of Homeland Security and co-author of the US Patriot Act. On a lighter note, Bush was the first president to celebrate Chanukah in the White House residence, which he repeated several years while in office.

BARAK OBAMA will certainly be remembered for successfully nominating Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, making the high court the most Jewish in American history, with three Jewish justices. He has also surrounded himself with perhaps the largest inner-circle of close Jewish advisors, including David Axelrod, former Senior Advisor to the President, Rahm Emanuel as former Chief of Staff and now Sabbath observant Jack Lew as the President’s new Chief of Staff. Although catching serious flack from various segments of the American Jewish community regarding statements he has made regarding the Israel-Palestine peace process, it can be argued that no American President has done more for Israel’s security, from the toughest Iran sanctions legislation in history to thwart their nascent nuclear weapons program, to directing funds for innovative Israel defense systems, including Iron Dome, designed to shoot down new Iranian-backed short range missiles being launched from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. On a lighter note, starting in 2009, Obama was the FIRST president to host a Passover seder in the White House residence, marking perhaps the FIRST time that gefilte fish was served on Presidential fine china, and it is a tradition which is now in its third year, with Obama at the head of the table.

With help from Professor Sherman L. Cohn, Georgetown University Law Center

 

Shirley MacLaine will be in the 3rd season of Downton Abbey, playing a woman named Martha Levinson. Reported to be married to Isidore Levinson. 

Does this mean that Cora Crawley is Jewish?

And that the three daughters are Jewish? Including the beautiful Mary?

And if Mary marries Matthew, as is likely, their children, if any, will be Jewish?

And if they have a boy, the next in line as Lord Granthem of Downtown Abbey

WILL BE JEWISH ???

Although Natural Heart Month (February) is coming to an end, here are two delicious recipes from Dei Fratelli, a gluten-free, all-natural kosher brand, using heart healthy tomatoes.

http://www.deifratelli.com.

Tomatoes contain large amounts of vitamin C, providing 40 percent of your daily value. They also contain a healthy portion of your daily value of vitamin A, potassium, and iron.

Recent studies conducted by Harvard researchers show that women with the highest intake of tomato-based foods, rich sources of the antioxidant lycopene, had a reduced risk for cardiovascular disease compared to women with low intake of those foods.

Freshly canned and processed tomatoes, like Dei Fratelli’s, have higher lycopene content than garden tomatoes and don’t lose nutritional value during processing.

Research shows that lycopene acts as an antioxidant and can help people stay active even in old age.

Tomato Basil Bruschetta

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups Dei Fratelli Petite Diced Tomatoes, drained (approx. 1/2 of a 28 oz can)
8 ounces fresh mozzarella, sliced or soft goat cheese
Basil leaves for garnish, chopped

Bruschetta topping

3 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped
2 cloves fresh garlic
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Rusks/Bread

1 loaf Ciabatta bread, sliced 1/2 in thick

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Brush slices of bread with olive oil and rub with cloves of garlic. Place on sheet tray and place in the oven for approximately 5 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Remove bread from oven to cool. Combine all of the ingredients for bruschetta topping in a bowl. Mix gently. On cooled bread, place sliced mozzarella or spread on goat cheese. Add a spoon full of bruschetta topping. Garnish with chopped basil.

Serves 4-6

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

2 (28 ounce) cans Dei Fratelli Crushed Tomatoes
1 tablespoon Vegetable oil
1 cup onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup carrots, chopped
1/4 cup celery, chopped
3 1/2 cups Chicken broth (or vegetable broth)
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon black pepper, ground
4 drops hot pepper sauce

Heat oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Sauté onions and garlic until onions are tender. Add carrots and celery; cook 7 to 9 minutes until tender, stirring frequently. Stir in tomatoes, broth, Worcestershire sauce, salt, thyme, pepper, and hot pepper sauce. Reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer 20 minutes, stirring frequently.

Serves 8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLOOdENt7RU

February 14 – Human rights advocate and former Iraqi Parliamentarian Mithal al Alusi contacted me by phone today to say he survived an assassination attempt by two gunmen at his home last night.

“Iranian fascists will try it against us,” Alusi told me. “Iranian fascists – They will try to kill all the liberals.”

Two armed gunmen “tried to jump through the hedge and they fired shots at my security people,” Alusi told me today. He said his bodyguards returned fire, and the two gunmen fled.

Alusi won a seat and served two terms in the Iraqi Parliament starting in 2005 as representative of the Democratic Party of the Iraqi nation, a grassroots political party he founded that advocates free markets, free press, human rights, rule of law and cooperation among democracies, including Iraq and Israel.

Alusi, who has traveled three times to Israel and has been an outspoken advocate of normalized relations between the two countries, also survived an assassination attempt in February 2005 that took the lives of his two sons, Ayman, 29, and Jamal, 24, apparently as “payback” by terrorists outraged that Alusi had advocated normalization with Israel.

“Even if these terrorists try to kill me again, peace is the only solution,” he told reporters minutes after the attack. “Peace with Israel is the only solution for Iraq. Peace with everybody, but no peace for the terrorists.”

In the aftermath of his sons’ murders, Alusi refused to leave Iraq and instead redoubled his efforts to build the political party they had helped him establish. See link below for one account of his remarkable bravery that also includes some of his philosophy.

He insists he will not leave Iraq now.

“This is my country; I have to stay,” he said. Responding to this reporter’s alarm, he added, “Come on, come on ... we have to understand they are weak.”

Since the U.S. troop withdrawal in December, life in Iraq is increasingly precarious for liberals and anyone who advocates normal relations with the West, he tells me. He believes that Iran continues to infiltrate the Iraqi government in an attempt to radicalize it.

“There is no hope for Iraqi democracy through Islamic fascists –those fascists those killers [now] control the democracy.”

However, he will not flee. He vows, “I will continue.”

More to come.

http://www.totallyjewish.com/news/world/c-17658/the-bravery-of-mithal-al-alusi/

Wow.. what an exciting week it has been. The New York Giants were victorious in their Super Bowl quest. Hope everyone enjoyed last week’s Jewish Standard cover story with a round up of local eateries and their SB foods. My children were scattered, some together, and one at school.. and we were at our friend’s home with a nice small crowd of 7. The camaraderie, company, game, and catered deli/chicken wings, spinach dip in a hollowed out football-shaped pumpernickel bread, mini hot dogs, knishes, and of course, dessert to wash it all down, were great. Several of the office staff here event went to the stadium for Tuesday’s welcome rally.

Anyway, back to reality.

I found this delicious recipe in a newer cookbook “How to Cook Like a Jewish Grandmother—Old-Fashioned Jewish Recipes” by Marla Brooks.

Melt-in-Your-Mouth Short Ribs

Yes, short ribs are a bit of an indulgence and sometimes a little fatty, but once in a while, everyone needs to splurge.

3 pounds short ribs
1/4 cup honey
1 cup beef broth
1 cup ketchup
dash Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste
2 onions, thinly sliced
2 large carrots, sliced

Broil ribs in broiler for 5 to 10 minutes, or until brown. While ribs are browning, mix honey, broth, ketchup, and Worcestershire together and set aside. Saute´ vegetables until soft and place in roasting pan. When ribs are done, place on top of veggies. Pour sauce over ribs. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for about 2 hours, turning ribs once or twice during baking. Serves 4.

Grandma’s Hot Beef Borscht

(fleishig borscht)

2 quarts water
2 pounds beef brisket
10 small beets, julienned or diced
2 yellow onions, sliced
juice of 2 lemons
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
pepper to taste

Place the water, meat, beets, and onions in a Dutch oven and bring to a boil. Lower heat to simmer and cook until the meat is tender. Add lemon juice, sugar, salt, and pepper and simmer about 10 minutes. Taste for seasonings. Serve with crackers. Serves 6 to 8.