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One cannot think of Yiddishkeit in Elizabeth, New Jersey, without at the same time recalling the community's longtime leader, Harav Mordechai Pinchas Teitz, zt"l.

Following the Six Day War, UN Resolution 242 called on Israel to withdraw ''from territories occupied in the recent conflict,'' while affirming Israel's ''right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries.''

As always, the idea is for invited participants to finish off in any way they wish sentence fragments we’ve given them.

Shame wells up in me as I thread my way through the cluster of young wives standing near my home, animatedly talking with one another as their children play at their feet. Four shopping bags dangle from one arm, five from another, and I shift them uncomfortably as I carry them from my car, practically bent over from their weight.

While not all criticism of Israel stemmed from anti-Semitism, Podhoretz contends the level of animosity towards Israel rises exponentially the farther left one moved along the spectrum.

It wasn’t every day that a young woman from a traditional Jewish family volunteered for farm labor, but for Bernice, the decision was an easy one.

"If this president does not get us out of Iraq, when I am president, I will," pledged Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in a televised Democratic debate broadcast nationally and around the world.

I understand how two governments can negotiate a ceasefire, but terrorists by definition are not playing by the same rules as you are.

Brooks predicted that Jerusalem would be liberated in 1917, an idea that intrigued Allenby, who began to view his own role in Eretz Yisrael in prophetic terms.

"Hi, I'm Richard Gere and I'm speaking for the entire world.

So too in our times we must invest our blood - our effort and our toil - in serving Hashem.

With the history of twentieth-century science and technology largely a saga of Jewish accomplishment, in retrospect it might seem foreordained that after World War II the rising Jewish nation in the Middle East would emerge not only as a financial power but also as a scientific and technological leader.

The regimental forces were unable to defend Zion, and international agreements and alliances could not save Israel in a time of crisis.

“Until there’s a final decision or a final count, we won’t welcome anyone to office,” Rabbi David Katz said.

The exchange was brief and simple in its content, yet profound in its implications. One morning this past summer, I davened at a shul in Passaic, New Jersey. Passaic was our new home as of mid-July, following nearly a decade of school leadership in other communities. After tefillah, I opened a conversation with someone who had also just concluded his tenure as a principal out of state. He informed me he had left the field of education entirely and had moved to the tri-state area to go into business with a relative. In the course of our talk, he mentioned that another colleague, also young by comparative standards, was not returning to the school he had helped found out west.

“A truly happy person does not allow his happiness to be dependent on any external factor over which he may not have control.” (Chachmah Umussar, vol. 2, pp. 331-2)

In its turn, the Palestinian street sees in Hamas, the "liberators" of Gaza, the agents of final victory over Israel and votes them into power.

Achdus, unity, is a term that warms the heart. It is an ideal we all aspire to achieve but often find so elusive.

Our family and friends became contem­porary versions of the twelve tribes joined by kinship, common faith, and mutual hopes and dreams.

While the book was of great interest to those struggling with conflicts between Torah and science, and aroused considerable controversy in some quarters, it turned out that those most passionate about the book were of a different group: Harry Potter readers.

When Nietzsche a century ago surveyed his surroundings and proclaimed that "God is dead," he might have in retrospect judged himself only slightly premature.

Whatever happened to Jewish baseball players? Not that they're an extinct species - several Jews are currently playing in the major leagues or working their way through the minors - but Jewish baseball fans will tell you the present-day crop is relatively unaccomplished and unknown.

About a thousand years ago, a large group of Yemenite Jews decided to leave the diaspora. One cannot imagine the hardships these pioneers encountered.

Rabbi Jacob Juspha, better known as Rabbi Jacob Joseph, was born into a very poor family in Kroz, Lithuania in 1840.

I was 20 at the time of my first escape attempt. It was unsuccessful – someone had informed the authorities of my plan – and I was sent home from the Czech - German border, back to my prison of invisible bars. That only made me more determined.

We now are in the season of advocacy of preschool, referring specifically to the education of children who are four years old.

“Tens of thousands visit here – ordinary Jews, educators and their students, Knesset members and government ministers, soldiers and their officers, members of European parliaments, and U.S. congressmen. And after their visits, something happens in the minds of all of them. Even left-wing Knesset members, with tears in their eyes, have written in the visitors’ book, ‘Never again!’ ”

Seventy years ago this autumn, the Nazis rounded up my father, grandparents and some 6,000 other Jews, shipping them from southwest Germany to the Gurs internment camp in southern France.

A week from Friday will mark the third anniversary of the cease-fire that ended the Second Lebanon War. And while the fortunes of war run to infinite varieties of the unexpected, there is one thing of which we can all be certain. Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah will appear, if he hasn't already by the time this article is published, on a video screen from the secret bunker he is afraid to leave, and in between chants of "Death to America!" and "Death to Israel!" he and his supporters will again proclaim glorious victory over the infidel Jews.

Chanukah and Purim have passed but they are not past, because Jewish history is not only ancient. The message of Yom Ha’Atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day, is that Jewish history is now. Indeed, some of the Maccabees are still alive.