Senators want Lubavitch books returned
washington (jta) | All 100 U.S. senators told the Russian government to return a collection of religious books to Chabad.
The book collection was seized more than 80 years ago from Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson. Some books were returned in 2002, but the rest remain in the Russian State Library.
Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) led the effort to have President Bush raise the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin at their summit this week.
“We urge you to return these sacred religious texts, archives and manuscripts to Chabad, which would be a significant example of your government’s commitment to justice, human rights and religious freedom,” said the letter to Putin, signed by all 100 senators.
Black Muslim leader threatens Jews at campus talk
pittsburgh (jta) | Jewish students at a Pittsburgh university were upset by comments by a controversial black figure.
Jewish students were asked to identity themselves at last week’s lecture by Malik Shabazz at Carnegie Mellon, and then were threatened. Students who admitted to being Zionists were told they would be watched, according to Aaron Weil, executive director of Hillel Jewish university center of Pittsburgh.
Anti-hate groups such as the Anti- Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center long have warned against Shabazz’s hateful rhetoric. University officials hosted a town meeting in reaction to the speech.
Harvard president says Jews can’t farm
washington (jta) | The president of Harvard included Jews as well as women in his controversial hypothesis about under-representation in certain disciplines.
Lawrence Summers, who is Jewish, has been under fire for a month for comments suggesting that women are under-represented in the sciences because “innate aptitude” differences in certain disciplines, and not just because of socialization.
When Summers released his full remarks this week it turned out he had ideas about other groups as well, stating that Catholics are under-represented in investment banking, whites are under-represented in basketball and “Jews are very substantially under-represented in farming and agriculture.”
In fact, in recent decades Jewish farmers have thrived in Israel, Argentina and Africa, among other places.