Opinion

NEW YORK (JTA) — Slate podcaster Mike Pesca has a theory that whenever President Donald Trump says “everybody” it means “almost nobody,” and when he says “nobody” or “anybody” it means “almost everybody.” Try it: When Trump said, “Nobody knew health care could be so complicated” — well, nearly everybody disagreed. And when he says,… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Dr. Stephen Hawking was a rare and inspirational man whose deep insights into the mysteries of the physical universe were matched only by his courage in the face of a cruel, debilitating illness, which he met with good spirit and a unique sense of humor. In the wake… Read more »

CHICAGO (JTA) — I’m a sophomore at Ida Crown Jewish Academy, the largest Modern Orthodox high school in the Chicagoland area. When I heard about the #ENOUGH national school walkout, I immediately wondered how my school could participate. Our school motto is “Inspiring Bnei and Bnot Torah to thrive… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Recent alarming events in Poland, most notably a law “protecting the reputation of the Polish nation” by criminalizing certain speech regarding the Holocaust, have led me to reflect on my own relationship with that country. It’s a relationship that spans three decades, dozens of visits, various… Read more »

(JTA) — In the aftermath of the fatal mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, the Jewish community should take note: Teenagers are not just the future of the Jewish people; they are the dynamic force driving social change today. Today we are witnessing history unfold as the American teenage populace… Read more »

(JTA) — I don’t know if Wayne LaPierre is anti-Semitic. In many ways, I don’t care if Wayne LaPierre is anti-Semitic. But the executive vice president of the NRA gave a speech this week that was heard as anti-Semitic by two kinds of people: left-leaning Jews and hard-right anti-Semites.… Read more »

(JTA) — In the many years between my first job at JTA and returning as its editor in 2016, I would joke about a headline it published in 1999: “Two Turkish Jews killed in quake.” Perhaps you’ll remember that 17,000 people died in the Turkish earthquake that year. That headline seemed… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — The latest episode of Iran flexing its regional hegemonic muscles in the Middle East came with a direct and unprecedented military challenge to Israel. Last week, Iran used a technologically advanced drone – reverse-engineered from a U.S. drone captured in 2011 – to penetrate Israel’s… Read more »

SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) — At a time when more than three-quarters of American Jews say they do not keep kosher, should we be shocked when Jews gather together and eat non-kosher food? American Jews have always gone beyond the restrictions of Jewish dietary laws, eating non-kosher (treif or trefa)… Read more »

The line is from a remarkably poignant scene in the 2004 film “Garden State,” in which Zach Braff’s character explains to his love interest, played by Natalie Portman, a few things that most non-Orthodox American Jews know about large suburban synagogues. “The Jews I know,” Braff continues, “they go… Read more »

(JTA) — Like a lot of other Jewish men, I have been quietly keeping a scorecard of the number of Jewish men in the #MeToo headlines. Harvey Weinstein, Dustin Hoffman, Jeffrey Tambor, Mark Halperin, Leon Wieseltier, James Toback, Israel Horowitz, Al Franken, James Levine, Jeremy Priven, Woody Allen, Brett Ratner, Michael Oreskes, Bruce Weber — all have been accused in… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Arab-Israeli conflict is entering a phase more likely to lead to resolution than any that preceded it. The mindless mantra “there is no alternative to the two-state solution” is giving way to reality. The Palestinian Authority has never been a partner for peace. A 23rd… Read more »

(JTA) — #MeToo. #GamAni. The stories are numerous and painful. They span decades and reach every corner of the Jewish community. Enough is enough. The time is now for us to finally and fully address sexual harassment in Jewish institutional life. When it comes to sexual harassment, Jewish teachings are… Read more »

Several recent political measures in Israel — including announcements by Israel’s parliament, attorney general and ruling party — have significantly begun to undermine the possibility of achieving a two-state solution. Let me be clear: When discussing why the peace process has been stalled for so many years, one has… Read more »

On Easter Sunday in 1959, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. rose in the pulpit of his Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, to deliver a sermon that focused on his just-completed visit, with his wife, Coretta, to Jerusalem and its holy sites. King’s trip that month to… Read more »

DES MOINES, Iowa (JTA) — A Jewish woman walks into the post office to buy Hanukkah stamps for her holiday cards. The person behind the counter asks, “What denominations?” The Jewish woman responds, “Oy! Are we so polarized? Some Orthodox, some Conservative and some Reform.” Yes, we are so… Read more »

  (JTA) — E.B. White famously wrote that there are “roughly three New Yorks”: the one of the native New Yorker, the one of the commuter, and the New York of the “person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something.” To which… Read more »

  NEW YORK (JTA) — In a recent talk at Temple Emanuel here, former first lady Michelle Obama spoke about how women live with tiny cuts that build up over time, cuts that we endure without noticing, even as we bleed. That is what it is to be a girl… Read more »

(JTA) — President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and his announcement that he will move the embassy there from Tel Aviv will have a number of consequences for Israelis, Palestinians and the wider region. For Israel, it has finally received from an American president… Read more »

  NEW YORK (JTA) — Did The New York Times just normalize an American neo-Nazi? That’s the charge being flung at The Newspaper of Record over its Saturday profile of Tony Hovater, 29, a “polite,” “low key” Ohio man who is a “committed foot soldier” who helped start one of… Read more »