Opinion

• Opinion

  Why I’m for Hillary (and Not for Him)

  I am for Hillary Clinton. She represents some of my most basic beliefs about this country and the world in general. She has a view of an inclusive society in which all people – children in particular – have a chance. At the same time she believes in a strong America that can make a…

  By Deborah E. Lipstadt

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  Will Bernie Sanders’s Debate Criticism End Grip of Israel Lobby — or Be a Footnote in History?

  University of Wisconsin Professors Vernon Allen and John Levine conducted a series of experiments in the late 1960s to examine psychologist Solomon Asch’s theories about conformity and the influence of social forces on individual opinions. They found that even one dissenter from supposedly unanimous views enables others to express their opinions more freely. Liberals and…

  By Chemi Shalev (Haaretz) Apr 17, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Why Am I Irrationally Worried About Kitniyot?

  The grand Passover themes of slavery and freedom resonate deeply nowadays, in the pleading eyes of Syrian refugees and the plight of the homeless on our streets. So I’m embarrassed to admit that what’s keeping me up at night is a Passover quandary much more mundane: whether to serve string beans at my Seder. My…

  By Jane Eisner Apr 16, 2016 | 3 min read

Columnists View All

• Jay Michaelson What can really be done to prevent antisemitic attacks like Bondi Beach?

  

• Rob Eshman Australia shooting terrifies Jews worldwide — and strengthens the case for Israel

  

• Nora Berman Did crypto-Jews invent the modern tarot deck?

  

• Dan Perry The 3 responses to the Bondi Beach Hanukkah attack that could make Jews safer

  

• Emily Tamkin The fundamental miscalculation behind the GOP’s antisemitism crisis

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  Why Did John Kasich Bring Up Jesus Christ’s Blood in Orthodox Brooklyn?

  (JTA) — If Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s visit to Hasidic Brooklyn this week had yielded only one amusing moment, Dayenu – it would have been enough. But, thank God, there were many in the Republican presidential candidate’s visit to a Jewish bookstore, shmura matzah bakery and Hasidic school in Borough Park on Tuesday. “It’s a…

  By Uriel Heilman Apr 14, 2016 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  How To Talk About Refugees at Your Passover Seder

  Each year at Passover we gather together with family and friends to retell the story of our persecution and exodus from Egypt to freedom. For many, a particular highlight of the Seder is the singing of Dayenu. “If God had freed us from slavery in Egypt, but not given us the Torah, a new home,…

  By Rabbi Jennie Rosenn Apr 14, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Why Israeli Young People Are So Much More Right-Wing Than Americans

  (JTA) — American young people are rallying behind Jewish socialist Bernie Sanders. Their Israeli counterparts look more likely to back Jewish nationalist Naftali Bennett. A poll of Jewish-Israeli teens released Wednesday by Israel Hayom, the free Israeli right-wing daily, portrays a generation that’s staunchly nationalist, pessimistic on peace and, in part, dismissive of Arab-Israeli civil…

  By Ben Sales Apr 14, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  What the Vatican’s Invitation to Bernie Sanders Says About Jews

  The Vatican may have made a big boo-boo when it invited Bernie Sanders to come to Rome and give a speech on April 15. But, as we’ll see, it may offer some unexpected insight into the current place Jews hold in the world’s imagination. You can understand why they invited him. The event is an…

  By J.J. Goldberg Apr 13, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Is Split Over Israel a Luxury Restricted to Countries With No Anti-Semitism?

  The most surprising thing about Dov Waxman’s new book, is that nobody has published a book like it before. True, my 2014 book, “Uncivil War: The Israel Conflict in the Jewish Community,” covered the same basic issue, but it focused more on the United Kingdom’s Jewish community than it did on the situation in the…

  By Keith Kahn-Harris Apr 12, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  American Jewish Unity In Favor of Egalitarian Kotel Is a Fiction

  It might be hard to imagine the hardline Israeli Haredi parties and the hardline feminist “Original Women of the Wall” group as occupying the same library, much less the same page. But that’s where they find themselves. It’s not just that both are hardline, and that both reject the compromise idea of an egalitarian Western…

  Apr 11, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  How Will I Get Through the Passover Seder Without My Mother?

  What gets transmitted at the annual Passover seder meal? Many spoken words, no doubt, but more importantly, many unsaid messages. Many formative memories that can never be recorded except in the haggadah of the mind and heart. For me as a new mourner, those spoken and unspoken memories have been flooding my consciousness for the…

  By Lester Bronstein Apr 11, 2016 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Why Israel’s Two-Kotel Solution Reminds Me of Two-State Solution

  When the Israeli cabinet approved a proposal intended to resolve a festering conflict between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews at the Western Wall, no one seemed to notice the parallels between this “two-wall solution” and the “two-state solution” that many leaders have proposed to resolve the long-simmering conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Both of these “solutions”…

  By Stuart Charmé Apr 11, 2016 | 3 min read