Tag: Semitism

I am interrupting the sequence of my articles regarding questions posed by widows and widowers. B'Ezrat Hashem, I will continue that discussion in future columns. But for now, I feel compelled to address the tragic events that have once again unfolded in Eretz Yisrael. I would also like to remind our readers to daven and say Tehillim for the valorous wounded Israeli soldiers who were so savagely attacked. I make a special point of this because shockingly, I have discovered how few of us stop to consider the pain of our brethren.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters: There is nothing more pitiful than a condemned man asking his executioner for the sword so that he may do his work for him.

Events are unfolding so rapidly that before we can absorb them, another occurs. After a while, we become inured and no longer react. Mother Nature is wreaking havoc with our environment. Add to this the collapse of the giants of finance and industry. If this were not enough, we, the Jewish people have an additional menace with which to contend - the demonization of Israel and escalation of anti-Semitism.

I have been on the road non-stop. Different countries, different languages... but in every place that Hashem grants me the privilege of speaking, it is to my people that I speak. A special language connects us that transcends all difficulties, overcomes all barriers - the language of the heart. That language is part of our Jewish DNA. Hashem Himself engraved it in our souls - it speaks more powerfully than any words and brings tears to even the most hardened, alienated eyes.

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.

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.

In this meticulously documented treatise of centuries old European anti-Semitism, authors Drs. Sheldon Hersh and Robert Wolf graphically depict the hellacious barbarism and heinous atrocities committed against the Jewish people throughout Eastern Europe before, during and after the Holocaust by those they believed to be their close neighbors and friends.

In this meticulously documented treatise of centuries old European anti-Semitism, authors Drs. Sheldon Hersh and Robert Wolf graphically depict the hellacious barbarism and heinous atrocities committed against the Jewish people throughout Eastern Europe before, during and after the Holocaust by those they believed to be their close neighbors and friends.

If you love Eretz Yisrael, you must also feel overwhelmed by a sense of frustration. Why is Israel demonized all over the world? Why has she become the new source for the age-old canard of anti-Semitism? And why is it that Israel cannot present itself in its true light? The question is all the more puzzling, since we, the Jewish people, are renowned for our fidelity to justice, righteousness and truth. And more so, how is it that Israel has such dismal, horrible PR? How is it that we, who are masters of language, are so inept at imparting the glorious history and priestly calling of our nation? After all, we are the "People of the Book." Who, if not we, should be able to address the nations of the world and communicate our true essence?

An Interview With Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist Alex Storozynski

Sam Ehrenhalt no doubt would have thought it ironic that The New York Times gave him such a laudatory send-off a few days after he passed away on May 31 at age 83.

A news item appeared a few weeks ago detailing the refusal of an Austrian hotel owner to rent a summer apartment to Jews. The owner of the Haus Sonnenhof apartment hotel in the village of Serfaus in the Austrian Tyrol reportedly told a Viennese Jewish family the facility was no longer accepting Jewish guests. This is shocking and distressing, but according to my close relative who moved to Zurich 25 years ago, it is hardly newsworthy. As a matter of fact, it's almost routine in Switzerland.

Jewish art in Poland, as in other places throughout the world, comes from two sources: art by Jews or art by gentiles about Jews.

The more I hear of Olmert and Sderot, of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism (the former more often than not a cover for the latter), the more I sense the vast and unfortunate divide that separates my years of growing up from the ones I now spend raising my children.

On March 13 representatives of The Museum Of The History Of Polish Jews addressed the Helsinki Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe regarding the importance and aims of its institution.

(This week’s column is a somewhat expanded version of a post by your trusty correspondent at Commentary magazine’s Contentions blog.) Among his many other accomplishments,...

The lengthy cover story in a weekly news magazine deftly sums up the profound unease afflicting U.S. Jewry. Titled “American Jews and Israel,” the piece paints a picture of a community enjoying unprecedented affluence and influence and at the same time worrying about the future of U.S.-Israel relations and the possible emergence of widespread anti-Semitism in America.

While Polish-Jewish relations have grown more and more friendly in Poland, Israel and the U.S., Poland has also been reaching out to Jews around the world.

Although Passover is no longer around the corner (11 months and counting until next year's cleaning craze), Had Gadya remains a timeless song of Jewish persecution and triumph over generation after generation of anti-Semitism.

It sounds like a variation upon a hackneyed joke: Two Jewish writers and an anti-Semitic composer walk into a salon.

Dreamer Vs. Realist    It is clear that Eli Chomsky ("For Israeli-Syrian Talks," op-ed, Jan. 26) lives in America and Steven Plaut ("Israel Should Offer...

Oriana Fallaci, the Italian journalist who late in life did a profound about-face – going from leftist supporter of revolutionary movements to resolute defender of the West and vocal opponent of Islamic fundamentalism – died last week in Florence.

Robert Rosen admirably puts President Roosevelt right back on his pedestal where he belongs, despite the efforts of dozens of revisionists who would have F.D.R. responsible for the deaths of millions, including a third of our people in the Holocaust during World War II.

Last week Pope Benedict XVI went to Poland to honor his predecessor, Pope John Paul II.

NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” has once again inspired dismay among at least some Jewish viewers who feel the line between simple bad taste and outright anti-Semitism was crossed on the Dec. 17 edition of the long-running show.

Without expressing anti-Semitism or even anti-Zionism, this literary jewel of a debut novel from an Arab-Israeli expresses what it means to be a hyphenated citizen in Israel today.

Of the many books The Jewish Press receives for review, a large number deal with the issue of anti-Semitism.

I was transfixed the first time I saw Moses und Aron, the 1933 opera by Arnold Schoenberg.

Jews with Hogs (1994) is the first image one encounters in Frederic Brenner's exhibition of photographs of contemporary Jews from around the world currently at the Brooklyn Museum.

An old Native American expression admonishes us to "Never judge a man until you walk a mile in his moccasins."