Leonard Fein
By Leonard Fein
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Opinion Gloom and Doom, Yet We Bloom
The highest temperature ever recorded anywhere was at Tirat Tzvi, in Israel, on June 12, 1942, when the thermometer reached 129 degrees Fahrenheit. By comparison, the 100-plus temperatures recorded this week at the Kissufim crossing — the way from Israel proper to Gush Katif, in Gaza — though higher than usual, are not all that…
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Opinion Two-state Dissolution
Once upon a not so long-ago time, Israel’s Herut Party, which eventually mutated into today’s Likud, had as its theme song “Shtei Gadot Layarden” — “There are two sides to the Jordan [river], this one is ours and that one, too.” In short, all the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan as the one…
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Opinion 16 Words for John Roberts
‘At a time when we see around the world the violent consequences of the assumption of religious authority by government, Americans may count themselves fortunate: Our regard for constitutional boundaries has protected us from similar travails, while allowing private religious exercise to flourish… Americans attend their places of worship more often than do citizens of…
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Opinion Conquering
Perhaps there was a time when the secular-religious divide — it is of Jews I write — made sense. In Eastern and Central Europe during the period of 1850 to 1930, it may have been the case that “secular” Jews were genuinely secular, as some few remain today. But here, now? For all that the…
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Opinion Territorial Indigestion
A reader writes, asking how it is that I have not written about Israel in many weeks. Reasonable question. It’s not because there’s been so much else going on here at home, although there has been; I am quite used to dividing my time and my attention. Nor is it that there’s been no news…
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Opinion Matters of Distinction
One of the signal contributions of the American Jewish Committee, over many years now, has been its stream of publications reporting on and analyzing our community. Its annual “American Jewish Yearbook” has long been a staple in Jewish libraries; as David Harris wrote in his foreword to Volume 100, which appeared in the year 2000,…
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Opinion Torturous Silence
There are times he speaks with genuine passion, this president of ours. That’s what he did on the video he sent to the meeting of anti-Castro protesters in Cuba the other day, as also when he pledged to veto any bill that Congress might send to him calling for fetal stem-cell research. But there was…
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Opinion Monitoring The Monitor
One of the more active sideshows of our time is the tangle of new organizations devoted to uncovering and broadcasting what they see as “the truth.” Now that the Internet has radically simplified the work and lowered the cost of getting such messages out, it seems a wonder that there’s room in cyberspace for all…
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News Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s selection as JTS commencement speaker roils graduating class
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Opinion How Israel became a country where teenagers murder each other in cold blood
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Sports NBA coach Steve Kerr: ‘Israel sought revenge for Oct. 7 and now 72,000 Palestinians have been killed’
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Film & TV A new documentary challenges stereotypes about Orthodox Jewish women — and their wigs
In Case You Missed It
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Books This graphic novel illustrates the story of America’s first Jewish congregation — pirates and all
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Theater A new musical wonders: What happened to solidarity with English Jews?
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Fast Forward Support for Iran war among ‘connected’ US Jews falls again, poll finds
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Yiddish אַ פֿאָלקסטימלעכע שטימונג אויפֿן אַמסטערדאַמער ייִדיש־סימפּאָזיוםA folksy approach to this year’s Yiddish symposium in Amsterdam
דער שוועדישער פֿאַרלעגער ניקאָלײַ אָלניאַנסקי האָט דערציילט ווי ער האָט אָנגעהויבן אַרויסגעבן קינדערביכלעך אויף ייִדיש.