J Street: When Self-Criticism Becomes Self-Loathing

There is something perverse and masochistic about a self-described “pro-Israel” group going out of its way to lend support to the airing of luridly anti-Semitic propaganda. But that’s what happened last month when J Street – the “pro-Israel, pro-Peace” lobby – endorsed the performance of “Seven Jewish Children,” an outrageous, 10-minute screed written by British playwright Caryl Churchill, originally performed in London and now being produced in cities across the United States.

Why The Jews?

One of the strangest and, at first blush, inexplicable aspects of the current social and political scene, remarked upon by many writers, is the “unholy alliance” that has been forged between the proponents of Western secularism and the armies of Islam ranged against it.

Facts Give Lie To Apartheid Claim

A few years ago I began an initiative at the Israeli Foreign Ministry aimed at opening a dialogue with Muslim communities in the West. When the first delegations of European and American Muslims started to arrive, they were amazed at the coexistence between Arabs and Jews in Israel.

My Pesach Stint In Federal Prison

Last year I spent part of Pesach in the oddest of places. I had been in the office of Kesher Israel Congregation of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania late one afternoon before Pesach when the phone rang. It was a chaplain (not Jewish) from Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary. They had just received some new Jewish prisoners and were scrambling to meet their Pesach needs.

Parents Should Have Same Right To Choose As Obama

For a country that has fought for thirty years over the question of a woman's right to choose, we seem to all agree that once a child is born parents have no choice. They are not allowed to send their children to the school they prefer without incurring backbreaking financial penalties.

Ten Arguments Against Submitting To Hamas Extortion

In the wake of another upsurge in activity and publicity surrounding Gilad Shalit, it bears remembering that there are compelling reasons for the Israeli government to think twice before agreeing to release hundreds of terrorists for his safe and overdue return.

Sh’foch Chamatcha: Justice, Not Vengeance

Pour out Thy wrath upon the nations that know Thee not and upon the kingdoms that call not upon Thy name; for they have consumed Jacob and laid waste his dwelling. Pour out Thy fury upon them, and may the kindling of Thine anger overtake them. Pursue them with anger and destroy them from under God’s skies.

An Unforgettable Passover

One particular Passover for young Chaim Merimzon must have seemed like a dream. Merimzon was one of thousands of Jewish children – Cantonists – who were victims of Tsar Nicholas’s zealous obsession with forcing them to accept baptism.

Oliphant Cartoon Part Of Darkening Anti-Israel Climate

Who can forget the Danish cartoon controversy ignited by an image of a wild-eyed Muhammad with a lighted dynamite stick protruding from his turban? Even those who decried the global overreaction – cynically exploited by Mideast demagogues whose stock-and-trade is defaming Christians and Jews – understood why decent Muslims of all stripes were offended.

The IDF’s War On Beards

An identifying mark of the Jew has been, and for many still is, his beard. The foundation for this is the commandment in the Torah: “You shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shall you mar the corners of your beard” (Leviticus 19:27).

Learning Pirkey Avot In Buchenwald

Passover is a festival of freedom, chag hageulah, when we remember our deliverance from slavery in Egypt. For my father, Chaskel Tydor, Passover was also a reminder of the slavery he experienced during his lifetime – of his five and a half years in the Nazi camps of Buchenwald and Auschwitz.

Social Security: It’s Our Money

“People need money in their pockets to spend. That’ll get our economy going again.” -- David Axelrod, senior adviser to President Obama Drastic situations require drastic measures. Thus, to reach Axelrod’s necessary goal, we need to end Social Security as we know it.

Reflections On Rav Svei

Although he was gravely ill for years and could no longer fulfill his leadership responsibilities, Rabbi Elya Svei, zt”l, continued to influence many of us who are involved in Torah education, whether as principals or teachers or lay leaders.

The Real Agenda Of Pro-Palestinian Campus Activists

During a recent visit to several university campuses in the U.S., I discovered that there is more sympathy for Hamas there than there is in Ramallah. Listening to some students and professors on these campuses, for a moment I thought I was sitting opposite a Hamas spokesman or a would-be-suicide bomber.

The Best Of Both Worlds

A recent poll from CBS News found that the tightening economy is forcing people to make some tough choices. Alarmingly, these kinds of decisions are spilling over into an area where they don't belong -- health care. More than one in three Americans is delaying care. Around 30 percent are skipping screenings, tests, and other treatments. And 27 percent aren't filling their prescriptions.

Standing On The Threshold

Why is this night different from all other nights? On all other nights we prayed for redemption but our exile continued. On this night our prayers may be answered.

Israel’s Fight Is Our Fight

Over the years, some of my wildest critics seem to have assumed I am Jewish. At the same time, some of my closest friends wish I were.

How Sovereign Is Israel?

Commenting on the role the sovereign nation-state plays in the western world compared with the Islamic world, the late Samuel P. Huntington, in his classic study The Clash of Civilizations and The Remaking of World Order, wrote: “The structure of political loyalty among Arabs and among Muslims generally has been the opposite of that in the modern West. For the latter the nation state has been the apex of political loyalty.”

Gilad Shalit And The Golden Calf

Once again, Israeli leftists, with assistance from the media, are composing songs, lighting candles and organizing dances around a new golden calf. This time it is the demand to do “everything possible” to bring home the captured soldier Gilad Shalit.

Our Eternal Struggle

Who would ever have believed that Jews would be in such danger again? That Israel and Zionism would become such dirty words in the world, despised by western intellectuals and Islamist mobs alike?

A Pinstriped People

Ah, the sights, sounds and smells of spring. Fathers roasting succulent hot dogs on a flaming grill; children frolicking carefree on the lawn, playing with their little friends; bees buzzing excitedly over their newest source of sweet, golden nectar; ducks quacking incessantly, splashing in a pond; white, puffy, cumulous clouds sailing through the clear blue skies like an armada of misty ships going out to sea.

The Real Hillary?

As New York’s U.S. senator from 2001 to 2009, Hillary Rodham Clinton was a reliable and vocal supporter of Israel. She was especially strong on Jerusalem, stating in a September 2007 position paper, “I believe that Israel’s right to exist in safety as a Jewish state, with defensible borders and an undivided Jerusalem as its capital, must never be questioned.”

Lessons From The Freeman Fiasco

So there it was, “perfect proof” of what John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt were saying about the Israeli lobby: the pressure mounted and Charles Freeman, the designated chairman of the National Intelligence Council, decided to withdraw his name from consideration.

Freeman, The Israel Lobby And Me

Last week Charles Freeman, nominated as chairman of the National Intelligence Council, was forced to withdraw from consideration because of his previous bile-ridden statements about Israel, his support for the Tiananmen Square crackdown, and his having been a leading apologist for Saudi Arabia (which is hardly surprising considering he was on the Saudis' payroll).

Israel, War, And Innocent Civilians

“We won,” Prime Minister Olmert declared after the conclusion of Operation Cast Lead in Gaza six weeks ago. Hamas was “surprised and badly beaten,” he boasted. And many Israelis believed him.

Time Of Our Redemption

We are bombarded by constant distraction. This, I believe, is a tactic of our yetzer hora, the evil inclination, which tries to take us away from a clear view of reality by assailing our minds with a constant fine spray of distraction from every angle, much of it in the guise of “im-portant things to deal with.”

As England Goes, So Goes Europe

In the wake of the Gaza war and with the global economy in a tailspin, disturbing events have been occurring in Britain – events that do not bode well either for the future of British Jewry or for the future of British democracy.

When Paradigms Shift

Nearly thirty years ago, this country underwent a paradigm shift when Ronald Reagan swept into the presidency, defeating Jimmy Carter after a single term. Along with Carter, Reagan displaced an entire way of thinking that had informed our politics since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Reagan was a transformative president.

What Would Moshe Rabbeinu Have Done About Abusers?

The stories of Moshe Rabbeinu and Esther HaMalkah are very similar. Both lived in luxurious conditions while their people were suffering. Moshe was raised in the house of King Pharaoh; Esther was the queen of King Achashveirosh. But each felt so connected to their brothers and sisters that they risked their lives to protect and save them, even though they themselves were neither suffering nor in danger.

From Moses To Our Moses… Reflections on the Legacy of Moses I. Feuerstein

I’m prompted to rephrase the second half of the old adage, “From Moses to Moses there was none like Moses” – referring to Moses of the Bible and Moses Maimonides – to read, “From Moses to Moses there was none like our Moses.”

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