Larry Cohler-Esses is a freelance journalist who worked for years as a reporter and editor at the Forward. He has written extensively on the Arab-Jewish relations both in the United States and the Middle East.
Larry Cohler-Esses
By Larry Cohler-Esses
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Opinion Should I Feel Guilty for Worrying About Palmyra’s Stones, When ISIS Slaughters Humans?
Mere stones broke my heart even as people lost their lives. For so many years, that has been the guilty paradox that plagued my feelings when I thought about the brutality of the Taliban and Al Qaeda and, later, the so-called Islamic State group. Now, with the Syrian Arab Army’s recapture of Palmyra (with help…
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Opinion Will Iran Really Change After Nuclear Deal? Looming Vote and Economy Will Tell Tale.
When people ask me where U.S.-Iran relations are headed following the initial implementation by both sides of the joint nuclear agreement, my thoughts turn not to big, world-moving possibilities but to something actually quite small: my purchase last July of a plane ticket from Tehran to the provincial city of Shiraz. Thanks to the international…
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News Reading the Talmud in a Most Unlikely Place — Iran’s Holy City
The Shia holy city of Qom teems with mosques, mullahs and madrassas. So, it was a little surprising to hear Qom religious scholar Hossein Soleimani’s response when I asked him to name his favorite writers. “Adin Steinsaltz, for his translation of the Talmud,” he responded promptly. “And also Martin Buber.” Soleimani was one of several…
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News How Iran’s Jews Survive in Mullahs’ World
The first thing I noticed about Shahab Shahamifar as we strolled to synagogue on a Saturday morning in July was his yarmulke. It was a medium-size, black knitted one, and he was wearing it as we walked the busy streets of Tehran. Then I noticed that no one looked up. Later, when the rabbi went…
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News A Jewish Journalist’s Exclusive Look Inside Iran
Pasagardae, Iran —— In the heart of Fars Province on Iran’s high desert plateau in the South, a stark and bare large limestone tomb juts out of the landscape. It’s in the middle of nowhere. But the understated burial place of Cyrus the Great still draws Iranians on pilgrimage. Mohammad Parvi, a retired sugarcane factory worker,…
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News Claims Conference Ombudsman Says He Was Dumped Over Critical Report
Shmuel Hollander never asked for the assignment. But when the organization that allocates Holocaust restitution payments told him to investigate reports that its senior officials had failed to pursue a tip-off about fraudsters stealing millions meant for needy survivors, Hollander stepped up to the task. Now, Hollander, a former top Israeli government civil servant, is…
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Opinion Michael Oren vs. The New York Times
In Michael Oren’s forthcoming book, “Ally,” Israel’s former ambassador to Washington relates numerous surprising displays of hostility toward Israel by American government officials, media figures and others from whom one might expect something different. Our faith in these anecdotes is fostered not just by the fact that Oren was there, on the inside; it’s buttressed…
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News Stanley Cohen’s Radical Detour on the Way to Prison
As he prepares to go to prison, Stanley L. Cohen is packing up and moving out of the spacious loft on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where he plotted legal defenses for members of some of the world’s most notorious terrorist groups. Stacked one atop another on the wood pallet floors, a jumble of packed boxes…
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