Elan Ezrachi, PhD, is a Jerusalem-based community activist and the recent author of “Awakened Dream – 50 Years of Complex Unification of Jerusalem” (in Hebrew)
Elan Ezrachi
By Elan Ezrachi
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Life Here’s How American Jews Ought To Engage With Israelis
Rachel Cowan first came to Israel in the mid-1960’s with her then-new husband, the journalist Paul Cowan. She was not Jewish at the time. She and Paul were freshly acquainted with the harsh reality of the American South, where they were volunteering then. And as they toured and volunteered in Israel, they witnessed the poverty…
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Community Who Knows What’s Best For Jerusalem?
For the centuries between the destruction of the Jewish Temple and the reclamation of the holy city, Jerusalem’s role to the Jewish nation was largely symbolic. One might imagine that Zionism, and the return of Jews to their ancestral land starting in the late 19th century, would have changed this. But the early Zionists were…
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Community Zionists Have Never Been Fond Of American Jews
Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipy Hotovely’s deplorable dismissal of America’s Jews is sadly not new. Israeli society on the whole, and political and cultural players in particular, have related to American Jews with critique and indifference for decades. As a matter of fact, this disconnect can be traced to the early Zionists who began to form…
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Community Powerful Israeli Advice for Coping with Post Election Day Blues
At this time of devastation and grief it is better to hug, hold hands, exercise and eat well. But since we have already begun a new day in Israel after a restless night, I will offer these words: What you in America are going through is what we have experienced for the past 40 years….
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Opinion What American Jewish Fear Looks Like Through Israeli Eyes
In recent weeks I’ve had many conversations with friends from the United States, some while they were visiting in Israel, others through correspondence and phone calls. In all these talks the issue of Iran came up. “What do you think?” they asked me, the Israeli. “Are you afraid?” Like many other confused lay people, I…
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Opinion Why We Need To Subsidize Teen Travel to Israel
Another summer season has passed and parents of high-school-age teens who wanted to give their children an experience of Israel had to dig deep into their pockets and pay the full cost. Programs for teens that range from three to six weeks can cost up to 10,000 dollars for teens coming from the West Coast…
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Opinion Searching for Normalcy in the Holy City
In June 2009, the Gymnasia Rehavia High School in Jerusalem celebrated its centennial. The school was founded in 1909 and became one of the landmarks of Zionist education, preparing graduates for the heady task of building the modern state of Israel. At this gathering, some 3,000 alumni filled the school’s courtyard ranging from recent graduates…
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Opinion Missing the ‘Experience’ of a Lifetime
One of the direct outcomes of the intifada has been the dramatic decline in the numbers of Jewish visitors to Israel. The most striking of all was the collapse of the “Israel Experience,” as the youth trips to Israel were commonly called during the 1990s. From the summer of 2000, when a record 10,000 North…
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