U.S. Report

NEW YORK (JTA) The Orthodox Union applauded U.S. action against physician-assisted suicide. Attorney General John Ashcroft changed a policy Tuesday so that doctors who prescribe lethal drugs to patients now face revocation of their licenses to prescribe medicine.

Ashcroft said physician-assisted suicide was not a "legitimate medical purpose" for handing out drugs. The O.U. said the new policy is consistent with ancient Jewish values that recognize the infinite sanctity of human life.

"The Bible instructs us to surely heal the ill, not to speed their departure from this earth," said Nathan Diament, director of the O.U.'s Institute for Public Affairs.

U.S. emigration law may go off the books

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- The United States may remove a law that restricts trade with Russia.

The Jackson-Vanik Amendment of 1974 -- legislation that helped to ensure the emigration of tens of thousands of Soviet Jews in the 1970s and 1980s by tying trade to emigration policy -- is likely to be rescinded for Russia and other former Soviet republics.

U.S. Jewish groups, however, want assurances that Russia will continue to fight anti-Semitism and work on Jewish community renewal. Russian Jewish leaders are asking President Bush to consider lifting the trade regulations, saying there is free emigration from Russia and no state-sponsored anti-Semitism.

Disabled Israeli sets N.Y. Marathon record

NEW YORK (JPS) -- Ziv Bar-Shira, one of more than 30 Israeli athletes who participated in the 32nd New York City Marathon Sunday, was honored at City Hall for winning and setting a new course record in the hand cycle division.

Bar-Shira, who teaches at the Agricultural Academy in Rehovot, is a member of Etgarim, a group of disabled Israeli athletes. After winning his race in 1 hour, 27 minutes and 49 seconds, Bar-Shira said, "I came this year to show solidarity with all New Yorkers. You have a big challenge: to return to your normal lives and to show terror that it will never win."

Meanwhile, a Jewish woman, Deena Drossin, won the U.S. women's championships at the marathon. Drossin finished the 26-plus mile race in 2:26:58.

Conservatives create new yeshiva program

NEW YORK (JTA) -- The U.S. Conservative movement is establishing a yearlong study-in-Israel program for recent high school graduates.

Beginning next September, the Conservative Yeshiva of the United Synagogue in Jerusalem will open a pre-college yeshiva year.

Rabbi Joel Roth, head of the yeshiva, said it will "offer North American high school graduates the opportunity to study rabbinic texts in an open-minded egalitarian atmosphere, while retaining the intensity associated with traditional yeshiva learning."