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While pro-Palestinian supporters glorify a suicide, a ballot box protest gets...
(JTA) — Last week saw two wildly contrasting acts of pro-Palestinian protest: a U.S. airman who died after he set himself on fire in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington shouting “Free...
View ArticleSensationalizing campus antisemitism isn’t serving Jewish students like mine
(JTA) — Last semester I had almost 100 students in my course on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at Rutgers University. The students represented the diversity of the Rutgers campus, a school with...
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Why an Israeli policy expert says talk of a two-state solution is dangerously...
(JTA) — Whether it succeeds in its goal of destroying Hamas, or just deals it a devastating blow, it seems certain that following its war in Gaza, Israel will not accept the status quo ante. What comes...
View ArticleOn this International Women’s Day, I celebrate the generosity of my forebears...
This story was originally published on My Jewish Learning. BERLIN (JTA) — I did not grow up celebrating International Women’s Day, a global holiday established by the United Nations in 1977 that is...
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For every looted Schiele, there are countless looted Jewish artifacts. They...
(JTA) — In 2021, a leather-bound book dating from the second part of the 19th century came up for sale at a New York auction house, together with other similar works. Originally from the Jewish...
View ArticleHow do we celebrate Purim in a time of mourning? We’re not the first Jews to...
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A colleague on the faculty of Pardes, the learning community based in Jerusalem, described to me how in her community, the annual Purim parade is quite joyous. Yet in that small town,...
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How Israel’s Black Panthers radicalized its Mizrahi Jews, and changed the...
(JTA) — In Jerusalem’s rapidly gentrifying Musrara neighborhood, there’s a street sign reading “Black Panthers Way.” Puzzled Americans may wonder why Israelis have paid tribute to the radical...
View ArticleOn Purim, there’s a fast before the festival. It’s a ritual I need in these...
(JTA) — I’m jogging in New York City’s Riverside Park, as I do a few times a week. The air is fresh and my body is happy to be moving. Like many immigrants, I still listen to Israeli radio and read the...
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Out of all the Israeli hostages in Gaza, the one I think about most is Keith...
(JTA) — When I first met Keith Siegel, he was the last of four siblings still at home. He was in high school, and I remember him pedaling off early in the morning. I was in a different world, graduate...
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Why Rabbi Shai Held says love is the cornerstone of Jewish belief and practice
(JTA) — More than two decades ago Rabbi Shai Held was lecturing to a class of fifth-year rabbinical students when he remarked in passing, “Judaism revolves around the claim that God loves us and...
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Growing up Jewish on the Upper West Side ‘when housing was a human right’
(New York Jewish Week) — When Jennifer Baum’s parents bought their three-bedroom, postwar apartment on the Upper West Side in 1967, they paid $3,800 — a bargain even at the time, when the neighborhood...
View ArticleWhat I told my children when our synagogue was graffitied with a swastika
WYNNEWOOD, Pennsylvania (JTA) — On Saturday night, I watched an episode of “We Were the Lucky Ones,” Hulu’s new Holocaust series. On Sunday morning, I woke up to a traumatic scene in my own community:...
View ArticleMy stepfather, Joe Lieberman, modeled integrity inside and out
(JTA) — How do we live a life of principle and integrity, without closing ourselves off from others who do not share all of our values? How do we build bridges and broad tents that include the...
View ArticleLiterature celebrates nuance. So why does the book world feel so one-sided on...
(JTA) — For many people in literary spaces, the waves of anti-Israelism since Oct. 7 and the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war — whether fueled by ignorance, misinformation or malicious antisemitism —...
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How a 100-year-old law changed American immigration policy to this day
(JTA) — In May 1924, President Calvin Coolidge signed legislation, known as the Johnson-Reed Act, that severely restricted the number of immigrants by putting quotas on their country of origin, and...
View ArticleTo mark our brokenness this Passover, let’s scale back the matzah on our...
(JTA) — How might we celebrate Passover differently this year? With so many Israelis brutally murdered on Oct. 7, so many soldiers killed or wounded in battle, so many people — Palestinians and aid...
View ArticleAn Indiana court ruled that Jews have a religious liberty right to abortion....
(JTA) — Since the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the right to abortion is no longer protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. But that seismic constitutional...
View ArticleThe death of Brooklyn Dodger great Carl Erskine closes a chapter in Jewish...
(New York Jewish Week) — My son is in town from California for Passover, and on Tuesday night he treated the rest of the family to a Mets game. Before the first pitch, the Mets had a moment of silence...
View ArticleWe in the Israel-politics ‘sandwich generation’ need our Jewish institutions...
(JTA) — I am the only Jewish elected official in Rochester, the third-biggest city in New York State. I am 38 years old, which when it comes to Israel can feel like the political “sandwich generation”...
View ArticleAn open letter to the Columbia University Gaza war protesters from a...
(JTA) — As a graduate of Columbia College (Class of 1991) and a peace activist who lives in Israel, I am watching videos and reports from my alma mater’s campus and wondering what I would have done if...
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