Opinion

The bloody collision between Israel and Hamas is reaching a significant crossroad, with the U.S. Administration pressuring Israel to stop Operation Protective Edge now, and deal with demilitarization of Gaza later. However, many in Israel, including key ministers in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, believe that stopping Israel’s ground operation now,… Read more »

(JTA) – Now that Hamas appears to have achieved one of the central goals of its confrontation with Israel, the capture of a live Israeli soldier, a number of things are likely to follow. Hamas is going to trumpet its operation as a success, and that assertion will reach… Read more »

(Washington, D.C.) – In July, 1988, a 41-year-old Jewish Women International member in Gaithersburg, Md., was gunned down by her estranged husband in the parking lot of her place of employment. This shocking murder gave the 100-year-old Jewish women’s organization a new mission—to protect all women and girls from… Read more »

The Israeli economist Yaacov Sheinin proposes a bold economic answer to the rockets – but with the repressive Hamas in charge, would it have any chance of materialising? Once again, Israelis and Palestinians have been plunged into another round of violence, which only brings bloodshed and destruction, breeds more… Read more »

At a pro-Israel rally in Los Angeles, the author began to find new meanings for why we mourn on Tisha b’Av. (Edmon J. Rodman)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — After weeks of missiles falling on Israel and bombs dropping on Gaza, we land on Tisha b’Av. With the day-to-day images of explosions and tunnels so fresh, I wondered how they might connect to my mid-summer night’s struggle with the somber holiday’s relevance. Tisha b’Av,… Read more »

On a recent Sunday morning, the Tucson Holocaust Survivors were invited by CUFI to join them at their church for a special prayer service in support of the State of Israel. A full morning was spent in prayers, psalms, lectures, personal testaments, and immersion in the glorious voices of… Read more »

Israelis gather in a public bomb shelter in the southern city of Ashkelon, July 18, 2014. (Miriam Alster/Flash 90)

NEW YORK (JTA) – When the siren sounded, the Rolling Stones’ tortured 1969 track “Gimme Shelter” popped into my head, oddly enough. That haunting song offered a stunning reminder of the endless horrors of war, reawakening a sleepy world with a vivid musical picture of human pain in times… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — On July 18, 1994, a hellish scene unfolded in Buenos Aires as a car bomb set by Iranian agents destroyed the AMIA/DAIA Jewish center, killing 85 people and wounding hundreds. Twenty years later, there is still no justice in the case — and a decision… Read more »

Palestinians walking among the rubble of a destroyed house following an Israeli missile strike, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, July 14, 2014. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash 90)

(JTA) — Israel and Hamas are fighting their third major conflict in six years, and while some things have stayed the same, the battle lines have also shifted in a few notable ways. Here are eight things you need to know about the current conflagration: • Iron Dome has been a… Read more »

The Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) released a study guide titled "Zionism Unsettled" with a companion DVD.

NEW YORK (JTA) — The Jewish world has been shaken by the decision of the Presbyterian Church (USA) to divest from three companies that it claims “further the Israeli occupation of Palestine.” The denomination has placed itself squarely on the side of the divestment movement that seeks to hold Israel solely… Read more »

WESTFIELD, N.J. (N.J. Jewish News) — Over the years, Temple Emanu-El of Westfield, the largest Reform synagogue in New Jersey, has been on the receiving end of public criticism for a variety of reasons. As a newly arrived rabbi in the late-1960s, I learned how our temple was upbraided… Read more »

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin (Stephen Friedgood)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, was inarguably the most well-known rabbi since Moses Maimonides. Hundreds of prominent rabbinic figures have lived in the intervening 800 years since Maimonides died. But how many can be named before an audience of Jews from the… Read more »

  The most recent gun-related murderous rampage in our country has been greeted by an outcry from families of the victims regarding the need for saner gun control policy. We all need to be more passionate about the right of Americans to live in safety and not become innocent… Read more »

The establishment of the Fatah-Hamas government this week put Israel in a delicate situation. It has always been Israel’s firm position that it will not negotiate or deal with Hamas, because it is a terrorist organization bent on destroying Israel. This Israeli policy was fully backed by the “Quartet,”… Read more »

Thousands attend the blessing of the priests during the morning prayer on Shavuot at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City on May 15, 2013. (Silman Khader/Flash 90)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Rabbinic tradition teaches that when God spoke at Sinai, the world was silenced — birds did not sing, breezes did not rustle leaves in the trees. Out of that profound silence came the word, and were the world silent again, for even an instant, we could… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — In the charming movie “Groundhog Day,” Bill Murray’s character repeatedly relives the same day until learning from the repetition transforms him from lout to worthy wooer of his colleague, played by Andie MacDowell. The “Groundhog Day” of Presbyterian-Jewish relations is coming soon to a theater… Read more »

Palestinian children play in a damaged building with a swastika and the Star of David painted on it in a Gaza refugee camp in 2005. The ADL survey found that 93 percent of respondents in the West Bank and Gaza have anti-Semitic views. (Abid Katib/Getty Images)

The Anti-Defamation League’s Global 100 Index of Anti-Semitism is the broadest public opinion survey of attitudes toward Jews ever conducted. It is one of the most important efforts we have undertaken in our history as an organization. The survey was conducted in more than 100 countries and territories, and… Read more »

Elderly Ukrainians receive food packages at the Hesed social welfare center in Donetsk run by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. (Courtesy JDC)

(JTA) — At the end of “Fiddler on the Roof,” the classic musical celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, Tevye and his family flee their village of Anatevka for a better and safer life. In reality, however, not everybody left. Today, several hundred thousand Jews still live in Ukraine,… Read more »

Members of UCLA's student government listen to supporters and opponents of a divestment resolution targeting Israel in a session that stretched into the early morning hours of Feb. 26, 2014. (Courtesy of StandWithUs)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) – UCLA has some proud moments in the history of civil liberties. After World War II, UCLA and the University of California, Berkeley, were the hotbeds of opposition to an anti-communist loyalty oath that California tried to impose on academics. Ultimately the professors won in court… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — The recent vote by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations rejecting J Street’s membership bid was not entirely surprising. J Street had been reaching out to conference members and community contacts for weeks. We knew that gaining the necessary two-thirds majority was… Read more »