I am always delighted by the Sukkot tradition of ushpizin. We invite guests, ceremonially and literally, into our homes to celebrate the spirit of Jewish hospitality — a central theme of this festival. This year, I challenge Israel and world Jewry to ask themselves a question: How big is our people’s sukkah? This question came…
No sum of money can rebrand Israel’s occupation The Jewish Agency has teamed up with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and American Jewish philanthropists to launch the most exorbitant “pro-Israel” campaign ever — expected to reach an annual budget of $300 million by 2015. The stated aim of the lavish endeavor — which will only…
A Jewish Agency for Israel plan currently in development would combine donor dollars from the United States with Israeli government funds to create what is likely the most expensive pro-Israel campaign ever. If brought to fruition, the initiative would eventually spend $300 million a year on pro-Israel efforts in the United States and other parts…
In 1949, Arthur Hertzberg, a young Zionist who later became a renowned historian and an important communal leader, decided to witness with his own eyes the wonders that were taking place in Israel. He traveled to Israel, but to his surprise, instead of a warm welcome his hosts nagged him with a barrage of demanding…
Fueled by his success in brokering an unlikely deal on women’s prayer at the Western Wall, Natan Sharansky could be entering a new phase in his career as the key interlocutor between Israel and American Jews, a task viewed as urgent on both sides of the Jewish world’s divide. Once the celebrated champion of the…
Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky probably thought he was stating the obvious when he welcomed his board of governors to Jerusalem on February 17 with a bromide about Israel-Diaspora solidarity. “It is increasingly clear,” said the chairman, still best known for his years in a Soviet prison, “that world Jewry depends on Israel and Israel…
On July 9, amid rainwater cracks in limestone rock, charcoal ibex painted by prehistoric man and discarded artifacts from Victorian-era picnics, a loose collective of Jewish women will sing songs of the Sephardic Diaspora. Vocalists Sarah Aroeste, Mor Karbasi and Françoise Atlan will perform at the inaugural Gibraltar World Music Festival in the time-formed Cueva…
Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, acquiesced wearily to a recent question posed by Time magazine, one that was stated as fact: “One million Israelis live abroad. It’s not as if Jews are flocking there.” Peres admitted warily: “We’re swimming upstream….” But this picture is not new. In fact, for most of Peres’s 60 years of political…
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