Eric Yoffie
By Eric Yoffie
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Opinion An Appeal to My Muslim Friends
I need your help and your reassurance. This is, I know, a time of great uncertainty in large stretches of the Muslim world. The Middle East is in turmoil. Dictators have been toppled, others cling desperately to power, and demonstrators fill the streets and the squares of the Arab world to demand freedom. I am…
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Opinion Getting Serious About Iran
In 1967, I was a contented sophomore at Brandeis University. Then, in May of that year, I watched in horror and dismay as Arab nations massed troops on Israel’s border and the nations of the West, including the United States, responded with studied indifference. I was absolutely certain that Israel faced imminent destruction. As Israel…
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Opinion How Not To Protect the Jewish State
During his recent visit to the United States, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his demand that Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state should be a precondition for talks aimed at achieving a peace settlement. While such a request might seem reasonable — after all, Israel is a Jewish state — it is actually…
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Opinion Confronting Our Demagogue
The apologists and the excuse-makers in the American Jewish community have begun their work. No need for concern, they say. Avigdor Lieberman, leader of Israel’s Yisrael Beiteinu party, is not really an extremist. He may have some unconventional ideas and have said some unfortunate things, but he is basically a mainstream politician who poses no…
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Opinion On Gaza, Sense and Centrism
Wars sicken me, even wars that I support. I support Israel’s offensive in Gaza, but watching it on TV — the images of bombed-out buildings, crying women and, inevitably, the bodies of innocent bystanders — is a painful experience. I suspect that most American Jews feel the same discomfort that I feel. They support the…
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Opinion Orthodoxy’s Kosher Crisis
Over the course of the past five months, the American Jewish community has observed with dismay the gradual unfolding of the Agriprocessors scandal. Agriprocessors may be a private corporation, but as the nation’s leading producer of kosher meat, it is one that operates under the Jewish communal banner. Its actions have been followed closely, not…
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Opinion Let the Spirit of Bill Gates Be Brought to the Pews
As one of about two dozen religious leaders invited to attend the World Economic Forum last month in Davos, Switzerland, I spent four of the most fascinating days of my life engaged in high-level interfaith dialogue with representatives of the Muslim and Christian world. Where else could I sit with a member of the Saudi…
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Opinion When We Let John Hagee Speak for Us
The American Jewish community must decide: Does it want to connect young Jews to Israel, or does it intend to drive them away? By supporting Birthright Israel, the community was wise enough to see that even our most disengaged young people have a yearning for connection to the Jewish state. Birthright is one of our…
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