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Sundown: Obama’s Faux Pas?

He’s got sole, and more in today’s news

by
Hadara Graubart
June 11, 2009
Obama speaking by phone with Netanyahu on Monday.(Official White House photo via NPR)
Obama speaking by phone with Netanyahu on Monday.(Official White House photo via NPR)

&#8226 President Obama should have known better than to put up his feet while chatting on the phone with Israeli P.M. Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday. “There is no greater insult in the Middle East than pointing the soles of one’s shoes at another person,” fumes a newspaper writer. Even by phone, apparently. [Haaretz via NPR]
• The old folks playing bingo are not a special exhibit at the new Derfner Judaica Museum in the Bronx. The collection is housed in the Hebrew Home at Riverdale, and it includes artifacts meant to become part of the residents’ lives. [NYT]
• University of Wisconsin dining halls have stopped offering kosher options; none of the students complained, perhaps because they have a new “magnificent” Hillel building in which to eat their cheeseburgers. [Wisconsin State Journal]
• Ever wonder what would have happened if Freud and Herzl had met? No? Too bad: “the former would undoubtedly have attempted to help the latter free himself from the onus of his dreams and accept reality, while the latter would have endeavored to convince the former to forsake his notion of reality and embrace his dream,” guesses The Jerusalem Post. [JPost]
• Martha Minow has been named the new dean of Harvard law school, replacing Elena Kagan, who’s now U.S. solicitor general. Minow gave a lecture titled “Tolerance in the Age of Terrorism” at the Jewish Theological Seminary two years ago [Boston Business Journal]

Hadara Graubart was formerly a writer and editor for Tablet Magazine.