InDepth

I would like to be dan lekaf zechut – give the benefit of the doubt – to the Tennessee woman who, wishing to “return” her seven-year-old adopted son to the country of his birth, put the boy on a plane by himself and sent him back to Russia.

I went to a sentencing several weeks ago - my first ever. The man being sentenced, William Hill, was convicted by a jury of brutally beating Jacob Gerstle, an 81-year-old member of my community in Washington Heights, in 2006.

After months of uncharacteristic silence, New York's senior senator, Charles Schumer, finally voiced his concerns - and it could not have come at a more crucial time for American-Israeli relations.

After absorbing any enemy nuclear aggression, Israel would certainly respond with a nuclear retaliatory strike. Although nothing is publicly known about Israel's precise targeting doctrine, such a reprisal would likely be launched against the aggressor's capital city and/or against similarly high-value urban targets. There would be absolutely no assurances, in response to this sort of aggression, that Israel would limit itself to striking back against exclusively military targets.

I attended my first tea party on tax day, April 15, outside the steps of the James A. Farley Post Office in Manhattan. There I was, on 8th Avenue and 31st Street, smack dab between the uber-liberal West Side to the north of me and Greenwich Village to the south. And I was surrounded by signs that read, "Free markets, not free loaders", "Redistribute my work ethic, not my savings," and "Government does not solve problems, it subsidizes them."

Shame wells up in me as I thread my way through the cluster of young wives standing near my home, animatedly talking with one another as their children play at their feet. Four shopping bags dangle from one arm, five from another, and I shift them uncomfortably as I carry them from my car, practically bent over from their weight.

Had Judge Richard Goldstone only issued a distorted litany of accusations against the Jewish state - dayenu. Had the British government only issued an arrest warrant against Kadima leader and former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni - dayenu.

There they go again. Palestinian Media Watch reports that the official Palestinian Authority newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, announced Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's plan for an upcoming fencing tournament for youth named after terror chieftain Abu Jihad.

We are seeing the "world coalition" forming and we can well imagine what the next steps will be. Perhaps the only comfort in this difficult world is that all the events we are witnessing have been predicted by our prophets. What else gives one the strength to endure what would otherwise be unendurable?

Elie Wiesel and Ronald Lauder recently criticized the Obama administration in separately placed newspaper advertisements. Instead of listening to Wiesel and Lauder's concerns, Haaretz reported, administration officials expressed "harsh criticism" over their ads.

There is a widely unrecognized but still-meaningful irony in the continuing saga of Iranian nuclearization.From the standpoint of President Ahmadinejad and his clerical masters in Tehran, any prospect of hastening the Shiite apocalypse should naturally be welcomed. In the United States and Israel, on the other hand, any conscious encouragement of a Final Battle between "Good" and"Evil"must always be strenuously rejected.

The anticipated or imminent arrival to the major leagues of a Jewish ballplayer is such a relatively infrequent phenomenon that it usually has Jewish fans buzzing - often for the two or three (or more) years it takes for a particular Jewish player to work his way up through the minor leagues.

Thirty years ago - Friday evening, May 2, 1980 - in Hebron. Inside Me'arat HaMachpelah, the massive 2,000-year-old Herodian edifice above the tombs of the biblical patriarchs and matriarchs of the Jewish people, the Shabbat service had just concluded.

Sherwood Goffin has had a storied career. The cantor of Lincoln Square Synagogue since 1965, Goffin started his musical career as a folk singer. From 1961-1995, Goffin sang on major stages worldwide, recorded six albums, and was known as the "Voice of Soviet Jewry," singing at all the major Soviet Jewry UN Solidarity Day rallies from 1964-1991.

Of the many intellectual perversions currently taking root on college campuses, perhaps none is more contradictory to what should be one of higher education's core values than the suppression of free speech.

The silence continues to be deafening with no Democrat in Congress to my knowledge crying out against President Obama for continuing to try to diminish America's closeness to Israel.

We've heard from many Israelis who feel demoralized and abandoned due to the lack of any strong and meaningful statements or vigorous public demonstrations sponsored by major Jewish organizations in support of Israel's position on Jerusalem.

In February, Yachad/the National Jewish Council for Disabilities, an agency of the Orthodox Union, presented NAIM -- North American Inclusion Month - as a national initiative to develop sensitivity and knowledge of what it means to live with disabilities and to educate communities on how they can do their part to make sure all Jews are properly included in all aspects of Jewish life.

Last month, I took a quick, five-day trip to the Unites States to visit my grandfather at the Miami Jewish Home and Hospital, an assisted living facility in North Miami Beach where he is (hopefully) recovering from several strokes. While I was pleasantly surprised by the generosity shown to my grandfather by complete strangers (staff members and volunteers) and the extreme emotions exhibited by our family's usually unflappable patriarch, I was simply stunned by my own feelings toward the "Old Country."

The American Jewish Committee's annual survey of Jewish public opinion has been released and the numbers do not lie. Down from the stratospheric 78 percent of Jews who voted for him in 2008, President Obama currently enjoys a 57 percent approval rating in the larger Jewish community.

Walter Russell Mead, the Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and one of America’s most quoted writers on international affairs, posted an article on The American Interest blog (www.the-american-interest.com) earlier this month that should be required reading for all who are vexed by the controversy over the much maligned “Israel Lobby” in America.

Horace was born in 65 BCE and died in 8 BCE. His ode (I, 14) on the "ship of state" pertains to ancient Rome, but it might just as well refer to Israel after it concedes to "livewith a nuclear Iran," and also to "live with Palestine." The more or less concurrent arrival of (1) Iranian nuclear weapons, and (2) an independent Palestinian state, could have an intolerable effect upon Israel. Indeed, this injurious interactive outcome - known technically in science, medicine and engineering as synergistic- would likely be far greater than the simple sum of these two discrete parts.

Gradually but energetically, the circle of worshipers made its way around the interior of Krakow's medieval Rema synagogue, their voices rising ever more forcefully in song and prayer.

"There is a thin line between love and hate," the saying goes. Two opposite emotions, yet one can so easily transmute into the other.

The Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam, founded in May 2009, has held numerous political demonstrations, rallies and seminars aimed at bringing about a collective awareness of the perils of Islamic extremism. The Jewish Press sat down with Dr. Marvin Belsky, chairman of the board of HRCARI, to hear more about the goals and objectives of the group.

Earlier this month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a forum of Jewish leaders that "sometimes friends need to tell each other the hard truth." I'd like, on behalf of my people, to return the courtesy with the following words directed to President Obama.

President Obama's nastiness toward Prime Minister Netanyahu would be alarming even it were merely a matter of style to impress the Muslim world. But Obama's motivation is much more substantive. He seeks to impose a solution - whether it leads to peace or it doesn't - that will return Israel essentially to the 1949-1967 armistice lines, including a loss of Jewish sovereignty in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Let's remember the facts here. Jerusalem is hardly some far-off outpost. It is the capital of a sovereign nation that happens to be our strongest ally in the Middle East and perhaps the world. And this housing decision was months in the works as part of a transparent process that is followed by dozens and dozens of building proposals each year. Think of it as a decision by a local zoning board. This was hardly war and peace.

The Monitor never much cared for Martin Indyk during the latter’s service in a variety of diplomatic roles (including ambassador to Israel and assistant secretary of state) for President Bill Clinton. He seemed to be the very embodiment of the Clinton foreign-policy mindset that had as its centerpiece the pursuit of a nebulous Middle East “peace process” and the elevation of Yasir Arafat to statesmanlike status.

We all already understand that modern physics has witnessed revolutionary breakthroughs in the meanings of space and time. These stunning changes remain distant from the related worlds of diplomacy and international relations. Ironically, however, much of the struggle between Israel and the Arabs is plainly about space. Not so obvious, but certainly just as important, is that this struggle is also about time.