Op-eds
Anti-Semitism and COVID-19 Demanded a Strong Government Response. We New Yorkers Got One.
Confronted with the challenges of our lifetime, we owe Chuck Schumer our gratitude.
It was a year ago. The Jewish community had barely passed the commemoration of the first anniversary of the Tree of Life massacre, and suddenly we were again reeling after brazen and deadly anti-Semitic attacks
The Most Consequential Jew of 2020: Jared Kushner
He and his wife have been warned never to return to New York. He’s been mocked and demonized, as well as blamed for every bad thing that has happened in the last four years, including white-supremacist violence and the coronavirus pandemic. Indeed, outside of President Donald Trump, there may have been no figure in his administration who
An Ugly Divorce Foretold
News that the 23rd Knesset is about to dissolve, plunging Israel into its fourth elections in two years, came as a shock to no one. It was clear to all that the unity deal signed between Likud and Blue and White following the March 2020 election was an arranged marriage and that the match was doomed to fail.
Palestinian Arab Propagandists Re-Write History—Literally
History can be so inconvenient for people with agendas, so they just rewrite it. But in Israel, archaeology trumps the lies.
(This essay originally appeared on Arutz Sheva and is reprinted by permission of the author.)
Two small, seemingly unrelated items in the news
Closing the Door: A Pandemic Chanukah Gift
This Chanukah we must learn to celebrate the gift of a closed door.
Yeshayahu (26:20) said: “Go my people, come into your chambers and close your door behind you, hide for a moment until the wrath passes.”
It is this verse that the Talmud (Bava Kamma 60b) cites in
What Is Going to Change in the Middle East Under Biden?
President Donald Trump’s policies in the Middle East contributed significantly to changes in the rules of the game in the region, both in the Palestinian and regional contexts.
The primary change was the breaking of the paradigm in which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was at the heart of the
Europe Battles Islamists, but Jews Remain the Canary in the Coal Mine
The murderous shooting attack in Vienna on November 2 is one more wake-up call for Europeans who think they’ve nothing to worry about from Islamists. But while the battle appears to be one in which the West is waging a struggle against Islamists, an indicator that the extremists aren’t losing is the way anti-Semitism continues
Do Americans Understand the Anti-Semitism Around Them?
On Oct. 27, 2018, a white-supremacist gunman sent a wake-up call to American Jews about the always deadly potential for violence from armed extremists. The slaughter of 11 worshippers at a Shabbat-morning service at Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha Congregation in Pittsburgh was the worst act of anti-Semitic violence in American history. That
The Case for President Trump
Partisanship has always struck me as curious, the notion that we must vote for a particular political party always and forever, regardless of its current positions, leaders and tendencies. It is worth observing that the Orthodox rabbis who are most vociferous in their support for Joe Biden have always supported every Democrat, without fail, whether Carter, Dukakis,
Two Different Jewish Tribes Choose Different Candidates
It’s no surprise that Israelis want Trump while American Jews back Biden. The split isn’t so much about Middle East policy as it is about the nature of the two societies.
Among the least surprising poll numbers to be published recently were the results of the Pew Research Center survey that reports a
Why (Orthodox) Jews Must Vote for Joe Biden
Although pro-Trump voices currently dominate American Orthodox discourse, Jews and rabbis in all segments of American Orthodoxy actively support Vice President Biden for president, including Rabbis Menachem Genack and
Reflections on the Ongoing Pandemic
The beginning of the pandemic was terrifying. As a volunteer EMT in Bergenfield, I was overwhelmed by the amount of death and suffering we witnessed.
Contrary to some reports, all kinds of people died in Bergen County—most were elderly, but some were middle-aged and even young adults, too. Seeing the
