Opinion

(JTA) — A former Clinton administration envoy has let the cat out of the bag on the issue of Palestinian incitement, putting him squarely at odds with Secretary of State John Kerry. Shibley Telhami was one of the Clinton administration’s representatives to the Trilateral U.S.-Israeli-Palestinian Anti-Incitement Committee. Never heard… Read more »

This week we have learned that Adam Everett Livvix, a 30-year-old from Texas, was arrested in Israel for allegedly plotting to attack the Dome of the Rock with explosives. Thanks to the collaboration between Israeli security agencies and the FBI, an incident of colossal implications was prevented. The Palestinians,… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — I sat down last week to write about what happened in Ferguson. As I began to write, there was no doubt in my mind that there would be a “next time” as soon as we hit the next news cycle, if not sooner. Then I heard… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — A Swiss museum’s pledge this week to conduct a full search into the provenance of some 1,600 works of art it plans to accept from the estate of Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of one of Hitler’s main art dealers, once again has thrust the issue… Read more »

Uri Dromi

Recently, I hosted at the Jerusalem Press Club a group of students from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in Chicago. They came to learn firsthand about the complexities of covering Israel and the Middle East. With the growing hostility toward Israel on campuses all over North… Read more »

Our country finds itself at a crossroads. The past months have uncovered an animosity that is growing within our politics. At a time when we need steady courage in Congress, extremism finds a way to blot out any movement toward bipartisanship. Still, like President Obama, I believe we are… Read more »

Demonstrators walk together during a protest Dec. 3, 2014 in New York. Protests began after a Grand Jury decided to not indict officer Daniel Pantaleo. Eric Garner died after being put in a chokehold on July 17, 2014. (Yana Paskova/Getty Images)

NEW YORK (JTA) — The words of Leviticus (19:16) admonish us not to “stand idly by while the blood of your neighbor is shed.” These words should sting our ears and shock our conscience in the wake of a Staten Island grand jury’s decision not to indict a New… Read more »

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (JTA) — I never imagined that a day would come when some of the world’s leading corporations would fund calls for Israel’s destruction, let alone at one of the world’s most prestigious universities. But that is exactly what happened last month at Harvard. My invitation to “Harvard… Read more »

Last weekend, the Max Rayne Hand in Hand School for Bilingual Education in West Jerusalem was a target of a terrible and tragic arson attack, deliberately aimed at a beacon for tolerance and understanding between Jews, Christians and Muslims in Israeli society where coexistence is now under extreme duress.… Read more »

With all the conversations surrounding the allegations against my congregation’s former rabbi, Barry Freundel, no one is saying what desperately needs to be said — that voyeurism is sexual assault and that eliminating sexual assault in our communities should be the direction of our next steps. In emails, blogs… Read more »

A man views a bullet hole inside the Jerusalem synagogue where two terrorists with a gun and knives killed five people and injured eight during morning services, Nov. 18. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash 90)

After a gruesome attack by two Palestinian cousins left five dead at a Jerusalem synagogue, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu singled out one person for blame: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. In a statement issued by his office, Abbas denounced the Tuesday morning attack, saying he “condemns the killing… Read more »

There has always been an anti-Israel presence in the American left, but it’s previously mostly been on the fringe. Now it seems that it may be becoming mainstream among liberal millennials (people reaching young adulthood around 2000). I recently experienced this at the All Souls Procession, one of the… Read more »

Yesterday’s appalling tragedy has shaken Jews the world over. In the peaceful, beautiful neighborhood of Har Nof, Jerusalem, worshipers at a synagogue were brutally attacked by Palestinian terrorists wielding guns and butcher cleavers. Within a half hour, five women became widows and 24 children became orphans. The enormity of the tragedy… Read more »

We are still reeling from the horrible terrorist attack on a Jerusalem synagogue in which five people were killed during morning prayers, leaving four widows and 24 fatherless children on a single street in the neighborhood of Har Nof. What is the correct response to such an outrage, and… Read more »

A Torah reading at Adas Israel Congregation, a Conservative synagogue in Washington. (Courtesy Adas Israel)

NEW YORK (JTA) — As the Jewish Federations of North America held its annual General Assembly this week, newly emerging evidence from the Pew Research Center’s 2013 “Portrait of American Jewry” points to enormous challenges facing federations, Jewish philanthropy and organized Jewish life, more generally. Virtually every Jewish institution… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Joe and Bibi? Still buddies. U.S. and Israel? Still allies. Agreement on Iran and the Palestinians? Well. The governments of President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were back on joshing terms this week, but the deep differences that led to recent name-calling exchanges still… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Each year on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, we recall the opening salvo of the violent assault on Jews that foreshadowed the Holocaust and ask ourselves what should have been done at that moment. In thinking about Kristallnacht, we should also consider the outpouring of violence… Read more »

Participants taking in a session at the 2013 General Assembly in Jerusalem. (Courtesy Jewish Federations of North America)

(JTA) — Reinventing. Rethinking. Rebranding. Innovating. They’re all buzzwords we hear today whether talking about education, health care, product marketing or Jewish communal work. We’re living in a time in which endless access to information and 24-hour communication is challenging us to question just about everything. As a result,… Read more »

“A cold man who is developing a grudge against Israel is now sitting in the White House,” a leading Israeli journalist wrote some years back. Today, many in Israel, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, might share this view. At the same time, there is no love in the White… Read more »

A protester at a vigil for 18-year-old Michael Brown across the street from the police station in Ferguson, Mo., Oct. 20, 2014. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

MINNEAPOLIS (JTA) — Early last week, national faith leaders called rabbis, pastors, priests and imams to Ferguson, Mo., a city rife with racial violence and pain. Along with my rabbinic colleagues from Truah: The Rabbinic Call for Justice, I responded to the call to the people of Ferguson that… Read more »