Tagged Zionism

NEW YORK (JTA) – In 2019, there are more haters than lovers of the Jewish Left. Especially in the United States, the mainstream Jewish community reviles left-wing Jews who embrace anti-Zionism. Meanwhile, the Jewish Left itself is split. On one side are the “Left Zionists” who support a two-state… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — All too often, when I ask campus organizations that are pro-Israel and deeply Zionist why they avoid using the “Z-word” in their messaging and literature, I’m told, “Zionism doesn’t poll well.” True, not polling well is one of today’s great sins. But imagine what our world would be… Read more »

  NEW YORK (JTA) — Two weeks ago the Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour started a fundraising campaign to help restore the graves at a St. Louis-area Jewish cemetery damaged by vandalism. The Jewish community there and across the country generally welcomed the effort — wildly successful, as it turned… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — As progressive American Zionists, we take seriously the critique of Israel and Zionism by professors Hasia Diner and Marjorie N. Feld, contained in their Aug. 1 Haaretz article, “We’re American Jewish Historians. This is why we’ve left Zionism behind.” However, unlike them, we affirm progressive Zionist… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — When a pro-Israel U.S. lawmaker greeted a member of Israel’s Knesset here last week, the former may not have anticipated the candor of the latter. “Give me good news,” Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., told Merav Michaeli on April 13, a typical request when the ranking Democrat on the… Read more »

NIJKERK, Netherlands (JTA) — As a boy, Pieter van Oordt would often accompany his father, Karel, on the elder van Oordt’s weekly shopping excursions specifically seeking out products made in Israel. A Christian Zionist businessman in Amersfoort, some 25 miles east of Amsterdam, Karel van Oordt sought to strengthen… Read more »

LOD, Israel (JTA) — He says he’s a leader of a “Zionist settlement” movement, but Raz Sofer’s home is no West Bank outpost. Sofer, 25, is the manager of a 100-member student village in this mixed Jewish-Arab city in central Israel. The village, comprised of several apartment complexes, offers… Read more »

One of the professional hazards of columnists today is the temptation to borrow from the wealth of materials available on the Internet without giving proper credit to their authors. I guess that if Moses came down from Mount Sinai today, he would add an 11th commandment: Thou shall not… Read more »

Hundreds of thousands of haredi Orthodox Jews protesting a measure to draft them into the Israeli military, March 2, 2014. (Yaakov Naumi/FLASH90)

 JERUSALEM (JTA) — Beneath banners invoking historic calamities from the Egyptian enslavement to the Holocaust, hundreds of thousand of haredi Orthodox men gathered on the streets of Jerusalem to recite psalms and penitential prayers as they inveighed against an enemy they consider on par with Hitler and the ancient… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — For those of us who closely follow the progress in America in the battles against racism and anti-Semitism, the observance of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday this year has particular relevance. First, the King holiday, which this year is observed on Jan. 21,… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA)  — Those who view American-Israeli relations through a dualistic “are you pro-Israel or anti-Israel” lens must be confused. In one week, the United States stands virtually alone with Israel against the Palestinians’ upgrade of their status at the United Nations, then immediately condemns Israel’s settlement expansion. Similarly,… Read more »

Left to Right, some key players in the Israeli elections coming up on Jan. 22: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud, Tzipi Livni of the New Movement Party and Shelly Yachimovich of Labor. (Yossi Zamir/Miriam Alster/Flash 90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) – Two months ago, the strategy for victory was clear: To unseat Benjamin Netanyahu in elections on Jan. 22, Israel’s handful of center-left parties had to unite under one banner and choose a leader who could challenge the Israeli prime minister on issues of diplomacy and security.… Read more »

Jews from Copenhagen and Malmo attending a Holocaust commermoration ceremony in Malmo's Jewish cemetary, Sept. 23, 2012. (Cnaan Liphshiz)

MALMO, Sweden (JTA) — Across Scandinavia, the kipah is becoming a symbol of Jewish defiance. On Sunday, about 70 Danish Jews took a double-decker bus from Copenhagen on a 10-mile bridge across the Strait of Øresund, on the Baltic Sea, to go to Malmo in a show of solidarity… Read more »

(Jewish Ideas Daily) — For those who have been taught—by Peter Beinart or some other recent chronicler of Israel’s history—that Zionism only began to go awry after 1967, Patrick Tyler’s new book, “Fortress Israel: The Inside Story of the Military Elite who Run the Country—and Why They Can’t Make Peace,”… Read more »

Left to right, Ed Hofland, David Rosenblatt and Yosef Abramowitz, co-founders of the Arava Power Company. (Courtesy Arava Power Company)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Yosef Abramowitz is running out of time. With only minutes to go until he has to speak to a group of donors at the Jewish National Fund, Abramowitz looks like he just finished a workout. He’s wearing sneakers, shorts and a white T-shirt featuring an… Read more »

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with his father, Benzion, at a memorial day for Yoni Netanyahu at Mount Herzl military cemetary in Jerusalem, June 26, 2007. (Michael Fattal/Flash90)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Benzion Netanyahu — historian, one-time political activist and father of Israel’s prime minister — died Monday in Jerusalem at 102. An accomplished scholar and the patriarch of one of Israel’s most important political families, he also played a surprising and little-known role in American political… Read more »

President Obama embraces Elie Wiesel before delivering a speech about the Holocaust and its meaning at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, April 23, 2012. (Courtesy USHMM)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — One by one, the emails from the White House arrived in inboxes across Washington on Monday morning, each highlighting a unique initiative toward a different corner of the globe: Syria. Iran. Uganda. The unifying factor was the president’s appearance that day at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial… Read more »

Djerba Jews spending some time at the El-Ghriba Synagogue on Tunisia's southern island. (upyneroz via CC)

TUNIS (JTA) — Tucked on a quiet side street blocks from the Mediterranean Sea, the last kosher restaurant in the Tunisian capital is a thriving center of Jewish tradition in a country of 10 million with nearly an entirely Arab and Muslim population. Yet Jacob Lellouche, who has owned… Read more »

Peter Beinart, shown in a February 2009 address to the Center for American Progress, stirred controversy this week with his call for a boycott of goods made in Israeli settlements. (Center for American Progress via Creative Commons)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Should Jews shun other Jews? And should they shun Jews who call on Jews to shun other Jews? Peter Beinart’s call in Monday’s New York Times for a boycott of goods manufactured in West Bank settlements reignited a debate not just about what works and doesn’t… Read more »

Kenneth Bob

  David Ben Gurion, who later became the founding prime minister of Israel, was the leader of the Labor Zionist movement that led the pre-state Jewish Palestine community and provided the core values to the emerging state. It was not a coincidence that when it was necessary to establish… Read more »