InDepth

Back in 2003 I wrote an op-ed for The Jewish Press titled "You Just Might Be an Assimilated Jewish Liberal," based standup comic Jeff Foxworthy's "You just might be a redneck" routine. It's time to revisit that theme, focusing on Israeli leftists rather than American liberals.

Mordecai Bienstock's Dec. 24 front-page essay - "Death of the Blue-Hat Jew?" - was an interesting, important, and for the most part accurate assessment of what is happening today in Jewish America.

I have always fashioned myself a wordsmith. No longer. Dr. Ivan Mauer was Naomi Mauer's husband and Mrs. Irene Klass's son-in-law, and both Irene and Dr. Ivan died virtually simultaneously. And I must confess: Ivan was not only my good friend and our family doctor, but also a congregant who respected me and loved me - and consistently squabbled with me. Yet I could not find a single word in the entire thesaurus that would suit him.

The following Keynote Address was delivered by Professor Beres to the Intelligence Summit in St. Petersburg on March 5, 2007. It is published here for the very first time in its original form. These formal remarks presented by our own Strategic and Military Affairs analyst to very senior members of the military and intelligence communities (U.S., Israeli and certain others) remain starkly relevant and timely.

One morning recently, I woke up to find that someone had plastered our yishuv community with signs proclaiming, "Join the Likud Political Party." The signs and subsequent Internet and SMS messages informed us that party workers would soon be around to sign us up.

The recent episode of "The People's Court" featuring an Orthodox couple suing a laundry service for washing and ruining the woman's wig has once again put Torah Jews in a negative light. In addition to the show's regular viewers, countless others have seen a video of the trial and decision on the Internet.

'Twas the day before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except, of course, Henry Kissinger's publicists and strategists who decided that the slowest news day of the year was the perfect time for him to apologize, sort of, for telling Richard Nixon in 1973 that "if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern."

When I entered college, many of my classmates viewed me as an anomaly. I was a (mostly) observant Jew, and I was firmly entrenched in the school's creative arts community. As my religious friends prepared for careers in law or accounting, they were continuously astonished by my immersion in English literature - a course of study they considered a thoroughly impractical and esoteric subject.

Have you noticed? Some journalists, commentators and academics have a peculiar habit. When they wish to refer to the Israeli government, they do so by employing the term "Tel Aviv."

Palestinian Authority chief negotiator Saeb Erekat recently expressed concern that Israel will launch a new large-scale attack on Gaza, following escalated rocket attacks on Israeli civilian areas.

Fourth, the Obama anti-nuclear vision does not provide any useful guidance on how to deal with those refractory states and sub-states that may not be subject to ordinary deterrent threats. This brings to mind the perplexing security problem of prospective enemy irrationality.

The Media Research Center is out with its annual compilation of the year's Best Notable Quotables (December 2009 through November 2010) - a collection of dozens of examples of media liberal bias and idiocy that is as dispiriting as it is (unintentionally) humorous.

Once upon a time, there were Orthodox Jews who wore blue hats. Blue hats! Some wore brown, or shades of gray. In the summer, they wore white, or amber hats of straw.

JERUSALEM - Not so long ago, few Israelis had heard of Rabbi Chaim Amsellem, a soft-spoken Shas backbencher in the Knesset.

The tapes from conversations recorded in the Oval Office during the presidency of Richard Nixon have provided historians with a treasure trove of material giving insight into the character of one of the most reviled figures in American political history.

Israel is a Jewish country - but can it continue to be so when Judaism threatens to destroy the state? The unfair longstanding attacks on Israel's legitimacy are a permanent stain on the international community. For over 60 years, Israel has valiantly grown under hostile conditions while fighting lies and half-truths in the international arena. Israel suffers doubly, however, when its very essence, its Jewish character, supports its opponents' narrative.

From the beginning, Israel has successfully managed to craft its overriding strategic doctrine apart from any specific U.S. expectations. To be sure, keeping its "bomb in the basement" has been at least partially a response to expressed American wishes. After all, any explicit end to nuclear ambiguity could have proven unacceptable to Washington. Still, all other core doctrinal considerations of nuclear force structure, basing, targeting and nuclear retaliatory thresholds have likely been fashioned, quite correctly, to suit only Israel.

Did you hear what Obama is offering? What? F-35 Stealth Bombers. And why do we need them?

Whatever little remains of the so-called Middle East peace process suffered yet another body blow this month, as two of the largest countries in South America formally recognized an independent Palestinian state.

By now, many are aware of the tough anti-Israel situations on college campuses. Colleges and universities in California and Canada have earned themselves especially notorious reputations. But what is happening along the East Coast? I've been speaking to far too many people who are comfortably numb because they "just don't feel or see it." Reality check: The wind is blowing the wrong way on the eastern front, too.

In recent days, one of the most important domestic controversies in Israel has revolved around rabbinic opinions. The media are representing this as a great debate over "racism." In reality, it is a great debate over freedom of speech and the rights of Israelis to express opinions disliked by its increasingly anti-democratic Left.

I try to make it a point to work things into my life - including insane schedules, impossible goals and conflicting priorities - in the most upbeat way I can. OK, so it doesn't always work. What surprises me is how shocked people are when I tell them I just can't handle everything.

Widely recognized as an expert on Mideast politics and U.S.-Israel relations, Ambassador Yoram Ettinger advocates for Israel on both sides of the Atlantic, advising members of the Israeli Cabinet and Knesset and regularly briefing American legislators.

In our day, when news events do not always portray the Jewish community in the most favorable light, it is imperative that we have role models we can emulate. The recent passing of a famous legal scholar brings to mind two individuals who personify this description.

When the shrill sound of the telephone ringing shattered the silence in our home at 5:30 in the morning on Monday, October 18, I got out of bed and answered the call with great trepidation and a sense of dread. I realized that if someone was calling our house that early in the morning, it was in all likelihood not good news. The voice on the other end of the line belonged to my father-in-law, who, in a trembling voice, told me my sister-in-law had passed away suddenly. I then had to turn to my wife and gently tell her that her sister was gone.

The WikiLeaks revelations, if it is not sacrilegious to suggest, were a godsend to the Jewish state. They demolished the mantra of Israel's critics, President Obama conspicuous among them, who have incessantly proclaimed that the cornerstone of peace in the Middle East is a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Si vis pacem, para bellum atomicum. "If you want peace, prepare for atomic war." However reluctantly, this must be Israel's overriding strategic mantra in the years ahead. This is not because a nuclear war is especially likely, but rather because Israel's nuclear deterrent will remain indispensable for the prevention of large-scale conventional conflict.

Larry King will host his last edition of "Larry King Live" on CNN next week, and the Monitor can only say Good Riddance. King built a reputation and made a fortune as the master of the soft toss interview, which was fine for doing Frank Sinatra retrospectives but made for cringe-inducing television whenever the subject at hand required a tad more seriousness.

U.S. policy is not controlled by an omnipotent Israeli lobby but rather heavily influenced by an equally potent - yet much less visible - Arab lobby that is driven by ideology, oil, and arms to support Middle Eastern regimes that often oppose American values and interests.

Irving Bunim (1901-1980) is probably best known among Orthodox Jews for his best-selling, three-volume Ethics From Sinaicommentary on Pirkei Avos.