Jerome Chanes
By Jerome Chanes
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Opinion The Dark Forces Behind the Balfour Declaration — And Its Lasting Legacy
Why does the Balfour Declaration, written in 1917 during the darkest days of World War I, tug at our elbow, insisting we pay attention to it? Indeed even today, “Operation Protective Edge” in Gaza harkens back to Balfour. Political analyst Avishai Margalit said, “You can unspool this vendetta back to the Balfour Declaration.” The Balfour…
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Culture Cliffs’ Notes on Jabotinsky
Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky was a Zionist activist almost from the get-go. He was born in 1880 in Odessa, Ukraine, a Black Sea city that was home to the 19th-century Jewish intellectual and literary elite of the Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment. He spent his early years as a journalist in Europe and in Russia; he mastered…
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Culture The Problem With John Judis’s Book About Harry Truman and the Jews
Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict By John Judis Farrar, Straus and Giroux 448 pages $30 There is something about John Judis that brings out a “plague-on-both-your-houses” response. John B. Judis, a senior editor at “The New Republic,” set out to write a history of the Truman administration and the…
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Opinion The Lessons of the ‘Lavon Affair’
Sitting around the Shabbat table, mourning once again a peace process gone bad, I casually mentioned, “This is not the first time this has happened. Sixty years ago, almost to the day, a ‘peace process’ was torpedoed by the Lavon Affair.’” “The ‘Lavon Affair’? What’s that?” Few remember the Lavon Affair, the cause célèbre in…
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Opinion 5 Myths About Jonathan Pollard Case
The Jonathan Pollard matter just won’t go away — and for good reason. The most recent flurry of interest surrounding the case was fueled this week by the news that the White House might be moved, at long last, to release Pollard from prison. But the problem with the case — however troubling the case…
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Opinion What Eric Goldstein’s Appointment Says About Changing Jewish Community
The report that the UJA-Federation of New York will appoint Eric Goldstein as CEO has implications that go far beyond the appointment itself. Most important are those changes within the federation system, and in the New York Federation itself, which inform the Goldstein appointment. To understand the historical and sociological significance of the Goldstein appointment…
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News Remembering Al Chernin, a Giant Among Giants in Jewish Public Affairs
Al Chernin, who died November 26 at age 85, was one of the last of the giants of Jewish public affairs. That overused cliché notwithstanding, his death truly marks the end of an era. It was an era characterized by a communal structure and a communal approach to public affairs that is today all but…
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Opinion Asher Lopatin Set as Modern Orthodox ‘Bridge’
When I was a kid, my mom told me, “Dress British, think Yiddish.” The credo for Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT) now is “Learn ‘Litv-ish,’ daven ‘Hasid-ish,’ act ‘normal-ish.’”, according to Rabbi Daniel Landes, who on Sunday formally installed Rabbi Asher Lopatin as the second president of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah. The installation ceremony, held at the…
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