InDepth

Since becoming the first ordained rabbi in Jamaica in thirty-three years, I have been working tirelessly with my community to build a Jewish future on this tropical island. Every Jewish community wants to survive and indeed thrive, but there is a particular importance to the preservation and development of the world's small, history-rich Jewish communities.

By the time he was 26, Jan Karski had been imprisoned by the Soviets, tortured by the Gestapo, and nearly drowned while escaping from a hospital in German-occupied Slovakia.

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About a decade ago the Monitor recommended a bunch of books on U.S. presidents and the Middle East and then updated the list a few years later. With interest in the 2012 presidential race heating up, another look at the list seems in order.

The Nazis perpetrated the Holocaust, but the indifference of onlookers facilitated it. One of the guiltiest parties in this regard, according to a new book by former federal prosecutor Gregory Wallance, is the U.S. State Department. In the book, America’s Soul in the Balance: The Holocaust, FDR’s State Department, and the Moral Disgrace Of An American Aristocracy, Wallance quotes Treasury Department lawyers who accused State Department officials of being “accomplices of Hitler” and “war criminals in every sense of the term.”

Nearly sixty-five years ago Israel declared its independence and won the war that secured a Jewish state. But its narrow and permeable postwar armistice lines permitted incessant cross-border terrorist raids. For Egypt, Syria and Jordan, the mere existence of a Jewish state remained an unbearable intrusion into the Arab Middle East. As Egyptian President Nasser declared, “The danger of Israel lies in the very existence of Israel.”

Dr. Kenneth Meshoe, a member of the South African Parliament, president of the African Christian Democratic Party, and pastor of a South African Church has been an important counterweight to the disparagers of Israel. He describes those who promulgate the lie of Israel-as-apartheid as ignorant individuals who are not aware of, or who deliberately disregard, the true nature of the negative impact of apartheid on black South Africans.

The states of the Arabian Peninsula feel increasingly dependent on the US and the West to safeguard their independence and their political and economic maneuverability, but the West seems tired and exhausted, and its leadership - especially the current resident in the White House, who is heavily influenced by the approaching elections - lacks backbone and has no ability to stop the Iranians from galloping towards regional hegemony.

Yishai is joined by Elie Pieprz, director of I Vote Israel to discuss the importance of votes cast by Jewish Americans living in Israel to American elections.

Americans are sick and tired of rancorous, scorched-earth politics, which has given Congress a nine percent approval rating. Let’s show America that politics is an honorable profession, a noble calling, filled with people who put values, country, and integrity first. Let’s start winning people back to the political theater by demonstrating that politics are inspiring rather than depressing, ennobling rather than corrupting, and harmonious rather than rancorous.

A female Belgian minister downplayed a personal insult by Morocco's Islamist PM, yet no such caution was taken when Israeli MK Yaakov Litzman declined to shake the hand of his female Belgian colleague.

Today, most of the anti-regime demonstrations throughout the kingdom are being initiated and led by Muslim Brotherhood supporters whose goal is to turn Jordan into an Islamic republic. Many Arabs feel that President Barack Obama's endorsement of the Muslim Brotherhood has emboldened the Islamists and increased their appetite to drive moderate and secular rulers out of the Arab world.

Obama's policy shows three characteristics that have wider implications for the president’s strategies: It favors Islamist enemies; it “leads from behind” by giving the initiative to those who wish America no good; and it shows no interest in helping genuinely pro-American moderates who are fighting for their lives.

For the first segment of this week's Jewish Press Radio show, hosts Yishai and Malkah Fleisher talk about Shavuot and Jerusalem and the role and future of the Internet in the Jewish world.

Although critics of the Helsinki mega-mosque have warned that the building will be used by the Iranian regime to recruit impressionable Muslim immigrant youths for service to Hezbollah, Finnish politicians have embraced the Shia mosque as a symbol of multicultural progress.

If you were PM Netanyahu and were deciding whether you could entrust the West in general, and this US administration in particular, with the physical survival of your country, what would you do?

Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook used to refer to Rabbi Yehuda Hazani affectionately as "the assembler of great assemblies." Hazani was one of the people who nurtured Gush Emunim, the grassroots movement that worked to resettle Jews in the territories liberated from Arab occupation in 1967, but always behind the curtain. He was an unknown figure to most of the public, a person who took care to be known only by those who had to know him.

For many, the “surprise” which greeted Israelis on May 8th was yet another political dance in which the citizen is a spectator left to watch, wonder, and wait for another year and half to be heard from again. This scenario begs the question: when it comes to the state of Israel’s representative governance, is the tail wagging the dog? Put simply, is Israeli citizenry merely an accessory to the political decision-making of the day?

When the Obama Administration, to quote Bush's phrase, gets "to choose what side we are on," it picks the wrong one. It argues, again to quote Bush, that Ameica "should be content with supporting...flawed leaders...in the name of stability.” But these new Islamist dictators would deliver internal stability only at the price of freedom and will dismantle regional stability altogether.

Temple Mount issues include a response to NPR item on the Arab boycott of the Temple Mount, and David Sacks on the period from Passover to Shavuot in relation to the Temple Mount.

Abdullah Abdullah, Palestinian Ambassador to Lebanon, recently told The Daily Star that statehood "will never affect the right of return for Palestinian refugees… The refugees are from all over Palestine. When we have a state accepted as a member of the United Nations, this is not the end of the conflict. This is not a solution to the conflict. This is only a new framework that will change the rules of the game."

Oslo took Yasser Arafat and his PLO off the dung heap of history, when only radicals in the West were talking about anything beyond a Palestinian autonomy, and lead ultimately to the diplomatic challenge we face today - with the critical message of UNSC 242 - no requirement of full withdrawal - being ignored.

The next time anyone wants to learn about the true problems facing the Christians of the Holy Land, he or she should head to Taybeh and conduct off the record and private interviews with the villagers.

The holiday from history is over, although we may be the last ones to see it. Neither Russia nor Iran – nor China, North Korea, or Syria, for that matter – is very interested in signing anything with the West right now. Good deals based on the old assumptions aren’t as tempting when better ones seem to lie just over the horizon.

There is good reason to think that the Mavi Marmara affair was orchestrated at the highest levels of the Turkish government, in order to embarrass Israel and to weaken, if not break, the blockade. And in this it was successful, insofar as the US response was to force Israel to weaken the embargo on goods into Gaza, ending Israel’s attempt to bring down the Hamas regime by economic means.

Let’s remember that the Islamists are still headed for control of Egypt. They might win the presidency in the second round. The parliament, which they run, is going to make the rules and write the constitution. If they don’t like who becomes president, they will reduce his powers.

An inspiring talk by Yishai Fleisher at the Knesset for AmShalem, an organization dedicated to restoring a moderate and Zionistic view to Judaism. Yishai talks about his move to Jerusalem from Beit El, the significance of his Jerusalem apartment, and the importance of Jerusalem to the Jewish People.

Israel is the only country in the world whose -3,000 year old- capital is not recognized by the State Department and by the presidents of the U.S. However, the American people consider Israel to be the second most trusted and dependable ally of the U.S. (after Britain), and 71% support (and 9% oppose) Jerusalem as Israel’s indivisible capital.

The arrogant peace mongers, the ignorant purveyors of perversity, those that refused to acknowledge they were wrong refused to see that this was a war not peace – they, the disgusting peace pimps – shrouded in shame refused to admit they were wrong.

Religious Jews have been getting more than their usual share of negative press lately. The papers have been full of allegations of sexual abuse...