Opinion

• Opinion

  The Rocket Shelter Comedy Tour Goes to Israel

  Courtesy of Benji Lovitt The “we laugh to keep from crying” line sometimes feels a bit of a cliché but when you live in Israel, you experience it daily. At least during the last 40-plus days of Operation Protective Edge, which still hasn’t officially ended during the current ceasefire talks. In the eight years I’ve…

  By Benji Lovitt

  3 min read
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  Opinion

  What Happens in Israel Doesn’t Stay in Israel

  Twenty years ago, on July 18, 1994, a car bomb in Buenos Aires destroyed the AMIA center, headquarters of Argentina’s main Jewish organizations. The blast killed 89 people and injured more than 300. It remains the deadliest single attack on Jews since World War II. It almost caused a revolution in Jewish thinking about anti-Semitism….

  By J.J. Goldberg Aug 18, 2014 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  An Israeli Novelist’s Cry for Peace. A Rabbi’s Reply

  * Novelist David Grossman spoke Saturday night at a peace rally at Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square, sponsored by the Peace Now movement and the Meretz and Hadash parties, among others. It was attended by an estimated 7,000 to 10,000 people, which the left considered an impressive show of force and the right mocked as a…

  By J.J. Goldberg Aug 18, 2014 | 12 min read

Columnists View All

• Alyssa Katz My summer plans prove it: The Jewish Catskills are alive and kicking

  

• Rob Eshman ‘Remember the Liberty’ has become code for ‘Israel Is Evil’ 

  

• Dan Perry A new proposal to radically destabilize Israel

  

• Emily Tamkin Outrage over Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed on sexual assault of Palestinians is missing the point

  

• Jay Michaelson When it comes to Israel/Palestine, everyone is sure that everyone else is a bigot

  

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  Opinion

  Board Member Quits LGBT Synagogue Over Gaza

  Congregation Beth Simchat Torah’s Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum / WN Claiming “Hamas propaganda” has infected the pulpit, a director of the nation’s largest LGBT synagogue resigned in an angry e-mail this week, igniting a firestorm on social media. But the rabbi of New York’s Congregation Beth Simchat Torah is calling the resignation letter “a twisted perversion…

  By Michael Kaminer Aug 17, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Where Is Bibi’s ‘Mazel Tov’ for Mahmoud and Morel?

  Mahmoud Mansour and Morel Malka on their wedding day, August 17, 2014 / Haaretz (Haaretz) — To disrupt a wedding celebration and spoil the joy of two young people joining their lives together, one needs a very good reason. Racism clearly does not qualify. There’s an easy way for even the most tribal and anti-assimilationist Jew…

  By Allison Kaplan Sommer Aug 17, 2014 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Godology: In the Beginning

  I recently wrote a column in which I examined my belief in God — or Godishness, as I called it. I spoke about how I have no rational or scientific reason to believe in God, how I have tried my darndest to talk myself out of it, but no matter how far I travel down…

  By Elissa Strauss and Scott Perlo Aug 17, 2014 | 6 min read
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  Opinion

  Cairo Truce Hopes Fading As Sides Stiffen Terms

  Indications are mounting that the indirect Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire talks in Cairo could be heading for failure, possibly resulting in renewed fighting when the current 5-day truce expires Monday night. Early reports were that the two sides were close to agreement on an Egyptian compromise proposal for a long-term cease-fire. On Friday and Saturday, however, declarations…

  By J.J. Goldberg Aug 17, 2014 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  From Gaza to Sderot, Trauma Marks The Past — And The Present

  There’s a line in one of Godard’s films: “I’m trying to be humane. Too bad I’m only human.” Shmaryahu Levin, a prominent American Zionist of the mid 20th century, said it even better: “Kh’bin bloys a mentsh, un amol dos oykh nisht.” “I’m only human, and sometimes not even that.” Leonard Fein was not a…

  By Leonard Fein Aug 16, 2014 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  ‘Unhappy Happiness,’ Or What Rabbi Nachman And Pharell Have in Common

  Presaging the hit song of Summer 2014, Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav famously taught, “It is a great mitzvah to be happy always.” In fact, Rabbi Nachman further observed, a century ahead of his time, sadness can lead to illness; poetically, he explained that this was because the body needs ten different kinds of music to…

  By Jay Michaelson Aug 16, 2014 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  Better The Enemy You Know — Gaza’s Other Terror Groups

  Getty Images (JTA) — After four weeks of a punishing Israel air and ground campaign that left nearly 2,000 dead and much of Gaza in ruins, Hamas has lived to see another day. For Israel, that might not be the worst thing. That’s because for all of Hamas’ violent extremism, it also governs a territory, maintains…

  By Ben Sales Aug 15, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  A Fight Worth Fighting

  When President Barack Obama announced his reasons for allowing limited air strikes against the militant group, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, his decision came along with a number of justifications. There did seem to be a possible impending genocide, yes. Yazidis, a religious minority group closely allied with the Kurds, were then huddling on…

  Aug 15, 2014 | 3 min read