Politics
“We All Believe in Strange Things”
Pin It Mitt Romney’s Mormonism has reared its head every once in a while throughout this election season. Recently, more and more people seem to be asking about the Republican... Read More »
The Pale God: An Inadequate Idea For Liberal Democracy
Pin It Aryeh Tepper reviews The Pale God: Israeli Secularism and Spinoza’s Philosophy of Culture for Jewish Ideas Daily. Katz argues (as Tepper paraphrases) that secular Israeli Jewry has come... Read More »
Questions for the Jewish Future
Pin It Though reports of the demise of America are greatly exaggerated the world is still at a crossroads. We are living in the age of democratization of the nuclear... Read More »
A Republican Jew on Progressive Jews, Israel, and the American Jewish Community
Pin It As a Republican Jew I often find myself in the minority. As someone who is deeply involved in Jewish life this happens quite often. Yet when it comes... Read More »
The Small Voice Of Moderation in Bet Shemesh
Pin It In The Year Of The Protester, we used the hashtag and we mimed the slogan to great effect.  But real change takes more than a slogan.  It takes dialog.  It... Read More »
Tebowing as Political Metaphor
Pin It In an otherwise unremarkable article about the controversy over Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow’s public displays of religiosity, a quote from Gary Ebersole, a University of Missouri-Kansas City... Read More »
Judaism, Democracy, and Public Reason
Pin It The appropriate role of religion in American political discourse is a debate older than the Constitution itself. It predictably recurs whenever a politician or celebrity invokes or insults... Read More »
An Obituary for Zionism
Pin It Zionism, born in the 1890′s, died today of natural causes. Zionism, which in its early years began a life long career championing self-determination and civil rights ended life... Read More »
Non-Orthodox Rabbis and Israel
Pin It I just read an absolutely shocking statistic: 12 percent of the Jewish Theological Seminary rabbinical students are “uncomfortable” with Israel’s being a “Jewish state”! One would have thought... Read More »
Playing to the Home Crowd: Netanyahu, Abbas, and Obama at the UN
Pin It I am not much of a sports fan, but I do know that a team that can only win at home will never be a champion. Unfortunately, it... Read More »
Occupy Wall Street and Anti-Semetism – A Forum For All Comers
Pin It With the dawning notion reaching the media that a giant protest sitting right in the middle of the Wall Street Financial District is something they ought to pay... Read More »
Taking Back Zionism
Pin It Over the last few weeks, various members of the global community have renewed their efforts to delegitimize Israel and call into question the legitimacy of Zionism as a... Read More »
Rabbi and Former MK Chanan Porat Passes Away at 67
Pin It Rabbi Porat was born in 1943, in Kfar Pines, before the establishment of the state. In his youth, he studied at the Kerem B’Yavne and Merkaz Harav yeshivas.... Read More »
What’s Wrong with the Middle East?
Pin It We are constantly being told that the major problem of the Middle East is the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. For those of us who follow this... Read More »
AIPAC 2010: Early Reflections
This morning I had the annual pleasure of attending the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's (AIPAC) Policy Conference held in the Washington, DC convention center Read More »
After 20 years, AIPAC is still behind the curve on how to use the Internet
Pin It Around twenty years ago when I was at MIT, I spent far more hours than I care to contemplate combating anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist and anti-Israel propaganda on Usenet. This... Read More »
Why I’m Voting Green This Year
Pin It You would think that after voting for a Barkat and a Barack respectively in the local Jerusalem and U.S. elections, the logical next choice would be to support... Read More »
War in Gaza: Which Way Will the Dreidel Fall?
Pin It Our friend Joan called last night just as the news broke that the IDF had begun its ground operation in Gaza. Joan was panicked. She knew a number... Read More »
A Sneak Peek at the Future of Jerusalem Mass Transit
Pin It Stepping into one of the sleek and shiny new light rail vehicles set to zip through Jerusalem in the next year and a half, it’s hard to imagine... Read More »
From Barack to Barkat: A Look Back at the November Elections
Pin It The just concluded Jerusalem election, while certainly not as important on a world stage as last week’s U.S. presidential contest, was in many ways spookily similar to its... Read More »
