Newsroom | Feature Articles

March -- Best of the Press March-3-2008

NEWSWORLD: Russia's only Jewish studies program is shuttered. By Grant Slater
MOSCOW (JTA) -- Russia's only graduate program dedicated to Jewish studies is caught in the crossfire between its parent university and St. Petersburg city officials, who closed the university last week over fire code violations. Critics say the closure was a politically motivated response to a university course in election monitoring.Read the full story on the JTA website.

SCIENCE WORLD: Author Enters Debate Over Jews and I.Q. By Eric Schwartz
Such is the “mystique of Judaism,” writes Jon Entine, author of the new book “Abraham’s Children: Race, Identity, and the DNA of the Chosen People,” that the “romance of a few genetic markers” can change a person’s entire outlook on life. Entine's latest volume chronicles his attempt to use DNA to answer the age-old question, “Who is a Jew?” Judaism is unique among world religions, he said, because of its ancestral dimension, and since less than half of 1% of Jews had children with non-Jews until the 20th century, Jews are a “gold mine for genetics.” Read the full story on the website of The Jewish Daily Forward.

The New York Times has a fascinating and related article How Do You prove You're  a Jew on their website, examining the difficulty some immigrants and long-term residents in Israel have proving their race and their religion. Read more in the article on the New York Times website

CULTUREWORLD: As the first generation of adopted Chinese daughters enters early childhood and adolescence, a growing number of adoptive Jewish parents are touring China with their children, in search of a way to explore identities that are both Chinese and Jewish. For Jewish parents who have adopted daughters from China, a return trip can be driven by a variety of motivations. Some parents see it as a valuable opportunity to synthesize their daughters’ Jewish and Chinese heritages, while others see it simply as a chance to visit the places that shaped their daughters’ first days, such as orphanages. Others find it an alluring locale for a bat mitzvah. Read the full article here on the  website for the Jewish Daily Forward.

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