Archive
Didn’t see this one coming. Though it was never in any real doubt, we now have official evidence that Israel at one point possessed nuclear weapons, thanks to researcher and author Sasha Polakow-Suransky. Â And given the country’s continued ambiguity regarding its nuclear arsenal, its refusal to enter into the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, its hawkish leadership, […]
Crossposted from J Street U. Welcome to seventh grade Hebrew School class: the unit is Israel awareness. The teacher stands at the front of the room, and stresses the purity of Israel’s cause, the danger of our enemies – Nazis and Palestinians alike – and the need to support Israel unquestioningly. We are young, and […]
Jews in the ROTC have to balance class, religion, and training for the likes of Iraq and Afghanistan. Here’s why they joined, and how they feel as Jews fighting in the US military.
Crossposted to The Reform Shuckle In September, I announced that I was officially a Reform Jew with no movement. I eventually worked on some definitions, to make this all a bit clearer. The impetus for this was the shortsighted decision of the Union for Reform Judaism to end all funding for college programming, killing Kesher. A new […]
For the first time since Angela Merkel made that weird facial expression when George Bush tried to give her a massage, I can say: the Germans did something right. Recently, the German village of Oberammergau has revised its traditional “Passion Play,†a rite of passage that has gone on since 1633, to emphasize the historical […]
Let me first thank Evan Krasner for responding to my critique of his original post.  I appreciate his choice to continue the conversation beyond a simple point-counterpoint, and I’ve learned a lot already. Evan clarifies something regarding the debate at his school that I actually didn’t understand, which I’m grateful for. The debate’s original format […]
Drawing swastikas. Committing arson. Rioting en masse. Just another day in the Palestinian Territories, na’chon? Sadly, no. Â In fact, we can’t blame these latest developments on terrorists, at least not in the traditional Arab sense of the word. Â Nor can we pinpoint these heinous acts to Gaza or the West Bank or even East Jerusalem. […]
Monday, I got a call from the Jewish Agency. They said, “Good news, you’ve been approved to make Aliyah!” And so that was it. Perhaps it was a decision I’d already made, but there was my stamp of approval, my final confirmation. I remembered a converation I had had with someone just the other day. Upon […]
In “The Prophet’s Wife,” his unfinished work, Milton Steinberg delves into the tortured lives of Hosea and his harlot wife Gomer, brining obscure Biblical figures to life with vivid emotion.