Opinion

NEW YORK (JTA) — The destruction of Solomon’s Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE was the first great national tragedy in Jewish history. During the subsequent exile, four fast days commemorating the calamitous event were added to the Jewish calendar: the 10th day of the Hebrew month of… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — The teacher stands in front of the sparse classroom, its walls bare and paint peeling. “This school looks like a prison,” one of my fellow travelers whispers. Many of the children are huddled in coats; schools in this neighborhood do not have heat, and the… Read more »

(JTA) — A well-known D.C. maxim advises that any economic stimulus must be timely, targeted and temporary. So as legislators begin drafting the 2012 Farm Bill, why are some proposing to cut a program that responds in direct relation to need, supports recipients for an average of just nine… Read more »

Noam E. Marans

As Christians and Jews gather during their respective Easter and Passover holidays, we should recall all that Jews and liberal Protestants in America share and have accomplished together. But pride in the past should not blind us to the danger that this relationship could be derailed by pernicious responses… Read more »

Simon Greer

Mark Twain famously distrusted statistics. This was due to their malleability. Ask the question the right way, and you can claim a mandate for anything. In contemporary society, statistics are often used to provide “unbiased evidence” for our pre-existing viewpoints. This is not to say that statistics tell us… Read more »

Nancy Kaufman

Last week, many of us followed with much anxiety the Supreme Court debate about the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, referred to in some circles as “Obamacare.” Of great interest to the average American was the challenge to the requirement that almost all Americans have health insurance coverage.… Read more »

Re: “Toulouse attack leaves French Jews shaken” (AJP 3/23/12). There’s an old French proverb, “Autres temps, autres moeurs.” English equivalent: “times change.” I thought of that saying after hearing about the world’s response to the recent murders of three Jewish children and a teacher at the Ozar Hatorah school… Read more »

SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) – Pundits have been pointing fingers since a recent poll found that 50 percent of Mississippi and Alabama GOP supporters said they believe that President Obama is a Muslim (with approximately another 40 percent in both states saying they are unsure). Some accuse Republicans of attempting… Read more »

I am a Holocaust survivor and an active member of the community. My brother-in-law David Goldman is in dire need of a kidney donor as the kidney that my wife (his sister) donated to him 25 years ago is no longer working. He has been on dialysis for over… Read more »

Rafael Medoff

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to the Holocaust in his March 5 speech at AIPAC for the same reason that President Shimon Peres referred to it in his speech the day before and President Obama alluded to it in his news conference the day after: Because in the… Read more »

Michael Lerner

When I learned of the murder of dozens of members of my family in the Holocaust and then met my Israeli relatives whose Auschwitz numbers could hardly be missed on their arms, I decided to dedicate my life to challenging war, the denial of human rights, the hatred of… Read more »

As a child, I proudly brought my spare change to Hebrew school to drop in the little blue boxes. With this money, my teachers told me, the Jewish National Fund would plant trees in Israel. I never imagined that these nickels and dimes would also help to evict Palestinians… Read more »

The Jewish National Fund plants trees, builds a nation and unifies a people. As a child growing up in a small town in Texas, I dropped my coins in the Blue Box in Hebrew school. My parents and grandparents raised me on the importance and the power of the… Read more »

Last month, a contingent of leaders from the North American Conservative movement returned to the United States. All the members of this mission, rabbis, congregation leaders and philanthropists, had already been to Israel dozens of times. They are major activists in Jewish Federations, AIPAC, Hadassah, you name it. They… Read more »

(JTA) — Thirty years ago, a Jewish woman experiencing domestic violence had few places to turn. Community leaders strongly resisted acknowledging violence for fear that it would harm marriages and break up families. Few services existed for women seeking support in a Jewish setting. Prior to 1994, the U.S.… Read more »

I have been watching for reactions from the Arizona Jewish Post about Noam Chomsky’s well-attended appearances at the University of Arizona. I attended both of his lectures and was impressed with the large crowds … completely filled halls for his lectures on language and education. Dr. Chomsky was introduced… Read more »

Israel’s best kept secret is not of the “maybe yes, maybe no” variety. In fact it is a “yes” so definitive that it has 162 million Google entries. Honest. That’s Google’s response when you type in “Israel’s nuclear policy” — books, articles, essays, arguments, all blithely recognizing that Israel… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — During February, Jewish communities across North America observe Jewish Disability Awareness Month. It is an opportunity for us to raise awareness of the needs, strengths, opportunities and challenges of individuals with disabilities in our communities, and to ensure we are building more inclusive communities that celebrate… Read more »

Regarding Uriel Heilman’s article “Extreme column raises question: Why do some Jews see Obama as sinister?” in the Jan. 27 issue of the Arizona Jewish Post: That headline caught my attention but did not answer the question as to why they said what they said! I was shocked to… Read more »

I hope I’m not the only reader who was offended by the article by Uriel Heilman. While reporting on a wholly deplorable piece that appeared in the Atlanta Jewish Times, Heilman appears to give credence to the canard that President Obama is a secret Muslim bent on destroying Israel.… Read more »