Category: Other

Recently, in these pages and elsewhere, I’ve read many rabbis fretting over whether to take a public stand on what they call political issues. Despite everything that has come to pass, apparently much of the American rabbinate has an…

“The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons” says the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky. Russian prisons are notorious for their harsh treatment and are among the toughest closed institutions with the…

Why the World Turned on Israel So Fast: Emotional Addiction to Suffering — and the End of the Holocaust Halo

For about one day — two at most — the story was painfully clear. Hamas and allied Palestinian gunmen burst into Israel on…

Some will call it paranoia. Others will call it observation. I call it recognizing the patterns unfolding in plain sight.

In parts of Europe and the United States, there is a growing pattern in which fundamentalist Islamist groups seek to…

This is Part Two of a blog about growing up Jewish as a minority in West Palm Beach, Florida, and then finding Zionism through Hadassah.

I owe my Jewishness to my parents, mostly my mother, but I am a Zionist because of Hadassah. Though my…

This is Part One of a multi-part post by the author about her upcoming trip to Israel.

My name is Sara…

When we read the words God spoke to Abraham — “Lech-Lecha”, “Go to yourself” — we hear not a command but a calling, a voice that still echoes in every human soul. The voice of God rarely comes through thunder or fire. It comes, as…

Yair Lapid, Leader of the Opposition, has recently said that the Haredim should not be allowed to vote.

Eighteen year old Haredi males and females do not serve in the Israeli army; they benefit from state subsidies for housing, child care,…

Minorities Against Minorities

Multiculturalism promises a civic peace in which different peoples share a public square without surrendering their distinctiveness. Yet there is a shadow within the pledge. Conflicts are not checked at the…

Who could have imagined that a group of Jewish tourists from the former Soviet Union—still learning the rhythm and soul of Shabbat—would one day celebrate it in a hotel in Tunis, joined by Belz Chassidic friends, Djerban Jews whose…