Opinion

• Opinion

  We Got Bupkis From White House Seder

  White House Photo What would you do if you’d have to choose between spending the second night of Passover with your family (and with your twins celebrating their birthday on that same day) and laboring in someone else’s kitchen for hours? For acclaimed chef/beloved wife Vered Guttman, there wasn’t much of a dilemma. She gladly…

  By Nathan Guttman

  2 min read
• 
  Opinion

  A Giant Initiative To Save the Jewish People

  It is almost a cliché to say that Passover is the family holiday for Jews (our Thanksgiving, if you will). It’s when we get to sit at the same table with our loved ones, who also happen to be the ones that can be oh-so exasperating. It is a fascinating tradition where we tell a…

  By Misha Galperin Apr 17, 2014 | 4 min read
• 
  Opinion

  A Teachable Moment of Violent Hate

  The shooting attack on April 13 that took the lives of three people at Jewish institutions in Kansas City was one of those moments — which have punctuated the last few years — that remind us that it’s still legitimate for Jews to feel vulnerable in this country. Though the details are just emerging and…

  Apr 16, 2014 | 2 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 An abominable new Israeli law is a death warrant for democracy

  

• Emily Tamkin We must rewrite the rulebook for fighting antisemitism — or conspiracists like Joe Kent will win the narrative wars

  

• Jay Michaelson Passover’s 4 cups of meaning

  

The Latest

• 
  Opinion

  Passover Concert Part 2: Exile, Redemption & Math

  I was hoping to post Part 2 of the Passover concert before the first Seder and then log off for yomtov, but cleaning the oven took longer than I expected (don’t ask). So here it is. We’ve got some Psalms, some spirituals, some memories of Jerusalem and some visions of the Messianic Era. This time…

  By J.J. Goldberg Apr 15, 2014 | 5 min read
• 
  Opinion

  A Hebron Land Grab, Just in Time for Passover

  Getty Images For the settlement movement, there is poignancy in the fact that the Hebron Jewish community has branched out into a previously Palestinian neighborhood just before Passover. It was Passover 1968 when settlers first got their foothold in Hebron, after renting out a hotel and refusing to leave. For critics of the settlement movement,…

  By Nathan Jeffay Apr 14, 2014 | 2 min read
• 
  Opinion

  4 Lessons for Jews From the Overland Park Rampage

  The tragic shootings in Overland Park, Kansas, seemed, to many of us, like a throwback to a bygone era. It’s no coincidence that the shooter was at least 73 years old. His ideology seems ancient as well: the Ku Klux Klan, Jewish banking conspiracies, hatred of miscegenation. Anti-Semitism is still with us, but usually not…

  By Jay Michaelson Apr 14, 2014 | 4 min read
• 
  Opinion

  How My Grandfather Marked Passover as a Slave

  The author and his grandfather / Courtesy of Hody Nemes The Exodus happened 3,000 years ago. But today, in the year 5774, we are still supposed to see ourselves as if we had experienced slavery and left Egypt, according to the Haggadah. For me, that’s always been a tall order. In order to feel like…

  By Hody Nemes Apr 14, 2014 | 4 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Why Is This Israeli Land Grab Different?

  The big story in Israel is no normal decision to build a few extra settlement homes; it is a highly unusual development for the occupied West Bank. According to an as-yet unconfirmed report, the state is setting the wheels in motion for an appropriation of nearly 250 acres of territory in the Gush Etzion settlement…

  By Nathan Jeffay Apr 13, 2014 | 2 min read
• 
  Opinion

  The Real Exodus of Passover — on JetBlue to Miami

  I’m about to embark on a little Exodus of my own. I’m leaving New York City and flying straight to Miami Beach for Passover, which is where my parents live. What? You don’t feel bad for me? Much like the Jewish nation accepting the holy Torah at Mt. Sinai, Miami Beach represents sacred ground; a…

  By Mimi Minsky Apr 13, 2014 | 5 min read
• 
  Opinion

  A Passover Concert: Songs of Liberation and Longing

  To get us in the spirit of the Seder, here are a few songs of exodus, freedom, rebellion and an only kid. We’ve got selections by Bruce Springsteen, Chava Alberstein, Pete Seeger, Moishe Oysher, Bob Dylan, Shuli Nathan, Paul Robeson, Paul Simon, Lahakat HaNachal, the Maccabeats and many more, including two late and very much…

  By J.J. Goldberg Apr 13, 2014 | 4 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Rejoicing at the Presence of the Wicked Son at the Seder Table

  In the varied depictions, he’s a medieval knight; a dandy in a zoot suit; a boxer with fists held high; an aloof fellow with a Hitler moustache or a mischievous one who looks like Groucho; a jester; a boy with a mohawk and a yo-yo (really!), and (as once depicted in the pages of the…

  Apr 13, 2014 | 3 min read