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Daybreak: Highway to Hell

Conflicting names for a Missouri road, an Australian Madoff, and more in the news

by
Hadara Graubart
June 22, 2009

• After a neo-Nazi group adopted a highway in Missouri, lawmakers have decided to rename that section of road after Holocaust survivor Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. His daughter is appalled: “I don’t want Nazis stomping on a highway named for my father.” [AP]
• Passing forward the aid they received as refugees, Ethiopian Jews are traveling to Rwanda to help set up the Agahozo Shalom Youth Village for orphans. [JPost]
• Tony Judt argues that no one actually believes the Israeli settlements will be dismantled, thus the current debate is a canard and “political hypocrisy is its own nemesis.” [NYT]
• Australia may have its own “local Madoff”: Barry Tannenbaum is accused of bilking $1.9 billion from the Jewish community in Sydney. [JTA]
• BBC traces the relationship between a rise in internet “hate sites” and freedom of speech; earlier, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert attributed the recent spate of hate crimes to gun control issues. [BBC]

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