Opinion

We appreciate the Post’s coverage of how Jewish Family & Children’s Services has expanded its capacity to serve the community (“Partnerships help JFCS expand behavioral health care services,” AJP 5/17/13). Your article also pointed out how important our expert counseling and social services are to vulnerable people of all… Read more »

The nomination of Samantha Power for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations has drawn the Jewish community’s attention to her controversial 2002 remark about hypothetical U.S. action against Israel to protect Palestinians from genocide. But Power’s confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate is also likely to address a broader… Read more »

Throughout our four years in college, Hillel has been our home on campus. We have been involved extensively, with one of us serving as president on campus and on the Hillel international board. While we both found in Hillel a supportive community, when it came to our relationship to… Read more »

What could Goebbels have done with 140 characters? The question, disturbing as it might sound, can no longer be approached only as theoretical. As the arch-propagandist of Nazism, Joseph Goebbels spread the demonic messages of his Fuehrer via the written word, mass demonstrations, radio and film. He used those… Read more »

The article by Rabbi Marc Schneier (“Netanyahu must take page from Sadat,” AJP 5/17/13) contends that this is “an opportunity for peace with the Palestinians.” The latter always present conditions that are totally unacceptable to Israel, and they know it. Furthermore, at present, there is peace, and there will… Read more »

It’s that time of year, when Jewish institutions pull out their 2013-14 calendars and fill them with events. Many of the programs are very good, with clever names and slick marketing: Jews and Brews, for young federation leadership; L’mazeltov, for expectant parents; Torah and Tacos, for synagogue members who… Read more »

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is correct to describe a new proposal by the Arab League to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks as “a very big step forward.” Yet there will be no serious movement toward peace until Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responds to the Arab League initiative… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Until recently, I thought of Ruth, the heroine of Shavuot, as a positive role model, a woman who made good choices, was strong and fulfilled. But lately I’ve been rethinking this and focusing on the strange dynamics of what appears to be an unhealthy, possibly abusive,… Read more »

Gun violence is a public health problem, and Arizona’s children are not immune from this epidemic. As pediatricians responsible for the health and welfare of our patients, we must discuss the facts, and that includes the risks of keeping guns in a home. Research shows that even when children… Read more »

I attended Yafit Josephson’s performance of “New Eyes” at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on April 22 and feel compelled to write. Yafit put on a solo, autobiographical show during which I laughed and cried with her, as she tried to identify who she is: Is she an Israeli… Read more »

Harold Berman

One Christmas eve, as Jews across the country headed for Chinese restaurants, I found myself in a church choir. The church, on the outskirts of Boston and straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting, had hired me to sing for their service. As the clock struck 11, I entered… Read more »

The Arab League made some headlines this week, when its representative, Sheik Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, Qatar’s prime minister, conveyed in Washington something that looks like a softening of the traditional Arab hard line towards the solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead of returning to the pre-1967 borders, he… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — I have mixed emotions about Natan Sharansky’s proposed agreement to expand the public space at the Western Wall to include the currently secluded area known as Robinson’s Arch. As a lifelong Conservative Jew, I applaud any plan that seeks to treat egalitarian worshipers and women’s… Read more »

Sarah Chandler

FALLS VILLAGE, Conn. (JTA) — Judaism is designed to be a person’s operating system, the platform on which other areas of one’s life functions. But for many Jews, religious practice sits on a shelf alongside theater subscriptions, gym memberships and soccer practice, relegated to one of many offerings from which… Read more »

JTA recently reported on a new alliance between Jewish leaders and domestic gas and oil companies (see https://azjewishpost.com/?p=21879). Called the Council for a Secure America, the alliance is based on a “common interest” between American Jews and domestic energy companies to “increase domestic oil and gas production and to… Read more »

One act, more than any other, is indispensible from the Passover story: If God had not intervened, we would still be slaves. There would have been no Exodus, no Sinai, no bright future for the Jewish people. For the sake of a future nation, God intervened to save 600,000… Read more »

Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter appears on a hologram-like interactive presentation developed by the USC Shoah Foundation. (USC Institute for Creative Technology)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — In a dark glass building here, Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter shows that his memory is crystal clear and his voice is strong. His responses seem a bit delayed — not that different from other survivors I have known who are reluctant to speak openly about… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — As of 2012, one in 20 Americans is identifying themselves as an atheist, agnostic or unbeliever. According to the research done by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released last year, nearly 33 million Americans list themselves with no religious affiliation. While it’s… Read more »

Probably no more than the top 10 percent of Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jews will ever shop at Pomegranate, the luxury kosher supermarket recently featured by The New York Times columnist David Brooks in a column titled “The Orthodox Surge.” Brooks chose the upscale kosher version of Whole Foods as the… Read more »

Israeli President Shimon Peres presents the Presidential Medal to President Obama at Peres' residence in Jerusalem, March 21, 2013. (Mark Neyman/GPO/Flash90/JTA)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — President Obama had three goals for his first presidential trip to Israel. He wanted to persuade Israelis that the United States is committed to preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. He wanted to promote the renewal of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, albeit without any specific “deliverables.” Most… Read more »