Opinion

NEW YORK (JTA) — I have no patience for survival Judaism. Whenever I hear someone talk about what Jews must do in order to “survive,” I head for the door. Joel Alperson has joined the long list of Jewish communal leaders offering a formula for Jewish survival. Along the… Read more »

OMAHA, Neb. (JTA) — At least a portion of my hometown of Omaha, Neb., may well be under water in the coming days. Pumps are in place at various locations, including at a nuclear power plant located not far from town. The Missouri River, which borders our city, has… Read more »

As a recent high school graduate who will be traveling to Israel for a nine-month program of study, I feel the need to respond to the letter written by Mr. Julius Gordon, “West Bank, Warsaw ghetto alike.” Ever since 1967 and Israel’s acquisition of the West Bank, there has… Read more »

Regarding the letters to the editor of July 1 about Israel’s disregard for human rights, I found them to be sad, naíve, totally untrue and with a complete lack of history about the Holy Land. Before the legal partition of 1948, the small Jewish population was subject to pogroms,… Read more »

My wife and I are considering relocating from Northern New Jersey to the Tucson area. To learn more about Jewish life in Arizona, we subscribed recently to the Arizona Jewish Post. Letters from members of the Arizona Jewish community obviously are of great interest to us since they reflect… Read more »

Guy Gelbart, community shaliach, was absolutely right in his June 17 column, “Billed as dialogue on Israeli-Palestinian peace, local series is pure ‘hate pill.’” The letter writers who responded to his column — and there’s no room to refute all their unfounded accusations — disingenuously suggested that the Steadfast… Read more »

A July 1 letter to the AJP titled “West Bank, Warsaw ghetto alike,” inverts the Holocaust by claiming that Israel behaves like Nazi Germany. The letter was written with the aim of clarifying the “obfuscation,” “distraction” and “fabrication” the author found in the “Shaliach’s View” column of June 17,… Read more »

I too attended the Steadfast Hope series referred to in the letters to the editor of July 1 and in Guy Gelbart’s “Shaliach’s View” column of June 17. The organizers’ synchronized letter attacks on Israel’s representative, Mr. Gelbart, who responded to the content of the presentations and the manner… Read more »

Members of a young adult group in Kiryat Malachi, Israel, sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, recruited other young adults from the city to demand affordable housing. The sign reads, “Welcome to the tent city — Kiryat Malachi.” About 100 people joined the protest on July 25. (Courtesy Jewish Agency for Israel)

The wave of protests sweeping Israel is about much more than the lack of affordable housing: It’s a grass-roots demand for a major redistribution of the nation’s wealth. In social terms, protesters are calling for a more caring government attuned to the needs of young, middle-class citizens who serve… Read more »

(JTA) — For decades after World War II, far-right political movements in Europe stirred up for Jews images of skinheads and Nazi storm troopers marching across the continent. But in recent years, as European xenophobia has focused on the exploding growth of Muslims on the continent, right-wing anti-Semitism has… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — The Conservative movement, through its Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, has taken a historic step in acknowledging that deaf and hard-of-hearing people are entitled to stand with the Jewish community as equals. Not only did the law committee vote to recognize the users of… Read more »

We have received a few calls and e-mails inquiring as to the nonprofit status of the Jewish History Museum based on an article in the Arizona Daily Star on Sunday, June 19, 2011. The article directed the reader to a list of Arizona nonprofits that were being declassified by… Read more »

I was a participant in the Steadfast Hope series that Guy Gelbart refers to in his “Shaliach’s View” column in the June 17 issue of the Arizona Jewish Post. I really cannot disagree with him more on his characterization of the series as a “hate pill.” The series was… Read more »

Thank you to Guy Gelbart for informing the wider Jewish community about our series: Steadfast Hope, the Palestinian Quest for Just Peace. For people interested in the topic of Israel/Palestine, we will offer other, similar programs in the future. As one of the organizers and presenters of the series,… Read more »

I am not part of the organizing team that presented the Steadfast Hope series, but I was a member of the audience, so I know that most of what the shaliach said after the event is pure obfuscation and distraction and in many instances simply fabrication. According to the… Read more »

NEW YORK — Circumcision, or brit milah, has long been the stuff of cheap jokes and comedy. But in recent weeks, what used to be nothing more than harmless fare has taken on a much more serious tone. So-called “intactivists” on the fringe left of American politics have pushed… Read more »

JERUSALEM — The pressure on Mahmoud Abbas to back down from plans to seek recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations in September is intensifying. Squeezed by a combination of concerted American pressure and intense Israeli diplomacy, some top Palestinian leaders are urging the Palestinian Authority’s president to… Read more »

Newt Gingrich, a Republican candidate for president, speaks at the republican Jewish Coalition's California summer bash in Beverly Hills, June 12, 2011. (Zach Abrams)

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (JTA) – Israel and America are at a dangerous crossroads in which the survival of Israel and the safety of the United States both hang in the balance. Year after year, the forces of terrorism become stronger, and the claims of terrorists become more acceptable to… Read more »

Stuart Eizenstat (JPPPI)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A strong secure Jewish state of Israel, supported by the United States as a close ally, has been a central feature of my public and private careers. As a senior government official in several administrations, an American and a Jew, I see Israel from multiple perspectives.… Read more »

President Obama is a stalwart friend of Israel. That’s the message some top Democratic Jewish figures are promoting to push back against the notion that Obama is out of step with the pro- Israel and Jewish communities. This month, two figures associated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee… Read more »