Opinion

• Opinion

  Tale of Two Sermons on Israel

  After a brutal, confusing summer of fighting between Israel and Hamas, many American rabbis were supposedly skittish about talking about Israel from the pulpit. Why, even The New York Times reported on this rabbinic reluctance: “Debate among Jews about Israel is nothing new, but some say the friction is now fire,” Laurie Goodstein wrote on…

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  ‘Klinghoffer’ Is an Insult to Our Father’s Memory

  Lisa, left, and Ilsa Klinghoffer, the daughters of Leon Klinghoffer / Haaretz (JTA) — On Oct. 8, 1985, our 69-year-old wheelchair-bound father, Leon Klinghoffer, was shot in the head by Palestinian hijackers on the Achille Lauro cruise ship. The terrorists brutally and unceremoniously threw his body and wheelchair overboard into the Mediterranean. His body washed up…

  By Lisa and Ilsa Klinghoffer Oct 19, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Bibi Tries and Fails To Bypass the Palestinians

  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s big idea for a regional partnership with moderate Arab states to confront violent extremism — while leaving the Palestinian conflict on the back burner — got doused with a big bucket of cold water in mid-October. Make that two buckets. One was from his most important ally in the Arab…

  By J.J. Goldberg Oct 19, 2014 | 4 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 The moral degradation of Israel’s far-right is even worse than you think

  

• 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

  Can Hamas War Be Tied to ISIS? Not If You’re Kerry

  One of these things is just like the other: A strange new flareup in U.S.-Israeli relations erupted on Friday, after a speech by Secretary of State John Kerry drew furious objections from pair of ranking Israeli cabinet ministers. Kerry was discussing the ISIS threat before a Muslim audience in Washington. He spoke of the need…

  By J.J. Goldberg Oct 19, 2014 | 7 min read
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  Opinion

  The Rabbi Freundel Scandal Is Our Fault, Too

  Rabbi Barry Freundel / PJC Media (Haaretz) — Kesher Israel, a prominent Modern Orthodox synagogue in Washington D.C., is reeling from a terrible scandal. Their rabbi, Barry Freundel, was arrested on charges of voyeurism and it is alleged that he installed a camera in the equivalent of a women’s locker room where he filmed potential converts…

  By Eliyahu Fink Oct 17, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  At ‘Simchat Torah Across Brooklyn,’ No Politics, Just Joy

  N.Y. Jews kick off the ‘Simchat Torah Across Brooklyn’ celebration / Dove Barbanel In the Grand Army Plaza, at the entrance to Prospect Park in Brooklyn, the circle dance threatened to close me in. I had avoided it for some time, but the energy was contagious. I gave in and danced in one of the…

  By Gabe Friedman Oct 17, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Left Out, then Lingering: Hoshana Rabba and Shemini Atzeret

  I was hoping to get through this holiday cycle without debating the mechitza — the wall that divides the genders in Orthodox shuls. I’ve committed to sampling all iterations of observance without prejudice, including segregated worship. But then on Wednesday I visited the historic Carlebach Shul for Hoshana Rabba — the seventh day of Sukkot,…

  By Abigail Pogrebin Oct 17, 2014 | 6 min read
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  Opinion

  A French Jew Gazes Longingly Back at Vichy

  A glance at the current best-seller list in France reminds us that not only will we always have Paris, we will also always have Vichy. Eric Zemmour’s “Le France Suicide” has just elbowed aside Valérie Trierweiler’s memoir of her (short) time as the partner of President François Hollande, “Merci Pour Ce Moment,” as the country’s…

  By Robert Zaretsky Oct 17, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Mango Shirt Slammed as Attempt at ‘Nazi Chic’

  Mango’s new shirt After Sears’s swastika ring and Zara’s concentration camp shirt comes another piece of fashion that has incensed the internet: The lightning-like black symbols on the women’s shirt ‘Rayo’ by Spanish fashion company Mango look suspiciously like the runic insignia of the Nazi SS units and the youth organization Jungvolk. “Why does Mango…

  By Anna Goldenberg Oct 16, 2014 | 1 min read
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  Opinion

  PHOTOS: How To Turn a Gaza War Into Art

  As donors pledge billions to rebuild Gaza in the wake of Hamas’s war with Israel, one Gazan is engaged in another type of construction: turning remnants of the war into works of art. Hossam al-Dabbus, a 33-year-old who works in Gaza’s honey industry, has collected shells, rockets and missiles from the war that killed around…

  By Naomi Zeveloff Oct 16, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  It’s Time To Put Women in Charge of the Mikveh

  Illustration by Lily Padula A respected rabbi installing cameras in the preparation room of the mikveh in the building next door to his synagogue? The sensationalistic story of alleged voyeur Rabbi Barry Freundel seems tailor-made to go viral in our internet age. So what can be done to counteract the negative publicity this gives to…

  By Beth Kissileff Oct 15, 2014 | 3 min read