Gil Troy is the author of The Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s. His forthcoming book, The Zionist Ideas, which updates Arthur Hertzberg’s classic work, will be published by The Jewish Publication Society in Spring 2018. He is a Distinguished Scholar of North American History at McGill University. Follow on Twitter @GilTroy
2020 was a breakthrough year for Middle Eastern peace. The Abraham Accords have warmed relations between Israel and a number of Muslim majority nations, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Sudan, Bahrain and Morocco. For too long American, Israeli, and international leaders indulged Palestinian demands without insisting on much from their leaders, swallowing the propaganda…
Brandeis University’s Jewish Futures Project just released a blockbuster report following-up on Birthright Israel’s first decade of applicants that should have had Jews united in celebration. Long-term tracking of Birthright alumni shows that judging by eighteen key criteria of positive Jewish involvement, from feeling connected to Israel to attending religious services to having Jewish friends…
Among all the things Jewish students have missed out on in the age of COVID-19 is the Birthright trip. Since last spring, tens of thousands of young Jews haven’t been able to have that transformational moment, that “Aha” experience, that intense feeling of connectedness, that many didn’t even know they were missing. Not everyone speaks…
Senator Orrin Hatch is retiring from the Senate. Even those who oppose his domestic policies — actually, especially those who abhor them — should nevertheless say “Thank You.” Those who are pro-Israel should thank him for being so passionately pro-Israel. And those who wish to see America heal should thank him for being a rare…
Last week, Haaretz ran an explosive story. “Orthodox trip operators are taking over Birthright Israel Programs” proclaimed the headline. The article examined Birthright’s recent decision to drop the Reform Movement “as a certified trip provider,” attributing this “split” between Birthright and the Reform movement to the “aggressive” and often misleading “marketing” of Orthodox trip providers…
(JTA) — By now it should be obvious how absurd it is to call President Barack Obama Israel’s “best friend” ever, as Thomas Friedman of The New York Times has claimed. A Blame Israel Firster, Obama won’t use his moral authority to try stopping the instigators of this latest spate of violence, the Palestinians. Unfortunately he…
Illustration by Yoni Weiss In these pages, Daniel May’s “What Would George Orwell Say About the Gaza War?” used totalitarianism’s great enemy to criticize democratic Israel’s justified struggle against totalitarian Hamas. May’s argument, misreading Israel’s self-defense justification, and echoing Hamas’s propaganda points, peppered with clever quotations from George Orwell, was itself Orwellian. Deciding how dead…
The worldwide campaign to rob Israel of its good name has strained Zionism’s historic linkage with liberalism. Too many progressives have attacked Israel and Zionism, especially in academia. Palestinians have cleverly hijacked the rhetoric of human rights to rationalize that great human wrong, terrorism. The new, politically correct position of demonizing the Jewish state and…
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