Opinion

This article is sponsored by Hadassah. Within 24 hours of the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Judith Cohen’s cellphone was ringing incessantly with offers of help from around the world. A psychiatrist who specializes in the treatment of trauma and grief in children and adolescents, Cohen is one… Read more »

BERKELEY, Calif. (JTA) — Ronald Reagan infamously described the “nine most terrifying words in the English language” as “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Right now, pro-Israel activists are recoiling from the unanticipated consequences of state laws which only sought to “help” them fight BDS, the… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — George H.W. Bush was a man of uncommon decency. He also was a man of uncommon integrity. I worked for him for over 10 years, while he was the vice president and then president. My memories could fill a book (or at least a chapter of… Read more »

(JTA) — Several days after the Jewish Daily Forward published the first-ever report from the Islamic Republic of Iran by a reporter openly representing a Jewish, pro-Israel news outlet, the host of CNN’s foreign affairs show “GPS” posed a vexing question. Citing the Forward’s surprisingly favorable account of the… Read more »

SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) — This is a story of gratitude. So much gratitude. In 1983, my local rabbi handed me his guitar and taught me four chords. He said (paraphrasing the first century sage Hillel) “Lisa, with these four chords you can play any Jewish song. All the rest is commentary.… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Opposition to vaccination on political and religious grounds has been swaying parents across the country to refuse immunizations for their children. Recently this has resulted in two of the largest measles outbreaks in New York’s history, impacting haredi Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods. The opposition to vaccines… Read more »

Tova Hartman (Courtesy of Hartman)

KIRYAT ONO, Israel (JTA) — Last year, at the diverse campuses of Ono Academic College, some of my students expressed concern and even dismay over the Christmas tree we had set up next to the Hanukkah menorah. The students were understandably wary of what such Christian symbols have meant to… Read more »

After my grandmother Jeannette died in December 1996, the process of settling her estate worked in the same way it does in most families: There was a house to be sold and possessions to be distributed. The surviving family members were left with a few souvenirs of my grandparents’… Read more »

  NEW YORK  (JTA) — The same Jewish liberals who gave in to efforts by the Jewish right to divide the black and Jewish communities in the ’70s are back again to divide Jews from their would-be allies, and this time they’re dead set on being the breach in… Read more »

  WASHINGTON, D.C. (JTA) — On the heels of actress and activist Alyssa Milano’s remarkable statement indicating that she plans to boycott the upcoming 2019 Women’s March because of its leaders’ persistent anti-Semitic behavior, there has been a backlash in our own Jewish feminist ranks. Jewish women are being urged not… Read more »

Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman (Courtesy of Zimmerman)

Editor’s note: Last week, students at Baraboo High School in Wisconsin were seen in a photograph taken last spring in which they appeared to be giving the “Heil Hitler” salute. Although the photographer who took the photo on the steps of a county courthouse said the camera caught the boys… Read more »

(Kveller via JTA) – I was deep in my third trimester and sweating through the Tel Aviv heat when I thought to myself “Never again.” Seven years into my life in Israel, I just couldn’t spend another hot, intense and chaotic summer there.   It’s not just the blistering… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — A couple of months ago I was waiting to use an ATM near my house, flicking through Twitter as the line inched its way forward. Finally, after about 10 minutes and several tweets, I reached the machine and was getting ready to insert my card when… Read more »

(JTA) — When Stan Lee died on Nov. 12 at 95, he left behind a vast legacy. Between 1961 and 1969, his greatest sustained burst of creative activity, he co-created a vast array of iconic characters, including Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Avengers, the Incredible Hulk, Thor,… Read more »

(Kveller via JTA) – “I’m so scared for your synagogue,” my (non-Jewish) mother said to me as we were driving the other day. We were talking about my daughter’s schedule — religious school was on the agenda for that afternoon — and she had asked me about our synagogue’s security… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The outpouring of grief over last month’s massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue has sparked a degree of counterintuitive hope. Just maybe, the eternal optimists among us believe, this will prove to be the watershed event that sends all the craven anti-Semites crawling back into… Read more »

(JTA) — My father, whose own father changed his unpronounceable last name to Carroll when he came to America, would often tell a story about job hunting in the late 1940s and 50s. It was only after the interview that the men across the desk would ask, “And all… Read more »

The Trump Administration recently proposed an unprecedented expansion in our country’s public charge rules for applicants for citizenship. For the first time, a legal immigrant to the United States can be considered ineligible for citizenship simply because they utilize SNAP — our nation’s food stamp program. These new public… Read more »

  NEW YORK (JTA) — Rabbi Shmuley Boteach may or may not be America’s most famous rabbi. But among Jews, at least, he may be it’s most polarizing rabbi. Boteach has built his career on those twin tent poles of American fame: sex and celebrity. In books like “Kosher… Read more »

Dianne Feinstein

WASHINGTON (JTA) — There are 56 candidates for Congress who identify as Jewish. Among them are 41 Democrats: five are running for the Senate — three incumbents and two challengers. Among the 36 in the U.S. House of Representatives, 18 are incumbents and 18 are challengers. (Three incumbent Jewish… Read more »