Below the equator

For the past seven summers, Aliza Esenstad, 16, has looked forward to her Jewish sleep-away camp in the Catoctin Mountains of Pennsylvania. But this summer, she traveled much farther -- to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

As part of Capital Camps' four-week counselor-in-training (CIT) program, Esenstad, a rising high school senior from Rockville, and 17 other teens -- most from the Washington metro area -- traveled to the South American city earlier this month for an intensive week of community service and Jewish communal exchange.

The Mideast and its chasms

Conflict in the Middle East spawned contention in the District Wednesday evening, as proponents of widely opposing views on Israel engaged in a hotly contested panel discussion on several red-flag topics.

Among them: Palestinian refugees, West Bank settlements, and even Israel's identity as a Jewish state.