Sundown: Organs of State
Spanish banned, Oz in Italy, and fruit of the vine
August 18, 2009
• A Swedish newspaper accused Israeli soldiers of killing Palestinians in order to harvest their organs; condemnation of this “blood libel” was swift to come from a rival paper and the Israeli Foreign Ministry. [Haaretz]
• In a somewhat brighter story about organs and Israel, an American teenager visiting the country was struck by Wilson’s Disease, a rare genetic disorder that left her desperate for a liver transplant within days. She was flown back to the States, received a new organ, and is doing well. [NYT]
• A fitness instructor in Arizona says she was fired from the local JCC after being reprimanded for speaking Spanish to her clients and told by her boss “the only reason persons of Puerto Rican heritage come to the mainland is to get food stamps and beer.” [Courthouse News Service]
• Israeli wine is making an international splash, proving, says one critic, “there is no contradiction between wines that are kosher and wines that are excellent,” and perhaps helping to dispel the myth that people actually drink Manischewitz. [Reuters]
• Writer Amos Oz is in Italy working on a libretto based on his poetic novel The Same Sea. [JTA]
• Robert Novak—conservative commentator, critic of Israel, and Jew-turned-Catholic—has died of a brain tumor at age 78. [NYT]
Hadara Graubart was formerly a writer and editor for Tablet Magazine.
