Opinion

• Opinion

  Why Birthright Next Was Doomed From the Start

  Well, I hate to say I told you so. The news that Birthright Next is apparently winding down – its leadership is leaving, its flagship program is shutting down — has come as a surprise to many. But not to those who have followed the program closely, and watched its revolving door of talented staff…

  By Jay Michaelson

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  For Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, Faith Was Life — and Life Was Act of Faith

  I remember Rav Aharon Lichtenstein often retelling the passage from the Talmud of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai’s death. The sage’s students surrounded him on his deathbed and asked for a blessing. Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai’s odd response is this: May you fear God as much as you fear man. Shouldn’t we fear God much more?…

  By Abe Mezrich Apr 23, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  How To Make Kidney Donors Whole

  The reason that Matt Swerdloff has only one kidney is a story that goes back a couple of years, when he visited a close friend in the hospital who had just donated one of his own organs. Why did you do this, Swerdloff asked his friend. To which his friend replied: Why don’t you? “I…

  Apr 23, 2015 | 4 min read

Columnists View All

• Alyssa Katz What I learned at a Holocaust survivors’ Purim party

  

• Rob Eshman A gunman attacked a Michigan synagogue. Here’s what happens to the community next

  

• Dan Perry Is this Netanyahu’s Winston Churchill moment?

  

• Emily Tamkin We must rewrite the rulebook for fighting antisemitism — or conspiracists like Joe Kent will win the narrative wars

  

• Jay Michaelson Antisemitism is exploding on the right but the Jewish establishment is focused on the left

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  Francois Hollande Explains The Holocaust to Teenagers — Awkwardly

  What started out as an unusual debate on primetime television between French president Francois Hollande and five teenagers about to vote for the first time, took an even stranger turn when they argued for several minutes whether or not it’s OK to laugh at the Holocaust. The round-table discussion took place Sunday, during the and…

  By Jesse Lempel Apr 22, 2015 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  The Just Way To Share Water

  With Earth Day on April 22 and the unprecedented drought in California affecting the nation’s most populous state, there’s a Hasidic story about a frog that you should hear. The legendary founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov, or Besht, was wandering a vast desert when he met a frog so large, he couldn’t tell…

  By Dan Friedman Apr 22, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  The Lost and the Land: 2 Modern Holidays

  San Diego native Marla Bennett died in a school cafeteria in Jerusalem. She was killed in 2002 at 24, in a terrorist bombing by Hamas at Hebrew University, where she was pursuing an advanced degree in Judaic Studies. Nine people died, including 5 Americans. Nearly 100 were injured. “The year that followed was one of…

  By Abigail Pogrebin Apr 21, 2015 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  Why Did Airplane Passengers Ignore Chabad Woman’s Warning?

  Have you ever been discriminated against because of how you were dressed? Or how about because of the way you spoke? Mussie Weinfeld very well might have been. have surfaced that a 22-year-old Chabad woman may or may not have saved an entire airplane full of people set to fly from Ben Gurion to Moscow…

  By Rachel Delia Benaim Apr 20, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Jewish Filmmaker Takes On Elder Care System

  When Deirdre Fishel, a New York City-based Jewish filmmaker, watched her 85-year-old mother’s struggle with living alone, she wanted to help. What started as a simple search for a home heath aide unfolded into a two-year intensive examination of the elder care system — all through the lens of her upcoming documentary, “Care”. The film,…

  By Thea Glassman Apr 20, 2015 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Men Refusing To Sit by Women? That’s the Symptom. Here’s the Sickness.

  When I saw the front page of the New York Times last week with the headline a sense of dread perforated my stomach. The article was an examination of the phenomenon of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men who, when faced with being seated next to a woman, demand that the woman be extracted and moved to another…

  By J.E. Reich Apr 20, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  American Jews Should Have a New Goal — Recognizing Palestine

  Now is not the time for despair among liberal American Jewish supporters of Israel. Neither justice nor the love of Israel can accommodate resignation. Rather, we must respond to the Middle Eastern reality with one important move: urge our own government to recognize Palestine. Here’s why. Benjamin Netanyahu’s election-eve abandonment of the two-state solution fits…

  By Jay Michaelson Apr 20, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  On Iran, a Divide That Goes Beyond Bibi and Obama

  In the mid-1990s, pundits noticed an incipient breakdown in the known world order. For centuries international affairs consisted of relationships among nation-states, in an arrangement dating back to the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Now, suddenly, it wasn’t working. The primary culprit was the rise of so-called nonstate actors — transnational entities capable of defying…

  By J.J. Goldberg Apr 20, 2015 | 5 min read