Sh'ma Now

Grateful Citizen

Tamara Mann TweelMarch 4, 2019

I grew up the daughter of a significant citizen. As a child, I knew that my father left his law firm to work on New York Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s first Senate campaign and before that taught case method to students in Tanzania. I knew he stood on a soap box in Union Square during his college years to argue against McCarthyism and that he woke up early to read three newspapers of different political persuasions. What I didn’t know, until I was an adult, was how my father made the choice to take his civic obligations so seriously, why America and the possibility of good government meant so very much to him.

Divided We Stand: American Jews & Israeli Democracy

Jonah HassenfeldMarch 4, 2019

More than 12 million people live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Roughly half are Jews and half are Arabs. Arabs who live in Israel and who hold Israeli citizenship can vote in Israeli elections. The millions of Arabs who live in the territories Israel conquered in 1967 cannot. Jewish citizens of Israel vote in Israeli elections no matter where they live.

We’ll Never Be Royals

Abby Michelson-PorthMarch 4, 2019

The foundational creed of Judaism aligns magnificently with that of America. Where the Jewish creed rests in an individual’s relationship to God, and in one’s deeds, justice, fairness, and the utilitarian good, the American creed is devoted to individual liberty, self-government, equal opportunity, and sovereign states’ belonging to a union. Similarly rooted in the philosophy of enlightenment, historically, both modern Jewry and America have been committed to liberalism: a philosophy that supports the principles of independence, equality, freedom of the expression of ideas, the communal good, and — very importantly — opposition to royal control.

For Jews, It’s Fairness & Justice Over and Above Democracy

Jill JacobsMarch 4, 2019

Democracy is not inherently Jewish. That might be a hard statement to hear, especially with so many of our communities engaged in a desperate and necessary effort to protect democracy in the United States, Israel, and around the world.