A house of cards (Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Thirty years ago, Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality as a way to help explain the oppression of African-American women. The theory of how different forms of discrimination interact is a useful tool to recognize the way privilege and oppression overlap. It can serve to… Read more »
The Orthodox Union's youth organization sold more than 4,000 tickets to Six Flags Great Adventure on the first day of chol hamoed, Passover's intermediate days, April 25, 2016. (Uriel Heilman)
(JTA) — The 2013 Pew survey “A Portrait of Jewish Americans” shows that Orthodox Judaism, while currently attracting the allegiance of only about 10 percent of all American Jews, is the fastest growing sector of the community. The high birthrate and retention rate confirmed by the survey have led some observers to predict that within a generation, American Jewry will… Read more »
Jessica Montell (Courtesy B'Tselem) JERUSALEM (JTA) — According to press reports, the crowd at a recent Republican Jewish Coalition conference “noticeably gasped” when New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie referred to the West Bank as “occupied territories.” Christie promptly apologized to the event’s host, mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, clarifying that his remarks “were not meant… Read more »
Alan Baker (Courtesy Alan Baker) JERUSALEM (JTA) — When New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie apologized to Republican donor Sheldon Adelson for using the term “occupied territories” to refer to the West Bank, critics pounced. Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” ridiculed the apology, insisting that the phrase is “widely accepted” and accurate. While the… Read more »
Jonathan S. Tobin In the past few weeks, Secretary of State John Kerry has come under attack from prominent Israelis as well as American friends of the Jewish state for some of the methods he has adopted in his determination to find a solution to the Middle East conflict. Such criticism strikes… Read more »
Rabbi Sharon Brous John Kerry is not a naive man. I met him recently at a luncheon at Georgetown University with a small group of Christian, Muslim and Jewish faith leaders brought together to hear the secretary of state’s frank reflections on the peace process. While deeply aware of the complexities and… Read more »
EFRAT, West Bank (JTA) — The reputable car dealer’s advertisement in the local paper screams “Brand New Mercedes — Only $500!” You get excited but think it sounds too good to be true. Upon closer inspection, it is: The car dealer is offering only the hubcaps of the Mercedes… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) — Right now, there is just one way for someone who is not Jewish to become Jewish in a publicly recognized and officially authorized fashion: undergo religious conversion under the auspices of a rabbi. Whether the path to Jewish identification follows Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist or… Read more »
During the Vietnam War protests at the University of Wisconsin, students were said to have gathered on the front lawn of noted historian George Mosse, imploring him to stop supporting the university’s policy of allowing the ROTC on campus. To some students, this alignment with the machinery of war… Read more »
Is it appropriate for a respected institution to sponsor or host a speaker who harshly accuses the Israeli government of standing in the way of Middle East peace or grossly violating human rights because of its policies toward the Palestinians? Absolutely. While American Jews overwhelmingly disagree with these broad… Read more »
Can you imagine Israel without a free, independent, vociferous and diverse media? Can you imagine Israel without Maariv and Haaretz? Without biting commentary, investigative reporting and an open, cacophonous marketplace of views and ideas? Such an Israel terrifies me, and it should alarm you, too. It is not the… Read more »
Liberal pundits have coined a new saw: Sheldon Adelson and the newspaper he owns, Israel Hayom, are primarily responsible for the collapse of many Israeli media outlets, and this endangers Israeli democracy. The assertion is wrong on both the business and ideological levels. The imminent failures of Maariv and… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — At the end of the month, Mitt Romney will visit Jerusalem. It has become a ritual of American politics for presidential candidates to pay a visit to Israel, but this is certainly not Romney’s first trip to Israel — this will mark his fourth visit — and… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) — Throughout a half-century of international diplomatic work, I have learned to tell the politicians from the friends and the charlatans from the statesmen. Charlatans scream. They tell you what you want to hear and call other people names. Friends and leaders need not rely on rhetoric… 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 »
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 »
