Opinion

NEW YORK (JTA) — They’re all true, all those stories you’ve heard. The Jewish student questioned about whether her Judaism and involvement in the Jewish community would disqualify her from serving in student government. The Israel bashers who besieged a movie night put on by a pro-Israel group, forcing… Read more »

I am writing in response to Rabbi Yehuda Ceitlin’s question in the Aug. 26 AJP, “Who are you voting for on Oct. 3?” (Rabbi’s Corner, “Election overload sparks thoughts of G-d”). I am happy to agree with him that we humans have “the awesome capability of intelligence, plus the… Read more »

(JTA) — When lowering my shoulder, planting my feet and pushing hard to make something happen, I love to reflect on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s exhortation to act with “the fierce urgency of now.” My feelings in those moments are usually not very MLK-like — self-righteousness, self-satisfaction… Read more »

(Kveller via JTA) — The average age of childbearing in the United States is 26. For Jews, it’s a few years higher. Some of us Jewish moms, however, had our children significantly later than that. Here are 10 things that only “older” Jewish moms will recognize. 1. There’s an… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Over 300,000 Jewish college students have arrived or will arrive shortly on American campuses — and what they experience there is likely not only to broaden their minds and uproot long-held assumptions, but shake their Jewish selves to the core. They will contend with powerful faculty… Read more »

  MIAMI (JTA) — Every four years the same movie plays at the Jewish Political Film Festival: It’s the one where the Democrats pass another party platform with more ironclad support for Israel and then nominate yet another presidential candidate whose record on Israel is beyond question. The ending is… Read more »

  WASHINGTON (JTA) — For years, the leaders of America’s most established Jewish organizations – AIPAC chief among them – have assured their members that when it came to Israel, there wasn’t much difference between the Democratic and Republican parties. Even suggesting that control of the White House or… Read more »

  (JTA) — It kills me to say this, but I may owe a Yom Kippur apology to Dieudonne M’bala M’bala. My extensive reporting about this French comedian of Cameroonian descent consistently portrayed him as a fanatical, vulgar and racist provocateur whose acts serve as a thinly veiled pretext for venting a… Read more »

  (JTA) — Last year I joined some 3,000 people at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark for a wide-screen showing of Mel Brooks’ 1974 Western parody “Blazing Saddles.” In the onstage interview that followed, Brooks, then 89, was beside himself in his delight at sharing his 42-year-old comedy with a real… Read more »

Uri Dromi

Those of us who remember the years before the Yom Kippur War will forever be more cautious than others. Then, Israeli were drunk with euphoria, believing, as the arrogant General Moshe Dayan used to say, that, “Our situation has never been better.” The Egyptian and the Syrian armies were… Read more »

This July, as incoming 2017 Campaign chair for the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, I had the opportunity, with my husband, Bobby Present, and Fran Katz, JFSA senior vice president, to participate in a Jewish Federations of North America Campaign and Directors Mission to France and Israel. The emotional… Read more »

  (JTA) — “If there is something that deprives me of sleep it is the fissures in Israeli society,” former Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon declared, just after he resigned in May. That same day Ehud Barak, who preceded Yaalon as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s defense minister from 2009 to… Read more »

(Kveller via JTA) — This summer, as I put my 8-year-old on the bus to sleepaway camp, he turned to his friend and said, “Let’s get on the bus quickly before our parents can say goodbye and be so embarrassing.” As they ran toward the bus, I could not… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — As progressive American Zionists, we take seriously the critique of Israel and Zionism by professors Hasia Diner and Marjorie N. Feld, contained in their Aug. 1 Haaretz article, “We’re American Jewish Historians. This is why we’ve left Zionism behind.” However, unlike them, we affirm progressive Zionist… Read more »

  TEL AVIV (JTA) — The Israeli prime minister is being investigated, and the media is atwitter. The probe is preliminary and no details have been released. But reports sayBenjamin Netanyahu is suspected of money laundering. His former chief of staff was interrogated recently and held under house arrest, reportedly in connection… Read more »

(JTA) — This week, Pope Francis will be making a pilgrimage to Poland, visiting Auschwitz – the notorious death camp in Poland where 1.1 million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Auschwitz is comprised of two camps: Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II, also called Birkenau. Birkenau is the actual… Read more »

David M. Elcott (Courtesy of Elcott)

  NEW YORK (JTA) — We met Demoz Deboch at services in Gondar, Ethiopia. It was Friday night in June of 2013 and we were surrounded by hundreds of white-clad Falash Mura, the descendants of Jews who were now living a Jewish life in neighborhoods near the Jewish compound set up by… Read more »

MIAMI (JTA) — Growing up, I always dreamed of being a mom. Even as a kid I would brainstorm baby names, tell my dolls bedtime stories and swear that I would be a cool mom and let them eat cookies for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I had it all… Read more »

CLEVELAND (JTA) — Wednesday night’s gripping tale of a dramatic, sudden repudiation of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz by Sheldon Adelson, the major pro-Israel philanthropist and Republican donor, seems a little less consequential in the light of Thursday morning, according to folks who are close with Adelson and his wife, Miriam.… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Ever since the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel began picking up steam three years ago, its proponents have brazenly declared the movement’s inevitable triumph. In April, for example, a pro-divestment group at the University of Chicago issued a statement proclaiming that by the school’s… Read more »