Opinion

• Opinion

  The Pinkwashing of Mohammed Abu Khdeir

  An undated family handout picture of Mohammed Abu Khdeir. Now that Israeli police have arrested six Jewish suspects for the kidnap-murder of 16-year-old Palestinian Mohammed Abu Khdeir, it’s safe to say that the teen was not killed by his own family for being gay. Of course, Mohammed’s family has been saying that all along. They’ve…

  By Sigal Samuel

  2 min read
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  Opinion

  More From Spy Chiefs: Palestine Conflict, Not Iran, Is Our Top Threat

  Yesterday I posted my translation of a Facebook post by Yuval Diskin, the former director of Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency. He wrote that Israel’s security is threatened by a growing anger and frustration among the Palestinian public — and that the frustration is due in large measure to Israeli government policies. Among those…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jul 6, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  News Quiz: The One With All the Funky Food

  ChocoChicken’s chocolate fried chicken and duckfat fries. // Twitter/KristieHang Shrimp, Stalin and Gay Pride signs? This could be the strangest Jewish News quiz of them all. Except…they’re all strange. (Did we mention the cheesecake with bagel crumbs?) Good luck!

  By Lenore Skenazy Jul 6, 2014 | < 1 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

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  Bulldoze Homes of Jewish Terrorists, Too

  Israel regularly destroys homes of Palestinian terror suspects, calling it a deterrent. But it never uses the same tactic against Jewish extremists. / Getty Images (Haaretz) — There is only one sane and truly halakhic way to tackle our current situation: Take the well-known members of the Orthodox Price Tag gang and lock ‘em up, for…

  By Daniel Landes Jul 6, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Ex-Shin Bet Chief: Israeli Illusions Fueled Blowup

  Yuval Diskin, who served as director of Israel’s Shin Bet security service from 2005 to 2011, posted some rather blunt observations on his Facebook page this morning regarding the tit-for-tat murders of teenagers, the Palestinian rioting in East Jerusalem and the Triangle (the Arab population center south of Haifa) and what he fears is coming…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jul 5, 2014 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  Supreme Court Rulings Show What We Care About

  Among the joys of late June, along with fine weather and happy children, is the annual opportunity to watch the Supreme Court close out its docket with a rush of last-minute rulings on the year’s toughest cases. It’s a grand national civics lesson that brings us together as few other events can do. It teaches…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jul 5, 2014 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  How Do We Celebrate When July 4 Is Shabbat?

  Getty Images (JTA) — Part “God Bless America,” part “Shabbat Shalom,” the Fourth of July this year falls on a Friday. In this land of religious freedom, how do we plan to observe both? As the sun sets over the “fruited plain,” will we be lighting Shabbat candles and fireworks? How will the Sabbath Queen…

  By Edmon J. Rodman Jul 4, 2014 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Did Bibi’s ‘Vengeance’ Tweets Provoke Violence?

  Getty Images In moments of national tension — Israelis know these all too well — one can expect a leader to measure every word on a scale that calms on one side and inflames on the other. So what are we to make of Benjamin Netanyahu’s tweets on Monday as the country was preparing to…

  By Gal Beckerman Jul 3, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  When ‘Death to Arabs’ Rings Out in Holy City

  Israel is consumed with calls for revenge for the murders of three kidnapped students. But some are pushing back against the cycle of hate./Getty Images The headlines in Israel this week have been overwhelming. First the bodies of the three kidnapped Israeli teenagers — Naftali Frenkel, Gil-ad Shaer and Eyal Yifrach — were found, buried,…

  By Elisheva Goldberg Jul 3, 2014 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  Three Jews and a Palestinian — All Just Boys

  One reason that the fate of the three kidnapped Israeli boys gripped our attention and stirred our concern is that they were immediately identifiable. Gilad, Naftali, Eyal. Names and faces, goofy grins, youthful exuberance, captured in grainy photos that quickly became ubiquitious on buttons, t-shirts, posters, billboards, Facebook posts, Twitter feeds. We didn’t know them…

  Jul 3, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Auschwitz Selfies? No Big Deal, IMHO

  Teenagers, selfies, and the Holocaust — you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone over the age of 30 who doesn’t have some thoughts on all three. Last week, though, the world was granted the chance to think about all three at the same time. It was reported in various places that some Jewish teenagers, while in…

  By Emily L. Hauser Jul 3, 2014 | 3 min read