Opinion

The arguments for and against the latest Palestinian bid for statehood status at the United Nations come down to which is the faster path to irrelevancy. The Palestine Liberation Organization is seeking a diplomatic victory to preserve the legitimacy of its affiliated Palestinian Authority in the face of a… Read more »

The Iron Dome defense system firing missiles to intercept incoming rockets from Gaza in the port town of Ashdod, Nov. 15, 2012. (Tsafrir Abayov/Flash90/JTA)

SDEROT, Israel (JTA) — Wage war to make peace. That’s the idea behind Israel’s strikes this week against Hamas targets in Gaza, including Wednesday’s attack that killed Hamas military chief Ahmed Jabari. What’s not clear is how far Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense will go, what price Israeli civilians… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — “To be good Americans, we must be better Jews.” When Justice Louis Brandeis spoke these words, he sought to inspire our nation’s Jewish community to live by our ideals and our principles, to serve as active citizens in a thriving democracy founded on the right to… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — As Will Rogers said, “When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!” In the last four years, the Obama administration has dug our country deeper and deeper into several painful and dangerous holes. It’s time to stop digging and find better solutions. President Obama’s economic… Read more »

Ben Cohen

The Nobel Peace Prize isn’t so much a peace prize as it is an appeasement prize. I know, I know: many people realized this bald truth before I did. I’ll confess that I was avoiding that conclusion because, despite all the laughable recipients of the prize — former PLO… Read more »

Politicians sometimes save the most important truths for a foreign audience. Sometimes those truths really need to be said at home. On “Meet the Press” last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a particular point about the liberal values shared by the United States and his country. In… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — In 1935, a trial was held in Bern, Switzerland, in which two individuals were being prosecuted for distributing the notorious anti-Semitic document “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.” At the trial, witness after witness came forward testifying to the fraudulent nature of “The… Read more »

U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during an offsite bilateral meeting as part of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Sept. 28, 2012. (Avi Ohayon/GPO/Flash90/JTA)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not meet, but they ended up sounding not so far apart. Netanyahu’s address to the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 28 in many ways echoed Obama’s speech there on Sept. 25, with both ratcheting up the heat… Read more »

Our agencies regularly provide background discussions concerning  Middle East negotiations, the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA for the cream of the crop of North American Jewry, which includes clergy, students, academics and all streams of Jewish religious observance, from Orthodox Jews to Reconstructionist Jews. Whenever possible, we invite someone who… Read more »

My first column. What a lame subject for a first column. But I’ve been meaning to write this column for 20 years, and I’m only just now getting around to it. Seriously. I’ve had a lot to say. But more than that, I’ve had an extraordinary opportunity these 20… Read more »

At first glance, Ein Prat, one of the many natural and historic sites hidden in the northern Judean Desert, looks like any other picnic site around the world. Large wooden tables and long benches are located strategically under shady trees on either side of a bubbling brook. Clusters of… Read more »

(Jewish Ideas Daily) — For those who have been taught—by Peter Beinart or some other recent chronicler of Israel’s history—that Zionism only began to go awry after 1967, Patrick Tyler’s new book, “Fortress Israel: The Inside Story of the Military Elite who Run the Country—and Why They Can’t Make Peace,”… Read more »

(JTA) — The greatest Jewish success story in a quarter century has become unknown to many in less than a generation. On Dec. 6, 1987, when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev arrived in Washington, more than a quarter-million American Jews — Democrats and Republicans, observant and secular, and individuals representing… Read more »

One way to keep things even and even-tempered in your sukkah this holiday and election season. (Edmon J. Rodman)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — In an election year, a sukkah divided against itself cannot stand. Especially in the swing states, where each party is basically claiming that if the other wins we’ll all be living in sukkahs, political dinner conversation this Sukkot could really topple an already shaky house.… Read more »

  I know how you’re feeling. Your despair is palpable. Your resignation is visceral; your frustration is visible. You open The New York Times, Ha’aretz or The Jerusalem Post and you think you don’t know the place anymore. You can’t swallow, you fume. You give up. You’ve always supported… Read more »

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

The start of the Jewish New Year, the month of Tishrei, is filled with holy days, among them four foundational celebrations: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Simchat Torah-Shemini Atzeret. They are quite different from one another. Yet we may also think of all four holidays as two pairs… Read more »

Every four years, the intersection appears: the Days of Awe cross paths with the final weeks of the presidential campaign. The debate grows more heated.  Talk of policy may dominate the conversation as we dip apples in honey on Rosh Hashanah or as we break the fast on Yom… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — When Congress declared Labor Day a public holiday in 1894, workers had more to lament than to celebrate: an economic depression, a growing concentration of corporate wealth and power, and the brutal suppression of their unions. A momentous national railroad strike to protest deep wage… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin apologized to Jamal Julany, one of the victims of a racist attack in Zion Square, during his visit to the 17-year-old. “We are sorry,” said Rivlin, a Likud Party leader. He went on to say, “It is hard to see you hospitalized… Read more »

(Jewish Ideas Daily) — Two mass shootings last month—in Aurora, Colorado and Oak Creek, Wisconsin—have focused American attention once again on the issue of guns.  Are guns a Jewish issue?  Jewish organizations have expressed their opinions by their statements and their silence. The Reform movement’s Religious Action Center has… Read more »