InDepth

We can be justly proud of all the media coverage revolving around a group of Orthodox Jewish students at Houston’s Beren Academy who had decided not to participate in a prestigious basketball competition if it conflicted with the requirements of their faith.

.

This past weekend Harvard hosted a One-State Solution Conference, designed to promote the dissolution of Israel. It is only the latest example of that university’s longstanding practice of facilitating the spread of anti-Semitism.

And after helping so many groups of people, after absorbing so many sets of refugees, after solving so many of the world's problems, there were no longer any wise leaders to govern the adorable little state. Because it had humanitarian-ized itself into oblivion.

Equating terrorism with criminality is ridiculous. They have no relationship to one another. Criminality is generally for the purpose of enrichment of oneself by breaking the law. Modern day terrorism seeks to achieve political or military goals by the use of indiscriminate terror directed primarily at innocent civilians.

An uprising could take place due to some major or symbolic incident, forcing Palestinian leaders to rush to the front of the army. But least likely of all would be Abbas and the current leadership making a calculated decision to launch a war from which they would expect to benefit.

On Tuesday, February 28, it was widely reported that the basketball team of Houston’s Robert M. Beren Academy had “forfeited” its place in the semi-finals of the tournament conducted by the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS) because it would not play on Friday night and Saturday. But a headline in Friday’s New York Times read: “In Reversal, a Jewish School Gets to Play.”

Whether he realizes it or not, President Obama changed history with his AIPAC speech. What he did is make a war between Israel and Iran almost inevitable - let’s say more than 90 percent probable - most likely some time in late 2013, 2014, or 2015.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet U.S. President Barack Obama at a time when Israel has been gaining in popularity among Americans, and at a time when his approval rating is a frail 43%, according to recent poll. Unlike previous visits by Netanyahu, this time Obama will be anxious for warm photo opportunities with Israel’s prime minister.

It is chilling to watch Ahlam Tamimi smile as she is told that she murdered not 3 children, but 8. But it is important to understand that this woman is not a psychopath. She is the true face of the Palestinian cause.

Whether or not Israel builds another porch in Jerusalem or for that matter entire new communities beyond the Green Line has no impact on the resolution of the problems in Egypt, Syria and the rest of the states on the neighborhood.

For those who have claimed that Obama is anti-Israel and/or weak on Iran, his forceful statements in a recent interview should make them reconsider. I was not surprised by President Obama's strong words, because he said similar things to me in private conversation. And I, for one, am satisfied with the President's words. Now I want to hear them repeated by Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, by Joint Chief of Staff Martin Dempsey and by others in the Obama Administration.

The broader aims of Global March to Jerusalem, according to the project’s official website, are as follows: “[To] end the Apartheid, ethnic cleansing and [racist]...Judaisation policies affecting the people, land and sanctity of Jerusalem… [which] is a crime not only against Palestinians but against all humanity.”

The presence of Israel physicians in Ramallah drew furious reactions from workers at the Palestine Medical Compound and many Palestinians, including the Western-backed Fatah faction headed by Mahmoud Abbas. The fact that thousands of Palestinian patients receive medical treatment in Israeli hospitals each year did not stop their vociferous oppostion.

The new Middle East strategic battle is heating up and this is only the start. It has nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with two more serious lines of battle: Arabs versus Persians and Sunni versus Shia Muslims.

Why has it become the dream of many Arab Christians and Muslims to immigrate to the "Apartheid State"? Is it possible that all of these people are uninformed? Or do they really know the truth about Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East? In Egypt, Syria, and Iran, for example, government officials put journalists in jail, but Israel is the only country in the region where a single obscure journalist nobody can put a government official in jail.

Ariel said five Israeli Prime Ministers have tried to pursue a land for peace approach, and each have failed. He declared that it was time to present the alternative to the two-state solution - annexing 100% of Judea and Samaria.

Yishai and Malkah talk about their excitement for snow in Israel, an Arab rock-throwing attack against American Legislators, an ancient Judean palm tree grows today, the expiration of a law allowing ultra-Orthodox Jews to avoid military service, and Yishai’s Tu B’Shevat Seder in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York.

Feiglin: I know that religious Zionists think that their army service will pave their way into the heart of Israeli legitimacy. But that is not the case. Army service is a very important value. But those holding the reins will never let go in exchange for religious Zionist cannon-fodder.

US President Barack Obama's sentiments notwithstanding, nuclear arms are not per se destabilizing or "warmongering." They are not necessarily anti-peace. Rather, in certain identifiably volatile circumstances, nuclear weapons can actually be indispensable to the avoidance of catastrophic war.

More than anything else, the likes of Arab MKs Hanin Zoabi and Ahmed Tibi frame the tension of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state in stark terms, and reveal what is in store for the country should it shift more towards modern liberal democracy and away from a state that reflects a Jewish character culturally and politically.

We are now more than ten years into America's invasion of Afghanistan, which was designed to rout the Taliban who had harbored Al Qaeda. The fighting has resulted in thousands of American and NATO deaths and casualties as well as billions of dollars spent. It would appear, however, that little has been accomplished in terms of American goals, with the Taliban still a formidable military and popular force in the country.

There is something off-putting about President Obama’s having announced in a video that his reelection campaign was launching a movement called “African-Americans for Obama.” The unease is not over an appeal to a particular ethnic group, which is a hallmark of American political campaigns.

We are encouraged by signs that shortsighted attempts by some Muslim groups to blunt the obviously successful proactive NYPD anti-terrorism programs – programs that involve heightened scrutiny of some Muslim-Americans – are not getting any traction.

.

Those who are subjected to emotional suffering tend to be kept out of society's line of sight. All the more so when society is either the cause of the suffering or can alleviate it and does not do so.

Dear Deborah, Your book, Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of my Hasidic Roots, has touched a lot of nerves and unsettled a lot of hearts in the Orthodox Jewish community. It is not every day that a Satmar woman divorces her husband, moves to Manhattan and writes a tell-all book about the experience. It is not every day that a Satmar woman writes about her chassidic experience with derision and her intimate relations without inhibition.

Why is Purim eternal? I would suggest that Purim is the prototype of the End of Exile, and as such will remain forever linked to the Era of Mashiach that will occur after the Final Redemption. Therefore, Purim will be part of that entire period at the culmination of history.

The news that a Mormon temple in the Dominican Republic recently conducted a posthumous proxy baptism of Anne Frank, the most famous diarist of the Holocaust, undoubtedly will cause some offense in the Jewish community. Evidently the baptizers believe they were saving Anne's soul. Of greater significance, however, is what Mormons tried to do to save Anne's life.

There certainly are many reasons to look forward to Purim. It is a time of feasting, joy, and merriment. We celebrate an important victory over our enemies, which was a precedent for many other such victories over the course of our history. We read one of the most moving stories in our entire tradition, and we have good fun while we’re doing it.