Opinion

Comedian Elon Gold on The High Holy Days

The Irony of Erasing Arabic

In late August, a group of Knesset members from the right flank of the Likud party, Yisrael Beiteinu and the Jewish Home party proposed a bill that would make Hebrew the only official language of Israel, annulling a requirement in existence since the British Mandate period that all official documents be published in Arabic as…

How Israel Hides Its Asylum Seeker Problem

Lily Padula “There is no asylum seeker problem in Israel.” So said Netanyahu when, following his recent address to members of the Jewish Federations of North America in New York, one of the attendees raised the issue of African asylum-seekers. “They are illegal job immigrants,” the Israeli prime minister said, adding: “Asylum seekers can come…

Blaming the Messenger on E. Jerusalem Settlements

(JTA) — That Jerusalem building approval blow-up between the Netanyahu and Obama governments? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and pro-Israel media watchdogs like Honest Reporting are pressing the storyline that Peace Now is at fault. Which is kind of like blaming routers for the bad news you posted on the Internet. Let’s review: On Sept. 24 the…

Who By the Sword?

Rachelle Fraenkel, the mother of Naftali Fraenkel , one of three boys kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Israel this past summer, said in a recent interview that “because I pray a lot, that does not mean that God owes me anything.” That is one way to cope theologically with a brutal event. The other…

Israel’s Culture of Debate Needs Serious Fixing

Getty Images In her recent New York Times op-ed, Mairav Zonszein describes incidents in which left-leaning Israelis were intimidated and even attacked by right-wing thugs. She concludes that, to quote the title of her piece, “Israel Silences Dissent.” By using this phrase, she suggests that Israel displays a state-based system of intimidation against those who…

Newest Anti-Israel Hashtag? #JSIL

(Haaretz) — It was fairly predictable. The Israeli government, after all, has been doing its best lately to send the message out that we’re all on the same side when it comes to opposing the monstrosity that is the Islamic State. But that message upsets those who don’t want the world to forget that there’s…

Death and More Death: Preparation for Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur is all about death? I thought it was about atonement. Yet all you have to do is start talking to rabbis — or reading their books about preparing for the High Holidays — and death takes center stage. I don’t mean DEATH! IN! CAPS! — in the sense of a morbid fixation, or…