World . DIGEST r" N ow Labor, Kadima Bond Jerusalem/JTA — Israel's Labor Party reportedly has agreed to join Kadima's coalition government. Just before Sukkot began Monday in Israel, Labor and Kadima reportedly reached an agreement under which Labor will join Tzipi Livni's governing Kadima Party as a senior partner. Labor leader Ehud Barak will become senior deputy prime minister, a newly created position, while Livni will be prime minister. The agree- ment is expected to be signed later this week, according to Israeli media reports. The move brings Livni her first major governing partner, but she needs more to complete her coalition and take office as prime minister. The partnership with Labor likely will make it harder for Kadima to bring another large party, the Orthodox Shas Party, into the coali- tion. Livni has until Oct. 20 to form a new coalition government, although she can ask President Shimon Peres for a two-week extension. F. P 771 our new location and OPEN f r business!!! ...and - the MAPLE & candy bow full Zionism Chapter Rapped New York/JTA — American Jewish Committee is calling on a leading pub- lishing house to withdraw a chapter on Zionism in a new encyclopedia. The Encyclopedia of Race and Racism is published by Macmillan Reference USA, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. It is available in print and online versions. "It is incomprehensible that a reputable publisher would include the national movement of the Jewish people, Zionism, in an encyclopedia on racism;' said AJC Executive Director David Harris. "No other form of nationalism is included in the three- volume encyclopedia." In a letter to Frank Menchaca, Gale's executive vice president and publisher, AJC not only questioned why Zionism was included in the encyclopedia, but also pointed out a number of factual and historical inaccuracies in the chapter. The author of the Zionism chapter, Noel Ignatiev, has no track record of scholarship in Middle Eastern or Jewish studies, but his pre- vious writings show an inherent bias toward Jews and Israel, says the AJC. TELEGRAPH BLOOMFIELD PLAZA "LEFT OF KROGER'S" 248-356-7007 Frost MIDDLE SCHOOL 32nd Annual PTSA presents their • Over 100 Exhibitor Booths • Lunch Room • Bake Sale Admission: $2.00 NO STROLLERS PLEASE Five Mile -ci cc 0 ci cr) I t E - cc 1-96 A34 14041 Stark Rd. Livonia West of Farmington • North of 1-96 October 16 • 2008 Saturday November 1 10:00am - 4:00pm 1444280 'Obsession' Blasted Washington/JTA — An interfaith group blasted the creators and distrib- utors of a film critical of radical Islam. At a news conference in Washington, Interfaith Alliance chairman Rabbi Jack Moline described the film Obsession: Radical Islam's War with the West as a "thinly veiled call for dispar- agement and distrust of all Muslims." By "exercising the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution:' the film's distributors have "attempted, by infer- ence and innuendo, to limit the rights of Muslims to enjoy the free exercise of their faith:' Moline said. Twenty-eight million DVD copies of the film were distributed in U.S. presidential election swing states by the Clarion Fund, a nonprofit organization founded by Raphael Shore, a producer and co-writer of the film. Shore also works for the Aish HaTorah, but that group has said it is not involved in the distribution and that Shore's involvement with the film was in his free time. Temple Mount Shul Opens Jerusalem/JTA — A synagogue near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Muslim Quarter was reopened. The Ohel Yitzhak Synagogue was aban- doned in 1938 by a group of fervently Orthodox, or Charedi, Jews called the Shomrei Hachomot, or Guardians of the Walls, in the face of Arab violence. It is also known as the Ungarin Shul since it was founded by Hungarian Jews in 1904, according to the Jerusalem Post. American philanthropists Irving and Cherna Moskowitz bought the property rights to the synagogue, which is located about 100 yards from the Temple Mount, and funded the refurbishing. The Temple Mount, home also to the Dome of the Rock mosque, has been at the center of ten- sion between Jews and Arabs, particu- larly in the past two decades. N.Y. Federation Reserves New York/JTA — North America's largest Jewish federation may tap into reserve funds to deal with the economic crisis. Officials at the UJA- Federation of New York said that they were prepared to dip into their reserves to help out agencies in dire need sustain their services, the CEO of the federation, John Ruskay, told the New York Jewish Week. The UJWs endowment, which holds most of the reserve money, doubled to about $850 million over the past five years, and the money could be used to help agencies in New York that have been hit hard by the economic crisis. The federation already has given an emergency grant of $400,000 to the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty to help sustain its food bank.