Opinion

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  Light in Unexpected Places: My Post-Hanukkah Report

  Why did sitting in my father-in-law’s Chicago hospital room two weeks ago crystallize the meaning of Hanukkah? Because so many rabbis had talked to me about light, and I saw it there. How to say this without treacle? My husband’s mother and his twin sisters never left. Or barely left. They just sat and read,…

  By Abigail Pogrebin

  5 min read
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  Opinion

  Jon Simon’s jazzy “I Have a Little Dreydel”

  Download his album: “Hanukkah and All that Jazz.”

  By Abigail Pogrebin Dec 23, 2014 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  Europe’s Last Jews

  This has been a tough year for Jews. But you’ve heard that before. I used to attend a synagogue where every Yom Kippur the rabbi, as part of his Israeli Bonds appeal, would begin by bemoaning what a bad year it had been. Each year things were worse than before. The problem? They weren’t. The…

  By Deborah E. Lipstadt Dec 23, 2014 | 3 min read

Columnists View All

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

  

• Rob Eshman Gavin Newsom isn’t waffling on Israel — he’s voicing sensible ideas in an era of outrage

  

• 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

  

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  Opinion

  A Threat to Israel in America’s Cuba Policy?

  Obama is caricatured as Che Guevara, an iconic symbol of Cuba’s revolution, on the cover of Brazilian magazine Veja / Getty Images As a life-long Democrat, I was deeply disturbed by the Obama Administration’s decision to act unilaterally on the Cuban question. The policy option may have been a valid one, but the process invoked…

  By Steven Windmueller Dec 22, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  How To Be a Modern Maccabee Without Getting Arrested

  Illustration by Lior Zaltzman Despite having nearly no religious significance, Hanukkah stands out as an important cultural event for American Jewry. American gentiles view it as the quintessential Jewish holiday, mostly due to its calendar proximity to Christmas and its inclusion on holiday TV programs. Jewish symbols featured in ads are used to get the…

  By Mitchel Davidovitz Dec 22, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Enough With the Menorah Selfies Already!

  Illustration by Lior Zaltzman A friend of mine on Facebook joked, “Can you fulfill pirsumei nisa (the commandment to publicize the Hanukkah miracle) by posting pictures of your menorah online?” It’s a fun, quasi-halachic question that juxtaposes an ancient commandment with contemporary technology. But it’s also a reflection of how much amateur photography has become…

  By Jay Michaelson Dec 22, 2014 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  News Quiz: What New Law Did President Obama Pass?

  Getty Images Latkes, new laws, Hillary Clinton and tri-sexuals. Some weeks are just weirder than others, even for Jews.

  By Lenore Skenazy Dec 22, 2014 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  How David Grossman Grieves

  This past year saw the publication in English of the renowned Israeli author David Grossman’s latest book, “Falling Out of Time.” It’s a sustained meditation on grief told as an allegory and mostly in verse — a book filled with the raw emotion that Grossman feels every day over the loss of his son, Uri,…

  By Gal Beckerman Dec 22, 2014 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  How To Survive One of the Longest Nights Ever

  Wikipedia If ever there was a good night to light Hanukkah candles, it’s tonight — one of the longest nights in human history. No, that’s not a figure of speech. It is literally one of the longest nights Earth has ever seen! You may already know that December 21-22 is the winter solstice, the longest…

  By Sigal Samuel Dec 21, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Spies Spar in Shin Bet-Mossad Turf War

  Tensions continue to mount between Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency and the country’s other two intelligence services, the Mossad foreign intelligence agency and the military intelligence directorate of the Israel Defense Forces. So reports military correspondent Amir Rapoport in the Friday edition of the center-right daily Maariv. It’s a messy tangle, even by the…

  By J.J. Goldberg Dec 21, 2014 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Israeli Politics Enters Silly Season as Elections Loom

  Israel’s snap parliamentary elections are just three months away, but the campaign is still stuck in the doldrums. You might call it the silly season. The parties in the outgoing Knesset have received their first round of public campaign funding and started flailing away at each other, but nobody knows yet which ones will be…

  By J.J. Goldberg Dec 21, 2014 | 4 min read