InDepth

J Street, the leftist lobbying organization that claims to be pro-Israel, is running a television ad that divides the world into two groups: the good guys who support the two-state solution, the end of the occupation and peace; and the bad guys who oppose these results and instead favor a continuation of violence.

Islam, which has been described as an ideology wrapped in a religion, will never allow its adherents to accept a non-Muslim state in land previously conquered in the name of Allah.

On its surface, The Pianist is "merely" the true tale of a great Jewish musician (Wladyslaw Szpilman) caught up in the unfathomable depths of Nazi occupation and terror. More profoundly, of course, it is a disturbing visual microcosm of the generic human struggle between good and evil, a titanic struggle that is sometimes utterly clear, but at other times also distressingly "gray." The Nazis in Poland were monsters, to be sure, but what are we to say about the others, including many Jews, who became actual and collaborative perpetrators in every corner of the Holocaust Kingdom? What pertinent lessons can we learn from this 2002 film for Jewish, and especially Israeli, preservation in our own perilous time?

Virginia Governor Robert F. McDonnell's recent proclamation of Confederate History Month provoked a firestorm of criticism, with many accusing him and those who commemorate their Southern ancestors' bravery of ignoring or even defending slavery.

Sixty-five years ago next month - on August 11, 1945 - Polish-born Holocaust survivor Larry Wenig vowed to utilize all of his talents toward creating a Jewish state in Palestine.

In a much discussed article in the current issue of The American Spectator titled "America's Ruling Class," Prof. Angelo Codevilla describes the divide between those who run the U.S. - the politicians, bureaucrats and policy establishment - and the rest of the country.

In a much discussed article in the current issue of The American Spectator titled "America's Ruling Class," Prof. Angelo Codevilla describes the divide between those who run the U.S. - the politicians, bureaucrats and policy establishment - and the rest of the country.

There is a country in the Middle East accused of conducting a brutal decades-long occupation. A country where a blockade causes starvation among a civilian refugee population. A country that violently cracks down on all opposition and shoots into crowds of protestors but receives substantial financial aid from the United States as an ally in the War on Terror even as it undermines our war efforts by pursuing its own agenda.

In these pages, I have written occasionally about dangerous cartographies. Oddly, even now, the so-called road map to peace will not go away quietly. If implemented, President Barack Obama's plan for a "Two-State Solution" in the Middle East will sorely degrade both U.S. and Israeli security. This is because the twisted roadmap to Palestinian statehood still misses a decidedly crucial understanding:Jihadist terror has little to do with territory or politics or military strategy or tactics. In essence, it is a ritualistic and longstanding expression of religious sacrifice.

I've been reading Newsweek since 1975, when, as a yeshiva student in Israel, I subscribed in order to keep abreast of world events when otherwise not ensconced in the study of Torah. It's been three and a half decades, and my subscription, which lapses next month, will not be renewed. The reasons are reflective of the current state of American culture and mainstream journalism.

A number of years ago this column mentioned someone named Glenn Rosenthal, a self-described liberal Reform Jew who had been communicating with the Monitor for some time (and continued to do so until early 2009).

"It's been a long time since American Jewry has been [so] shaken," declared the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in its July 9 Magazine cover story. Judging from the volume of chatter thundering across the upper firmament of the media heavens, this is no exaggeration.

The November midterm elections may well alter the political face of this country. Opponents of Obama administration policies have galvanized their forces and are eager to make their voices heard to the American electorate. One of those people is Jay Townsend, a GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate from New York who will be seeking to unseat incumbent Sen. Charles Schumer.

Many people knew him as Rabbi Hecht. His brothers called him Yank. To most of us he was J.J. - the man who, year after year, we saw standing at the Lubavitcher Rebbe's side for hours, no matter the weather, at the Lag B'Omer parade.

Up in the Catskills, a man named Yossi Zablocki is trying to save the last blintz palace of my generation's youth. The place is called Kutsher's Country Club. The man who made it all work was Milton Kutsher.

If there is one thing the overwhelming majority of Jews agree on, it's that we are friends of Israel. We know Israel is in peril and we want to do something to help.

Senator Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, died recently. The other day I saw a clip of him singing "Amazing Grace." The sincerity in his voice was unmistakable. And why not? That hymn is his only saving grace. For Byrd found his faith in the Baptist church, which teaches that all sin can be washed away "in the blood of Christ." It is divine grace and not good works that rights the wrongs perpetrated against one's fellow human beings.

A front-page story in The New York Timesof July 10 reported that federal immigration authorities in the Obama administration have adopted a "new strategy" to replace the military-style raids that were conducted in the Bush years to find and arrest illegal aliens.

By every tangible military and economic standard, Israel is more powerful than its Palestinian foes. Nonetheless, from time to time, there are stark and compelling reminders in world politics that the powerful can sometimes be weak, and that the weak can sometimes be powerful. For example, despite its evident superiority in arms, Israel is periodically at the mercy of Palestinian rockets fired into civilian areas from Gaza.

There is an information war being held on the battlefield of Wikipedia. Wikipedia.com is an online encyclopedia that is user-base driven and claims 65,000,000 monthly visits. It is also used as a dependable source for research by mainstream media outlets on a huge range of subjects. Unlike other topics, though, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is so heated that it has instigated its own online Wikipedia conflict - to the point where Wikipedia designated a special division called the IP (Israeli-Palestinian) Section to monitor edited information from contributing users.

There is an information war being held on the battlefield of Wikipedia. Wikipedia.com is an online encyclopedia that is user-base driven and claims 65,000,000 monthly visits. It is also used as a dependable source for research by mainstream media outlets on a huge range of subjects. Unlike other topics, though, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is so heated that it has instigated its own online Wikipedia conflict - to the point where Wikipedia designated a special division called the IP (Israeli-Palestinian) Section to monitor edited information from contributing users.

Next week, Jews around the world will gather together to mark Tisha B'Av, the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, which is the saddest day on the Jewish calendar.

Volunteer workers picking grapes and pruning vines in Bordeaux would hardly expect the world to take notice. But when 130 volunteers (Christian evangelicals, no less) come to Har Bracha, a settlement in Samaria, to help out in its winery, it became worthy of attention - indeed, extraordinary preoccupation - from The New York Times.

How did we survive? Can you imagine that day? The First Temple: never had there been a more perfect society. An entire people dedicated to the service of God. Dignitaries from the four corners of the world came to witness the glory of the Kingdom of David and the shining Temple on the Hills of Yerushalayim.

An official Iranian delegation from the city of Shiraz recently visited Weimar, its sister city in Germany. Like Weimar, Shiraz has been a capital of high culture for centuries, and appreciating the arts undoubtedly was high on the itinerary of Mayor Mehran E'temadi and his fellow delegates.

JERUSALEM - Rabbi Yehuda Amital died July 9 at the age of 86. He was among the heads of Yeshivat Har Etzion in Alon Shvut, and among the creators of the Meimad political stream.

"Ani ma'amin I believe with complete faith in the coming of Mashiach and wait each day for him to come."

During the day, Shea Rubenstein works in real estate development. In the evenings he helps run the Jewish Community Council of Marine Park, an organization he helped establish, to meet the needs of the local community, as its executive vice president.

Famagusta, Cyprus: The ghost town lies near the very center of the city, just outside the Venetian walls. It is home only to snakes, scorpions, and rats of a hundred varieties. Signs on the fences around the ghost town show armed Turkish soldiers threatening those taking photographs with arrest or worse. The crumbling buildings inside the perimeter are frozen in time in 1974, as if in an episode of "The Twilight Zone."

While Shylock, in Shakespeare's play, might have used the plural as a rhetorical device, his words speak to a greater truth about community and nation. When we look at a country and wonder why it behaves in the way it does - with charity, belligerence, etc. - we are seeing an entity functioning as an individual might, often driven by the same emotions, ethics and sense of justice.