InDepth

Ronald Reagan, who would have been 100 this past Sunday, had an instinctive affinity for Jews and Israel. As an actor who spent decades in the heavily Jewish environment of Hollywood and who counted scores of Jews among his friends and colleagues, he moved easily in pro-Israel circles. Both as a private citizen and as governor of California he was a familiar sight and a favored speaker at various functions for Israel.

"We are often asked," said the late Italian Jew and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi, in The Drowned and the Saved, "as if our past conferred a prophetic ability upon us, whether Auschwitz will return." However we might choose to answer such a terrible but unavoidable question, the Jewish past seems not to have conferred the most indispensable abilities to anticipate new and still-possible genocides.

The uprising in Egypt that looks like it may sweep away President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year-old regime threatens to deprive Israel of its most important strategic ally in the region.

Much has been said of the revelations known as "PaliLeaks" - the release to the public by Al Jazeera of thousands of confidential peace process-related Palestinian documents. The ensuing discourse has largely focused on the details of "this" or the ramifications of "that," and whether the alleged concessions offered by the Palestinian Authority to Israel in past negotiations - including its purported inclination to divide Jerusalem, forgo the Palestinian "right of return" and recognize Israel's legitimacy - were in fact genuine, a ploy, or altogether fabricated.

I once asked my parents why they had named me Chana Malka, and they responded: "We didn't, the rabbis named you." For the longest time, I chose to be content with that answer, but then again, for the longest time I chose to be content with my assumed religious identity, and never felt the need to examine either subject too closely. I am the daughter of two loving parents, a non-Jewish mother and a Jewish father.

It comes as no surprise that in a world where many neglect the importance of community, iPhones, iPods, and iPads constantly and consistently appear as the trendiest gadgets. These devices represent a culture that desires to deconstruct the power and purpose of community, placing all importance on the needs of the individual.

There has been a bizarre, unfortunate and hurtful conversation taking place in the public domain (including every imaginable forum) regarding the halachic viewpoint on brain death.

As we focus on Jerusalem as the central issue of the on-again, off-again - but always looming - negotiations with the PA, let us take a look at the latest flashpoint in our holy city: The Shepherd Hotel.

Fifty years ago, when I served as the director of Bnei Akiva of New York, I wondered how my relationship with Bnei Akiva would develop. Today, years later, after coming on aliyah to Israel in 1973, I find that I still cherish my Bnei Akiva past and still enjoy the friendships that were developed so many years ago.

Need further proof of how hopelessly liberal the mainstream media really are? Just consider the coverage of the accusations of incivility and incitement hurled at Republicans and conservatives by Democrats and liberals in the aftermath of the December shootings in Tucson.

Herbert Zweibon, founder and chairman of Americans for a Safe Israel/AFSI, died on Jan. 19 at the age of 84. It was Tu B'Shevat, holiday of the trees, which only seems fitting because Herb was someone who spread his branches wide, sheltering not only his beloved family but an array of people and causes, planting seeds of wisdom and truth.

Shortly after Sarah Palin provoked a barrage of criticism for her use of the term "blood libel," a Democratic congressman named Steve Cohen compared Republican statements about the Obama health care reform to "the big lie" told by Joseph Goebbels, saying it's "like [a] blood libel. The same kind of thing."

In the aftermath of the tragic shooting in Tucson, "civility" is the word on everyone's lips. This is ironic when one considers that civility is nowhere to be found in anyone's actions. Each partisan faction is charging the other with hatred and violence.

The recent release of additional Nixon White House presidential documents and tapes produced the usual response. As has become customary, brief excerpts of the tapes - excerpts that invariably show President Nixon and members of his administration in the most unflattering light possible - are pulled from the reams of material and hours of conversations and given broad coverage in the media.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal by Yale Professor Amy Chua - "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior" - has inflamed passions across the country. The blogosphere is ablaze while The New York Times, Newsweek, Time and hundreds of other news outlets have run articles and often angry opinion pieces debating the wisdom of Chua's authoritarian - some argue abusive - parenting tactics.

International law is not a suicide pact. This particular sentence should be very familiar to this column's readers. Every state facing plainly existential harms always has the right to defend itself beforebeing attacked. In the increasingly urgent matter of Israel and Iran, a subject on which I have been commenting for some time, any further delay in undertaking permissible acts of preemption could irrevocably doom the Jewish state.

The announcement by Senator Joe Lieberman that he will not run for reelection when his current term is up in 2012 triggered the Monitor's memories of the highlight of Lieberman's political career: Al Gore's selecting him in August 2000 to be his vice-presidential running mate.

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You will be excused if you have not been following the debate over proposals to demand that sources of funding for political parties and activist groups be revealed.

Veteran pro-Israel activist Herbert Zweibon, founder and chairman of Americans for a Safe Israel/AFSI, passed away in New York on Jan. 20 at age 84.

As I see it, in the current battle for public opinion Sarah Palin has defeated her harsh and unfair critics. After the January 8 shooting of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and the murder of six others in Tucson, Arizona, some television talking heads and members of the blogosphere denounced her and held her in part responsible for creating a climate of hatred that resulted in the mass attacks.

In the past I have written about global anarchy and its strategic implications for Israel. Today, I want to assess something far more specific and ominous: global chaotic disintegration. Such an unraveling is already an evident fact of life in several different parts of the world. Moreover, substantial and sudden extensions of this perilous condition to other far-flung parts of our planet are both plausible and probable.

We lost biblical Jerusalem for 19 years, between 1948 and 1967. Are we now facing the same danger again?

Hashmonaim is a community in central Israel blessed with wonderful neighbors, and lovely houses and greenery. However, it has few commercial enterprises. It is a typical bedroom community, and most of those with jobs drive out each morning and return home each evening. Some commuters even get on a plane Sunday evening and do not return until the following Thursday or Friday. Yet, those who remain behind each day enjoy some of the most wonderful experiences available. The community is warm and friendly, with a strong social support system. Many families share meals on Shabbat and rotate between the many invitations available each week. The children practically live in each other's homes and enjoy the community almost as much as the adults do.

Several time zones away, in the farthest reaches of northeastern India, live thousands of men and women longing to rejoin the Jewish people.

With Columbia University having recently established the very first Center for Palestine Studies (CPS), the Jewish community - especially Jewish donors - has failed miserably. We have been sleeping at the wheel for way too long.

During the Holocaust, one group of killers stood out as more vicious, murderous, and bloodthirsty than all others.

The world likes to believe that threats to Israel's security by its neighbors are the country's greatest concern. The narrative of two ancient peoples in one Holy Land fighting for their place in the world is a great story and leads to an uncanny number of headlines, the expenditure of a relatively large percentage of the UN's energy and resources, and more divisive discussions and actions than are devoted to other - much bloodier - conflicts, such as those in the Congo and Sudan.

The White House was misled by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. And that does not surprise me. Publicly, the White House is saying that nothing in the relationship between Barak, who just this week left the Labor Party to form a new political faction, and the administration has changed. Privately, the White House is expressing disappointment, frustration and even anger.

"Whoeverhas mercy on cruel people will in the end act cruelly to merciful people." So the Midrash deduces from the story of Shaul HaMelech - King Saul. When commanded to kill out the wicked nation of Amalek, the king had mercy on its monarch, Agag, sparing his life. As evidence that Saul eventually acted with cruelty to merciful people, the Gemara quotes the Navi that years later Saul showed no such compassion when he killed out an entire city of Kohanim because they had given shelter to his nemesis David.