Leonard Fein
By Leonard Fein
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Opinion Our Hagee Problem Has Yet To Be Addressed
By now, Pastor John Hagee has been revealed as a theological boor and John McCain has deftly, if belatedly, stepped away from the Hagee embrace he had earlier so assiduously sought and so gratefully welcomed. “Boor” is a rough word, I know. So let Hagee speak for himself: “It was the disobedience and rebellion of…
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Opinion The Harbinger of an Inspiring Generation
If I were in a grade-giving mode, I’d give them collectively, an “S”, for spectacular (followed by an asterisk). The “them” are the 44 applicants for the New Israel Fund Social Justice Fellowship whose applications I have just finished reading. (The selection of the five winners has already been completed. Though I am not on…
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Opinion The Energizing Power of a Dreamt Tomorrow
Here’s a true story I made up more than 30 years ago. (Remember, stories do not have to have happened in order to be true.) Later, I will explain why I offer it here, now. It was 1860, or maybe 1861, in Minsk, or possibly in Pinsk. Wherever, whenever, there were a dozen Jews who…
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Opinion A Time for Mourning, A Time To Rejoice
In this week of remembrance and celebration, some people are having a hard time. The remembering begins with Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s memorial day for those who have fallen in its wars. It is a day of both public and private solemnity. The cemeteries that dot the country are thronged; once, at a small dinner party…
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Israel News Before Independence: The Meaning of a Jewish State
What we knew about Israel back then, in the months before and in the months and early years after, was derived 10% or so from newsreels and 90% from Zionist youth movements, Hebrew schools, now and then a newspaper or a book. The world was different before television, and the first years of television were…
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Opinion Israel’s Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Suddenly it’s Syria. Somewhere between a rumor and a demarche, there’s talk of peace. Turkey’s the broker; so far, Bashar Assad seems willing and Ehud Olmert seems eager. Never mind that we’ve seen this movie before, and that the same pesky details that doomed earlier efforts are likely to doom this one as well. (And…
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Opinion What Would They Write About Us Today?
This week, this column celebrates its 18th anniversary. Or, since columns, lively as they may be, are essentially inert, their author does the celebrating. I’ve been rummaging around in columns past, and while many are tightly tied to then-current events, there are more than a few that continue to resonate. Here is one such: In…
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Opinion The Truth of the Matter
Harvard’s motto is “Veritas” — truth. The motto of Brandeis is “Truth Unto Its Innermost Parts”; Yale’s is “Lux et Veritas,” light and truth (and the same for the University of Indiana); and Johns Hopkins goes with “Veritas Vos Liberabit,” the truth shall make you free. My favorite, however, is the motto of Harry Potter’s…
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Culture RFK Jr.’s poems to Olivia Nuzzi are peak cringe — so were King Solomon’s
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Opinion More than 25% of Israelis want to leave the country. How did we get here?
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