Opinion

NEW YORK (JTA) — There is a solution to get us beyond the seemingly endless stalemates and complications that continue to characterize the ongoing debate over Holocaust-era insurance claims. And I do not believe it can be found in the well-intentioned bill before the U.S. Congress. This different approach… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — My “Spidey Sense” is tingling! Almost half a century after the comic book superhero Spider-Man was conceived by Jewish writer Stan Lee, a Jewish actor named Andrew Garfield will don the red and blue Spandex for the forthcoming cinematic reboot of the Spider-Man franchise. As… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Several important Jewish organizations are standing behind a critical international treaty to support civil rights, dignity and hope for people with disabilities. However, grass-roots help is urgently needed to get it approved by the U.S. Senate before the political season overtakes the ability to get things… Read more »

When Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told the passionately pro-Israel members of the Faith and Freedom Coalition that he would “do the opposite” of the things that President Obama has done regarding Israel, the room erupted in applause. They understood exactly what he meant because they know that the… Read more »

Gov. Mitt Romney has made some outrageous comments and taken some extreme positions in this presidential campaign. But few, if any, are more baffling than his latest statement on his plans for the U.S.-Israel relationship. Asked last weekend what he would do to strengthen America’s alliance with Israel, he… Read more »

Woody Allen quipped that when he was a kid, he used to get beaten up by Quakers. That happened to me (figuratively) just last week at the Churches for Middle East Peace Advocacy Conference in Washington. I was the only rabbi at the conference and with the exception of… Read more »

(JTA) — The 2011 Jewish Community Study of New York was released with some fanfare earlier this month. Some of the UJA-Federation of New York’s survey results came as somewhat of a surprise. After a decrease from about 2 million Jews in 1970 to 1.4 million in both 1991… Read more »

A recent article by Israeli journalist Yaron London headlined “We Need Fewer Haredim” and two major pieces in The New York Times about the haredi approach to sex abuse cases highlight the challenge and the need to address serious issues emanating from the haredi world without demonizing an entire… Read more »

It’s time for pro-Israel leaders, organizations and activists to ask themselves not only, “are we doing things right?” but also “are we doing the right things?” Sadly, many pro-Israel groups and leaders are focused on the wrong things. Thus, here are some ideas for what American leaders, non-profits and… Read more »

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — President Obama made a simple and very basic mistake when he spoke of Polish death camps during the presentation of a posthumous Medal of Freedom to Jan Karski, a Polish resistance fighter who was among the first to report German atrocities in his country. The… Read more »

Daniel Pipes

The fetid, dark heart of the Arab war on Israel, I have long argued, lies not in disputes over Jerusalem, checkpoints, or “settlements.” Rather, it concerns the so-called Palestine refugees. So-called because of the nearly 5 million official refugees served by UNRWA (short for the “United Nations Relief and… Read more »

When a family member behaves self-destructively, what do you do? Do you become an apologist, an enabler, or do you call him out? Do you blame everyone else but him, or do you intervene? Do you sit back and just hope things will improve on their own, or do… Read more »

GREENSBORO, N.C. (JTA) — The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” Since the May 8 vote to approve North Carolina’s Amendment One referendum, which constitutionally bars the state from recognizing as legal any marriage… Read more »

(Jewish Ideas Daily) — There is a lot of hand-wringing these days about whether the rising costs of Jewish day schools are sustainable. The discussion has been about money, but this misses the point: The largest costs of day school tuition are not financial but moral, and the key… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Unlike other Jewish holidays, the Torah does not specify a date for Shavuot; it is celebrated on the 50th day (seven weeks) after Passover. We moderns celebrate Shavuot on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Sivan; in ancient times, when the first day of… Read more »

After two decades, peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians have failed to bear fruit or bring about two independent states for two peoples. Recent polls demonstrate that as a result, Israelis and Palestinians are growing skeptical about the viability of a two-state solution. However, the most commonly discussed alternative,… Read more »

A haredi Orthodox man watching Israeli soldiers as an army ceremony at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Feb. 22, 2012. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90/JTA)

(JTA) – Israel’s new unity government may not alter Jerusalem’s strategy for curbing Iran’s nuclear weapons program or do much to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. It could, however, dramatically change something at home about which a huge number of Israelis care deeply: haredi Orthodox exemptions from military service.… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — With the contemporary music world buzzing about Regina Spektor’s upcoming album more than a month before its release, I cannot help but think about the young musician’s rise in the context of Russian-speaking Jewry. Spektor, who came to the United States with her parents when… Read more »

This year’s Yom HaShoah commemoration was, as were all of our past commemorations, moving and heartbreaking. This year’s, however, was utterly remarkable and several people are to be commended for their role in creating our remembrance. First, thank you to Melissa Hamilton, a caring, soft-spoken violist with the Tucson… Read more »

It is remarkable how much press secular humanist Judaism is getting these days! I was delighted to read the article in the last AJP about Judaism without God (“Can religion, especially Judaism, work if you don’t believe in God?” AJP 4/20/12). A few years ago I was one of… Read more »