Opinion

• Opinion

  With Israel Feuds Raging, Can’t Jews All Get Along?

  Yesterday, Jews and Muslims in Israel, New York and other communities decided to take advantage of a calendric symmetry to assert their connection to one another, if only by breaking bread after a daylong fast. For Jews, it was the 17th of Tammuz, when the walls around the ancient city of Jerusalem were breached, marking…

  By Jane Eisner

  3 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Joseph Stalks Us in Memphis

  Jews pop up in unexpected places in Memphis, Tennessee. Here are six things that surprised us in the Blues City. 1) Joseph Is Stalking Us The biblical Joseph is stalking us in the South. We first came across him in Alabama, when we drove through Dothan, a town with a fledgling Jewish community. The town’s…

  By Sigal Samuel and Anne Cohen Jul 16, 2014 | 4 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Did Danny Danon Go Too Far?

  Getty Images (JTA) — Apparently, Danny Danon went too far. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Danon, a hawkish Likudnik who had been deputy defense minister, from his post after Danon slammed the Israeli Cabinet decision to endorse a proposed cease-fire with Hamas. Danon had called the decision a “slap in the face to all…

  By Uriel Heilman Jul 16, 2014 | 2 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

  

The Latest

• 
  Opinion

  How Female Circumcision Is Different From a Brit Milah

  A recent story in The New York Times looked at the rise of American girls who are being sent abroad to undergo female circumcision, which has been banned in the United States since 1996. As Julie Terkewitz reported, about 228,000 women and girls in the United States, members of an African immigrant population that has…

  By Elissa Strauss Jul 15, 2014 | 3 min read
• 
  Opinion

  WATCH: PLO Envoy Calls Hamas Rockets ‘Crimes Against Humanity’

  Here’s a remarkable bit of television — official Palestinian Authority TV, to be specific — in which the Palestinian delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva tells an interviewer that Hamas’s rocket fire from Gaza is a crime against humanity. Plain and simple, no hedging. In Arabic (with English subtitles). Watch it…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jul 14, 2014 | 2 min read
• 
  Opinion

  The Cheesiest Terror Push on Facebook

  Facebook It’s no surprise that in 2014, the war between Hamas and Israel is being fought on the Internet and social media front, as well as from the air (and possibly soon on the ground, as well). Both sides of the conflict are trying to get the world to understand and support their case for…

  By Renee Ghert-Zand Jul 14, 2014 | 2 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Being a Jew in ‘Bombingham’ Alabama

  Investigators probe bombing at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama./FBI Photo Holocaust analogies abound in Birmingham. That became clear within minutes of meeting Sol Kimerling, the 84-year-old historian who embodies Southern charm — and who served as our tour guide for the day. Dressed in a blue checkered shirt, brown corduroys and dapper black…

  By Anne Cohen and Sigal Samuel Jul 14, 2014 | 4 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Is This Best Defense Israel Can Muster?

  Getty Images Israel’s consul for public affairs in New York, Gil Lainer, has offered a spirited reply to my June 10 column, “How Politics and Lies Triggered an Unintended War In Gaza.” As a devout Zionist, I’m glad to see a strong, cogent defense of the state of Israel. Unfortunately, as Groucho Marx once put…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jul 14, 2014 | 4 min read
• 
  Opinion

  When Reb Zalman Hummed ‘Home on the Range’

  I first met Zalman Schachter (not yet-Shalomi) in 1971 in Warwick, N.Y., at Kutz, a Reform Jewish camp where my wife, Elana, and I spent our first married summer as teachers and counselors. Our friend, newly ordained rabbi, Larry Kushner, had hired me along with a few other rabbinical students to work with him and…

  By James E. Ponet Jul 13, 2014 | 6 min read
• 
  Opinion

  How To Save $163K on Jewish Day School Bill

  Getty Images (JTA) — When the parents of three school-age children sat down with their financial adviser to try to figure out how to minimize their anticipated private school tuition bill of $810,000 through high school, they came up with a plan that shrunk the bill by $163,000. How’d they do it? Well, mostly by pre-paying,…

  By Uriel Heilman Jul 13, 2014 | < 1 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Gaza War ‘Unintended’? Nope, Hamas Is Sworn to Destroy Israel

  I feel the need to respond to a recent column by J.J. Goldberg, “How Politics and Lies Triggered an Unintended War in Gaza.” There are a series of false assumptions littered throughout the piece, which unfortunately lead Goldberg to imagine a conspiracy theory that does not exist. Firstly, Goldberg quotes an Israeli military official referring…

  By Gil Lainer Jul 13, 2014 | 3 min read