Love The Convert

Posted on: May 28th, 2008

The laws regarding converts to Judaism are among the most astounding in the Torah. They teach us that any non-Jew who truly and earnestly seeks to join the Jewish people may do so.

Orthodoxy Or Orthopraxy?

Posted on: May 21st, 2008

My Feb. 22 Jewish Press op-ed article “Losing Rational Orthodoxy” seems to have struck a nerve. Much of the feedback was positive, some was negative, and even more was intensely ambivalent.

Torn Garments And Warm Memories

Posted on: May 21st, 2008

“Rebbi.” One of the most beautiful words in the Hebrew language is “rebbi” – “my Torah teacher.” It is a title earned through Torah knowledge the teacher must possess and then transmit, through love, to his students. The word is said with respect and affection of the highest nature. It bonds rebbi and student together like no other word.

The Bush Swan Song

Posted on: May 21st, 2008

President George Bush is singing his swan song. There are several verses to that song. One verse has decidedly Middle Eastern overtones. And that explains the president’s trip last week to the Middle East, occasioned by Israel’s 60th anniversary.

Shmuel Katz: Zionism’s Intellectual Warrior

Posted on: May 21st, 2008

Shmuel Katz, a”h – underground leader, member of the first Knesset, publisher, historian, biographer and essayist – passed away May 9 in Eretz Yisrael at the age of 93. Katz was the most trenchant political thinker modern Israel has produced. His career was marked by a selfless political integrity; indifferent to personal advantage, he sought only the good of Israel and the Jewish people.

Good Morning, Elijah: Amos Oz Does The Peace Tour

Posted on: May 21st, 2008

I have long believed the world would be much better off if Hollywood airheads would stick to entertainment and never pretend to be intellectuals, spouting off with their "ideas" about politics, diplomacy, etc.

Reinventing A Broken Wheel

Posted on: May 19th, 2008

I find the Orthodox Jewish approach to problem-solving fascinating, in a dark sort of way. It consists of a series of steps that looks something like this:

It’s American Interests, Stupid!

Posted on: May 14th, 2008

Recent congressional hearings about the destruction, by Israel’s air force, of a Syrian-North Korean nuclear facility has shed light on the mutually beneficial nature of U.S.-Israel relations.

60 Years Later, Arab Goal Remains The Same

Posted on: May 14th, 2008

In the course of a lengthy essay in The Atlantic, writer Jeffrey Goldberg quotes an encounter he had with a Gazan imam named Ibrahim Mudeiris, who had just delivered a sermon in which he had described the Jews as “the sons of apes and pigs.”

History Will Render Bush’s True Approval Rating

Posted on: May 14th, 2008

A recent CNN poll ranks President George W. Bush as the most unpopular president in modern American history. The key figure is not Bush’s 28 percent approval rating – which, though dismal, is not as poor as the all-time lows set by Harry Truman (22 percent) and Richard Nixon (24 percent) – but his disapproval rating, which has soared to 71 percent. No president had ever cracked the 70-percent ceiling.

The Jews Who Fired The First Shots Against Fascist Tyranny

Posted on: May 14th, 2008

Numerous historians consider the Spanish Civil War that broke out in July 1936 a prelude to World War II. Spain, with a population of 28 million, became a bloody battleground of conflicting forces testing their arsenals in preparation for the battle of the giants that was to emerge shortly.

Time To Retire A Derogatory Term

Posted on: May 14th, 2008

The other day I met a young Orthodox Jew who approached me in Manhattan to say hello.

History’s Slow Pace And The Rebirth Of Israel

Posted on: May 7th, 2008

Patience is something we sometimes have too little of, but when it comes to history it is often a trait we need in abundance.

Martin Luther King Would Be Repulsed By Black Anti-Semitism

Posted on: May 7th, 2008

Earlier this month, at a Los Angeles event for the national African-American fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi, the keynote speaker launched into an anti-Semitic tirade – directed at the fraternity’s guest of honor. The shocking episode shows just how far we’ve strayed from the original vision of the civil rights movement – and how far we have yet to travel to realize that vision.

Why Liberalism Lost Me

Posted on: April 30th, 2008

The Democratic Party’s preoccupation with the question of when America will leave Iraq rather than with how America will win in Iraq reminds me of how and why this nearly lifelong liberal and Democrat became identified as a conservative and Republican activist.

How It Felt When Israel Was Born

Posted on: April 30th, 2008

It’s about 6 p.m. on May 14, 1948, and a friend and I are leaving a UNESCO conference in San Francisco to catch the train back to Berkeley.

How ‘Nakba’ Proves There’s No Palestinian Nation

Posted on: April 30th, 2008

Over the past few years, the term nakba (also spelled naqba) has become the favorite nonsense word of the Anti-Israel Lobby.

Birthright Trips For Non-Jews

Posted on: April 30th, 2008

Israel is about to turn 60 and the silence, outside of the Jewish community, is deafening.

What’s Wrong With The World?

Posted on: April 23rd, 2008

I wrote in early 2001, “Now we are all Israelis.” The Intifada against Israel the world chose to ignore became a global Intifada against civilization. In 2002-2003, I wrote that anti-Zionism was the new anti-Semitism, that decades of increasingly lethal propaganda against Israel had finally turned the Jewish state into the Jew of the World.

Israel’s Behavior, Described In Jokes

Posted on: April 23rd, 2008

Israel’s behavior in recent decades reminds me of three anecdotes. The first concerns a businessman, a teacher and an engineer who were captured by enemy forces and condemned to death by hanging. Each was asked how he preferred to be hanged – head- or feet-up. The businessman replied that head-up was preferable. He was hanged accordingly, but the gibbet collapsed and he was freed. The teacher followed the businessman’s choice; the gibbet collapsed again and he was also saved.