(Israel National News) Reform and Conservative congregations in the US have launched a campaign of protest against the government of Israel.
The Reform and Conservative movements cited as reason for the effort the ritual bath (mikvaot) bill banning use of public facilities for conversions not performed by recognized authorities -which passed its second and third readings in the Knesset the governments decision not to implement an agreement establishing a Reform prayer section at the Western Wall, and the issue of conversion. In each of these cases, the non-Orthodox movements were denied official state recognition.
According to a report in Haaretz on Sunday, the protest campaign is being led by the JFNA, the Jewish Federations of North America, the largest Jewish organization on the North American continent. The campaign is to include sermons on the subject during the High Holidays.
So much for any Game No. 162 chaos in baseball: The San Francisco Giants, Toronto Blue Jays and Baltimore Orioles grabbed the last three playoff spots Sunday, and the October matchups are set.
Neat and clean, no need for all sorts of tiebreakers. Too bad that kind of final-day scramble might"ve been fun for fans.
Instead, they could sit back, savor Vin Scully"s farewell call and prepare for the postseason. It opens Tuesday night when the Orioles visit Toronto in the AL wild-card game.
"All we asked for is an opportunity, and right now, we have an opportunity," Baltimore center fielder Adam Jones said after a 5-2 win over the New York Yankees. "So, let"s celebrate and enjoy this and get back to work."
No official word yet on the starting pitchers at Rogers Centre. Figures to be Chris Tillman for the O"s against Marcus Stroman.
On Wednesday night, aces duel as Madison Bumgarner starts for the Giants vs. Noah Syndergaard and the New York Mets at Citi Field in the NL wild-card game.
"We found a way to get back to where we need to be," Bumgarner said after his team"s 7-1 win finished off a sweep of the Dodgers. "If we play like we have been the last three days, we"ll be tough to beat."
On Thursday, the best-of-five AL Division Series begins: David Ortiz and Boston at Cleveland, and the wild-card winner at Texas.
"I guess I wish Ortiz would consider retiring early," said Indians manager Terry Francona, who previously guided Big Papi with the Red Sox, "but I don"t see that happening."
On Friday night, Clayton Kershaw starts Game 1 for the Los Angeles Dodgers at Washington, and the NL wild-card winner plays the best-in-the-majors Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field.
Going into Game 162, Detroit and St. Louis also had a chance to reach the postseason. That raised the possibility of multi-team, multi-city tiebreakers going into early next week.
The Tigers were in the middle of that mix. They hoped to win at Atlanta and have either the Orioles or Blue Jays lose then, they would"ve needed to win a makeup game at home Monday against Detroit to force a tiebreaker for an AL wild-card spot.
"I would not have enjoyed the travel," Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said, "but I would have relished traveling."
That kind of drama never developed as the teams holding leads took care of business.
Manager Buck Showalter and Baltimore sealed their spot, winning at Yankee Stadium. When the Tigers later lost 1-0 at Atlanta in the last game at Turner Field, they were out and Toronto was back in for the second straight year.
Later, the Blue Jays" 2-1 victory at Fenway Park meant they would host Baltimore.
With All-Star catcher Buster Posey getting three hits and driving in three runs, San Francisco beat the Dodgers and eliminated the Cardinals.
The Giants have enjoyed a recent run of even-year success, winning the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014.
The last time they reached the postseason, Bumgarner pitched a shutout at Pittsburgh in the wild-card game and went on to become the World Series MVP. So another cross-country flight to begin the playoffs was fine by them.
"I don"t think it bothers anybody that we go on the road to win these games. It"s actually a lot of fun," first baseman Brandon Belt said. "With Bumgarner on the mound, we"re going to have a good shot."
T.J. Yeldon"s Spinning Catch & Hurdle on 4th Down | Colts vs. Jaguars | NFL in London
Antonio Cromartie has taken the national anthem protest across the pond.
Cromartie, the former Jets cornerback who became the first member of the Colts to join the Colin Kaepernick-led protest last week, raised his fist and kneeled during The Star-Spangled Banner Sunday at Londons Wembley Stadium.
He then stood for Britains anthem, G*d Save The Queen, before kickoff against the Jaguars in the NFL"s first international game of the season.
No other players were seen engaging in the trend sparked by Kaepernick, the 49ers backup quarterback who first sat during the anthem in August. His stance, which has faced both backlash and support, has garnered followers throughout the NFL and elsewhere, and has begun to inspire new methods of protest against police brutality and oppression of minorities.
On Saturday, Washington wide receiver DeSean Jackson announced plans to wear custom cleats during his team"s pregame warmups against the Browns on Sunday. The cleats show a caution-tape design, which he said symbolizes an abundance of senseless killings by police.
"I"ve seen enough caution tape and it"s time for a stand and a change in our community and society," Jackson told TMZ Sports. "...As a young black leader with a stage and platform I"m starting awareness to help prevent these killings, and hopefully get justice to these cops who have taken lives of innocent human beings."
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Because theres so much mystery surrounding the show and because it seems so ambitious, its probably easy for people to assume its just a disaster, said Ms. Wood, who plays an increasingly skeptical host named Delores. But I think theyll be pleasantly surprised.
Early reviews have been mostly raves, praising the transportive quality and sophisticated themes about human nature and consciousness. And the performances, especially from Ms. Wood, Mr. Hopkins as the possibly malevolent mastermind Dr. Robert Ford and Ms. Newton as the madam Maeve, are nuanced and layered.
The show has taken a premise that could be seen as sort of primitive and simply about revenge and explored it on an emotionally complex level, Mr. Abrams said.
He had been pondering a Westworld reboot off and on since discussing the concept more than 20 years ago with Crichton, who died in 2008. But Mr. Nolan, who goes by Jonah, and Ms. Joy werent interested in taking on big television projects in 2013, when Mr. Abrams proposed reimagining it as a cable drama. Mr. Nolan, who had worked on films like Interstellar, The Dark Knight Rises and Memento with his brother Christopher before creating the CBS series Person of Interest, hoped to direct feature films. Ms. Joy, who wrote for shows like Burn Notice and Pushing Daisies, was developing a movie version of Battlestar Galactica.
Ultimately, they were drawn in by the chance to explore issues surrounding artificial intelligence and the idea that humans are getting ever better at immersing themselves in their narrative fictions, Mr. Nolan said.
Photo Anthony Hopkins, left, and Jeffrey Wright in Westworld. Credit John P. Johnson/HBO
While the movie Westworld was a campy predecessor to the Terminator movies as well as Crichtons more successful Jurassic Park with Yul Brynners black-hatted gunfighter in the inexorable predator role later filled by terminators and velociraptors the series takes its cues from headier sci-fi like Blade Runner and Ex Machina. It flips the main perspective of Crichtons story, and thus viewers sympathies, from the human guests to the robot hosts. And it poses provocative questions about the depths to which humans will sink when there arent consequences.
In Westworld, generally its the people, not the robots, who are the monsters; an early scene finds an Old West bro shooting an android cowboy in the back of the head for sport and exclaiming, Now thats a [expletive] vacation! In the most explicit inversion of the source material, Brynners mechanical outlaw is now a veteran Westworld tourist with a taste for cruelty and a mysterious agenda. He is played by Ed Harris in his first substantial series television role.
It was Jonah and Lisas commitment and passion for their idea that kind of sold me on it, he said. Theyre using the future of artificial intelligence to explore the nature of what makes us who we are.
Other actors were drawn by expansive roles I got be to a cowboy and a robot at the same time! Ms. Wood recalled with glee that gave primacy to characters most westerns leave on the margins, like the madam or the frontier girl next door.
If this wasnt an empowering role for women, it was going to be a major problem, Ms. Newton said. Because Im n**e for so much of the film.
Ah yes, the nudity. As suggested by the trailers, it is abundant, and it became a flash point during the production when a Westworld casting notice informed would-be extras that they may be required to perform genital-to-genital touching or pose on all fours while others who are fully n**e ride on your back, among other indignities. HBO disavowed the notice, saying it was never requested by the producers. (SAG-Aftra, the actors guild, protested at the time, but a spokeswoman confirmed that it received no complaints from members about the shoot.)
Photo James Marsden and Evan Rachel Wood in Westworld. Credit John P. Johnson/HBO
In general, the nudity is more clinical than titillating, mostly relegated to the gloomy laboratories as well as the trailers. The s*x and violence is easy to market, but its not the stuff thats very interesting, Mr. Abrams said.
Given the uproar over sexual violence on HBO shows like Game of Thrones, the most controversial scene in the pilot is likely to be an implied rape that happens offscreen. But those involved with Westworld defend it as a key, and non-gratuitous, part of the narrative. The cost of such actions is something these guys take incredibly seriously, Ms. Newton said.
Ms. Joy and Mr. Nolan met at the premiere for Memento, the 2001 indie thriller Christopher Nolan wrote and directed based on Jonahs short story. Though they consulted on each others work for years, Mr. Nolan and Ms. Joy had never officially worked together before Westworld, the development of which happened to coincide with another collaboration: their first child. (Theyre currently expecting their second.)
They have sketched out several seasons worth of story, but HBO has committed only to the one. Coming off of Vinyl, I think the one thing were going to do is take our time in making a decision about renewing Westworld, Mr. Bloys said.
That means it will be some time before anyone knows whether the show can in fact be the networks next flagship series, even as everyone involved swats away the inevitable Game of Thrones comparisons. But HBO executives do want enough viewers, positive reviews and cultural buzz for Westworld to justify a price tag that, while they wont divulge it, cant be cheap, considering the decorated cast and breathtaking scope on display.
Is it the next big HBO thing? I dont think it benefits any show to work under those expectations, Mr. Bloys said. Its getting into really interesting themes that are relevant today, so hopefully it catches on.
Mr. Nolan added: We have a dark, strange, hopefully compelling story were telling here. You never know what people are going to make of it until they do, but were incredibly excited to put it in front of an audience.
Correction: September 30, 2016
An earlier version of this article misstated the title of a film Jonathan Nolan worked on with his brother Christopher Nolan. It is The Dark Knight Rises, not The Dark Knight Returns.
Officials say a South Florida synagogue was vandalized on the eve of Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah.
Local news organizations report that someone spray-painted expletives on the building of the Chabad of Parkland on Saturday. The person or people responsible also wrote graffiti that read "Free Palestine" on the synagogue"s front sign and spray-painted the number "12" on the building, which is often used as a derogatory term for police.
Rabbi Shuey Biston calls the act a hate crime and says the graffiti was written to try to intimidate the Jewish community.
Parkland Mayor Michael Udine says graffiti with hateful language also was found in other parts of the city.
ROSH HASHANAH TREATS: Not everybody who wants to celebrate the Jewish New Year with the sweetness of an apple dessert, a honey cake or round challah can bake their own. This Rosh Hashanah, Osteria Morinis executive pastry chef promises to up the ante on whatever theyve been buying.
Alex Levin is taking orders for honey raisin challah ($15), caramelized apple pie with oat streusel topping ($35) and a honey cake ($25) he worked on to solve that quick breads typical taste and texture issues. (The key ingredient: his house-made apple butter.) Levins acclaimed chocolate tortino cakes, rosemary foccacia and dark chocolate toffee with fleur de sel can be ordered as well.
Rosh Hashanah pickup at the restaurant, 301 Water St. SE, is on Oct. 1 between 3-5 p.m., and Oct. 2, between 1-5 p.m. Inside the Beltway delivery is available for a $10. For information on ordering, click here.
The Georgia State Patrol and local law enforcement officers in the Athens area are warning impaired drivers to be prepared to go to jail if they choose to drive this weekend.
Specifically focused on motorists traveling to and from the Tennessee-Georgia football game in Athens, which kicks off at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, authorities said they will increase efforts through their Nighthawks DUI Task Force. In a press release announcement, the Governors Office of Highway Safety said troopers have zero tolerance for drunk driving and will take any driver who is legally impaired to jail.
Keeping the roads safe for all who will be traveling to and from the game in Athens this weekend is the goal of troopers patrolling there this weekend, said Colonel Mark W. McDonough, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Safety. If alcohol consumption will be part of your weekend plans, prepare in advance by designating someone to handle the responsibilities of driving. Designating someone who will not be consuming alcohol to drive will save you the costs associated with an impaired driving charge and the consequences of a traffic crash.
The Nighthawks Task Force was formed in 2004 to patrol the metro Atlanta area during peak times when impaired drivers were on the roads. The unit has been expanded to cover other cities in the state including Athens, Savannah, Statesboro, Albany and Columbus. Troopers assigned to the Nighthawks Task Force are the most highly trained DUI enforcement officers in Georgia. The Nighthawks Task Force is funded with a grant from the Governors Office of Highway Safety.
The Governors Office of Highway Safety said alcohol is a factor in one out of every four fatal crashes in Georgia. The Georgia State Patrol and local law enforcement agencies around the state are stepping up traffic enforcement efforts as the number of people killed in traffic crashes in Georgia continues to climb. More than 1,100 people have already died in traffic crashes in the state this year. Georgia is on pace to surpass the total number of traffic deaths last year when 1,432 people were killed in crashes.
The Georgia/Tennessee rivalry is one of the best in the SEC, and we hope Bulldog fans and our guests from Tennessee enjoy spending the weekend in the best college town in the nation, said Harris Blackwood, director of the Governors Office of Highway Safety. If your plan this weekend includes alcohol, then avoid spending a night wearing an orange jail jumpsuit by planning to have a sober driver take you home.
Football fans in Athens and across the state can find a safe ride home on the Drive Sober Georgia app. The free app not only offers a list of cab companies and ride services around the state, it will also dial the number of the cab company or ride service listed in the app.
