Tag: Jerusalem

Dear Rebbetzin: I am a 62-year-old Conservative Jew, recently retired from teaching and planning to relocate to Florida. My three children are all married and living in different parts of the world: a daughter in Jerusalem, one son in Toronto, another son in California. Those living in Jerusalem and Toronto have become very Orthodox, while the son living in California is totally uninterested in religion. As a matter of fact, he is married to a non-Jewish woman. As you can see, there is no happy medium in my family, but I cannot interfere in the lifestyle choices of my children.

Legends are necessary for nation building and community cohesiveness. Legends of holy and pious people and legends about villains and the wicked are often subject to fabrication and gross exaggeration, but they leave no doubt in the minds of later generations as to who was the holy and pious person and who was the villain.

Israel has taken a significant step this week toward enhancing the Jewish national character of the country. The Cabinet voted to appoint a ministerial committee to approve a uniform Hebrew naming system - not Arabic, not English - for all Jewish locations in the country.

Reflecting back on the experiences our AFSI Chizuk group shared on its 31st mission to Israel, opposing words, thoughts and images come to mind.

When Glenn Beck's upcoming Jerusalem rally was first announced, he saidit would be called "Restore Courage" - modeled on his "Restoring Honor" rally last year in Washington that drew half a million. Or as Beck put it: "Last summer, we set out to restore honor in Washington, DC. This summer, it's time to restore courage. It is time for us to courageously stand with Israel."

Author's Note: The following article was originally in these pages in February 2000. It is being reprinted now because President Obama has recently advanced a "Two-State Solution" that utterly ignores the irremediable core impediment to real peace in the Middle East. This impediment was, and still remains, the far-reaching and fundamentally doctrinal Islamic hatred of Jews.

It is true that support for Israel is very high among American voters. In fact, a poll of earlier this month showed that 56 percent of voters say they support Israel, compared to 10 percent who say they support the PA.

This month marks the 44th anniversary of one of the most momentous miracles of modern times, when Israel, facing annihilation at the hands of its enemies, emerged triumphant in the 1967 Six-Day War.

President Obama's recent remarks on Israel and the 1967 lines garnered wide attention both for what he said - most notably, that Israel must remain the same size it was before 1967 - and for what he should have said, but did not - that the Palestinian refugees are an Arab problem, not Israel's.

Back when we established Hineni, kiruv - outreach - was practically a foreign concept. The observant community had no confidence in these "newcomers" to Torah. "They will never last," people warned me. "For a brief while," they conceded, "it may work, but they have no real commitment, and their involvement is fleeting." As for secular Jews, their attitudes ranged from hostility to outright suspicion and fear.

At first glance, it would appear that a modicum of justice has finally been meted out in the case of Nazi guard John Demjanjuk.

As we continue to focus on our Holy City of Jerusalem as the make-or-break issue in the bid for an agreement with Fatah-Hamas, it is important to note how the Arab and left-wing side of this dispute views Jews living in eastern Jerusalem.

As we saw in our last article, northern Jerusalem is a critical front in the Arab drive to take over parts of Jerusalem and to then form yet another Arab country in the Land of Israel.

Obama Releases Birth Certificate; Questions Still Remain    Although President Obama released a purported long-form birth certificate this week indicating he was born in Hawaii,...

The prophet Micah said (7:15), "As in the days of your leaving Egypt, I shall show them marvelous things." His words imply that the Exodus is the precedent for the Final Redemption, as the Midrash expounds: "Just as in Egypt, I shall redeem you in the future from subjugation to Edom and shall perform miracles for you, as it says, "As in the days of your leaving Egypt, I shall display miracles'" (Tanchuma, Toldot 17).

Any chaotic disintegration of the world system wouldfundamentally transform the Israeli system. Again, recalling the remarkable Swiss playwright, such a transformation could ultimately involve total or near-total destruction. In anticipation, Israel will have to orient its strategic planning to an assortment of worst-case prospects, thus focusing much more deliberately on a wide range of primarily self-help security options. This point simply cannot be overstated.

The article last week in The New York Times concerning the explosion of anorexia and eating disorders in the Orthodox community highlights a tragedy that has long been buried.

Practically the primary front in the Arab war against Israel is Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority and its Arab allies have made no secret of their intention to turn the Jewish nation's eternal holy city into the capital of yet another Arab state - as merely the first step of their plan to render the entire area Jew-free.

An article by Dvora Waysman in the March 18 issue of The Jewish Press referred to the home of the first chief rabbi of...

Yes, attention in and on Israel has been justifiably turned toward the Shomron town of Itamar, where two weeks ago ruthless Palestinian terrorists cruelly butchered most of the Fogel family preparing for sleep after an uplifting Sabbath meal.

With attention focused on the intensifying unrest in the traditionally undemocratic Arab countries across the Middle East and North Africa, let us not think for a moment that Israel is no longer under pressure. The short-term view is misleading; the long term - the one that counts - indicates that the rise of Islamic forces is likely to mean a more concentrated focus against Israel in general, and against a Jewish Jerusalem in particular.

For the past two years the hottest debate in the pro-Israel community has been over how to assess the Obama administration. Despite the tense relationship with the Israeli government, the fights picked over building in Jerusalem and the pressure for a settlement freeze, there has been a considerable body of opinion that still insisted Obama had basically changed nothing in the Israel-U.S. relationship.

When discussing Jewish rights in Jerusalem, it would seem nothing would be more natural to a Bible-believing world than the acceptance of these as self-evident.

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.

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.

Avner Moriah, the well-known Israeli artist, has illuminated the Book of Genesis. No small feat, he has conjured images for all the major narratives as well as alluding to other analogous stories throughout the Torah. He sees the first book of Torah as nothing less than "a poem," a minimalist text that yields an unending series of explorations of the mysteries and conundrums of the human condition. While this is hardly the first nor largest of his explorations of biblical and Jewish narrative, it is easily the most ambitious.

It’s true. My Zionism was made in China. I grew up in New Jersey in a town that was nearly one third Jewish. Everyone on my street was Jewish. Half my soccer team was Jewish. In Synagogue, my Cantor infused every message with Zionism, as did his wife and children. To my parents this was pure mishugas.

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

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