InDepth

Senior American sources say that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already surrendered almost everything: the Golan, almost all of Judea and Samaria, Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, and even some areas inside Israel's 1967 border - in order to retain a few settlement blocs. And what has Netanyahu achieved for Israel in exchange for this far-reaching agreement-in-principle? Nothing. Not peace, and not even international recognition that Israel is a Jewish state.

If you listened carefully this past week, you could almost hear the sound of champagne glasses clinking together loudly in Damascus, as Syrian President Bashar Assad undoubtedly raised a toast to celebrate Washington's latest act of groveling before his autocratic government.

Aside for designating the birth and death of Moshe Rabbeinu, the seventh of Adar (February 21 this year) also marks the 17th yahrzeit of Chazkel Tydor, father of Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz, a professor of Jewish history at Bar-Ilan University and the author of seven books.

Israel's Im Tirtzu student organization bills itself as the "Second Zionist Revolution." Until a few weeks ago, that sounded like youthful bravado. But the group has raised eyebrows - and hackles - with its unprecedented grand slam in the Israeli media against the New Israel Fund.

The ideal drashah (sermon) combines science and art. There is the scientific component, where the darshan embodies deep and authentic Jewish scholarship: breadth of knowledge, methodology, and faithfulness to tradition. Equally significant are the artistic elements of the drashah: eloquence, presentation, and a penetrating understanding of one's intended audience.

Conspicuous for its absence in President Obama's State of the Union address was any mention of what is variously called the Arab-Israeli conflict or the Middle East peace process. Israeli analyst Yoram Ettinger suggests this "reflects a U.S. order of priorities and, possibly, a concern that mediation in the Arab-Israeli conflict does not advance - but undermines - Obama's domestic standing."

Another month, another round of recriminations in the Modern Orthodox community. Two months ago it was a breakaway rabbinic organization established, in part, to promote decentralized conversion standards. Last month it was a public forum on homosexuality in the Orthodox community.

The news that British MP George Galloway was the planned guest speaker at a February 1 Hamas fundraiser at Boston's Palestinian Cultural Center for Peace would, in a morally coherent world, be alarming for those in the West who wonder why elected officials should be gathering support for a group of jihadist thugs whose principal efforts are dedicated to the extirpation of Israel and the murder of Jews.

The following article appears exactly as it was written by Professor Beres 21 years ago. It is especially important to reconsider at this moment, when U.S. President Barack Obama, still-embracing the so-called Road Map, pushes Israel to accept a Palestinian state via the five-part Mitchell Plan.

It sounds like a contradiction in terms. An oxymoron. If only it were. Jewish anti-Semitism is a modern disease. The world is experiencing an explosion of it. Among the most malicious and venomous of all bigots, Jewish anti-Semites are at the forefront of just about every smear campaign against Israel and other Jews.

A vigorous advocate of aliyah, Yishai Fleisher uses his position as Internet radio personality and director of programming at Arutz Sheva's Israel National Radio to promote the merits of living in the land of Israel. On his popular show "Yishai and Friends," Fleisher deals with Israeli politics, history and tradition and has interviewed personalities ranging from Dutch politician and filmmaker Geert Wilders to actor Jon Voight.

Howard Zinn, a Marxist polemicist who masqueraded as a historian, died on January 27 at age 87. The Brooklyn-born Zinn was professor emeritus of political science at Boston University and the author of a number of books, but it was his A People’s History of the United States (1980) that more than anything else made him the darling of the media and Hollywood Left.

I was apprised of the fact that a renowned rav and posek in Flatbush dedicated his Shabbos morning drasha to the plight of a young lady who was recently dismissed from her Brooklyn Bais Yaakov. It seems she vexed the administration because she asked her teacher incisive questions about the nature of Gan Eden. Thankfully, due to the intervention of this prominent rav, she was reinstated to her school.

Summer 1946. His high school days over, my father, Mordechai Schwartz, was faced with a decision that would affect not only his life but the lives of generations to come.

As Super Bowl weekend approaches the signs at the local takeout stores in Modern Orthodox neighborhoods (and even some haredi ones as well, but I limit my discussion here to the former as that is my community) abound with signs advertising gigantic food package options with catchy names such as the "Linebacker" or the "Halftimer."

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 genocidal aggression, that Israel would limit itself to striking back against exclusively military targets. This point should not be lost on the principal decision makers in Tehran.

It's an old Jewish joke:The gentile drew a circle on the ground, stood the Jew inside and triumphantly declared, "If you leave the circle, you're a dead man!" He then proceeded to rob the Jew's wife and went on his way.

For months now, every Friday in Zion has seen screaming and violent leftist rioters attacking Israeli soldiers, engaging in hooliganism, and breaking the law. The thugs are a mixture of foreign pro-terror "anarchists" Israel foolishly lets into the country, joined by some members of Israel's own "Leftists for the Extermination of Israel."

Robert S. Wistrich, a professor at Hebrew University and a leading scholar on anti-Semitism, published his 24th book last month: A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad (Random House, 1,200 pages). Wistrich is the director of The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism and, between 1999 and 2001, was one of six scholars who sat on a Catholic-Jewish historical commission that examined Pope Pius XII's response to the Holocaust. The Jewish Press spoke with Wistrich during his recent New York book tour.

On his radio program last week, Rush Limbaugh touted Norman Podhoretz's excellent new book Why Jews are Liberals. As the title suggests, Podhoretz attempts to answer a question that is often asked of Jewish conservatives. Limbaugh distills his analysis down to its essentials: Liberal Jews are liberals first, last and always, and their political liberalism trumps all their other "isms," including Judaism.

Going through some old issues of The Weekly Standard magazine on a recent rainy day, the Monitor was struck by a November 9, 1998 cover story from the acclaimed columnist Charles Krauthammer that fairly shouted Crystal Ball.

As I write this, U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell is here in Israel again, and it's not stirring much excitement or even interest. On Sunday he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with the latter saying Mitchell had "interesting ideas" on how to get Israeli-Palestinian talks going again but not saying what the ideas were.

The terrible disaster in Haiti has shown the world not only nature's raw power but the power of the human heart as well. From all over the world, aid has been pouring in to rescue trapped survivors and provide medial services to the hundreds of thousands of victims.

With the outgoing and endlessly embattled Bush administration showing signs of exhaustion in 2008 and the onslaught of an unforeseen financial crisis, Democrats won the U.S. presidency while gaining an overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives and 60 veto-proof seats in the U.S. Senate (thanks, in part, to a disputed Minnesota election putting TV comic Al Franken over the top in his state and the inclusion of Vermont Socialist Bernie Sanders and Connecticut Independent Joe Lieberman).

There is a little recognized but noteworthy irony in the still-ongoing (when and how will it end?) matter of Iranian nuclearization.From the standpoint of President Ahmadinejad in Tehran, any prospect of hastening the Shiite apocalypse may naturally be welcomed. In the United States and Israel, on the other hand, any conscious encouragement of a Final Battle is strenuously rejected. Whatever Scriptural expectations of End Times may be found embedded in Judaism and Christianity and however seriously they may be accepted among particular American and Israeli populations, these expressly apocalyptic visions have always beenrejected as plausible policy options.

At the outset of President Obama's second year in office, his entire Middle East strategy lies in tatters. But Obama appears incapable of learning the lessons of his failures.

At the outset of President Obama's second year in office, his entire Middle East strategy lies in tatters. But Obama appears incapable of learning the lessons of his failures.

A parent or spouse suddenly suffers a debilitating stroke or heart attack and requires home health care. Where should the family turn? Many families thankfully are never forced to consider such questions. Others, though, are not as lucky and feel overwhelmed by the new situation thrust upon them, not knowing where or to whom to turn for advice.

I see him now in my mind's eye. He is sitting at his desk in his office at The Jewish Press, a Gemara open before him, other scholarly tomes on the side, engaged in what he loved best: learning Torah.

What is so special about Tu B'Shevat? Historically, nothing memorable occurred on this day. Why do we celebrate the New Year of the Trees?