Back in the late 1990s, it seemed appropriate to describe relations between Israel, the United States and the American Jewish community as a strategic triangle. Each of the three sides to the triangle interacted with and nourished the other two. This was not an equilateral triangle: Israel seemed to be replacing U.S. Jewry as the…
As a young-ish British Jewish anti-occupation activist, I’m sadly all too familiar with straw-man attacks. I and others like me are so viciously attacked online following any meagre expression of opinion that if you were to believe even just half of the things written about us on the internet, you may be excused for thinking…
Last month on the pages of The Forward I claimed the right to be a liberal Zionist in America, one who feels a deep connection with Israel, one who continues to envision a democratic Jewish state that exists alongside a free and independent Palestine — but also one who recognizes that a half-century after the…
What is the Nation-State Bill? The Nation-State Bill is a proposed Basic Law that would anchor Israel’s status as the national homeland of the Jewish people. The bill clauses contain, for example, the “Law of Return,” state symbols, Jewish festivals and the Hebrew language. It is Israel’s first attempt to constitutionally anchor its identity in…
A bill passing through Israel’s Knesset taking aim at the country’s Arab minority just became law. The bill’s full name is “Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People” though it’s more commonly referred to as the “Nation-State bill.” And it sets out to consolidate the Jewishness of the country at the expense…
Six months ago Poland passed a controversial law intended to criminalize and silence discussions of Poland’s role in the Holocaust. Anyone who suggested that Poland as a nation had blood on its hands for the genocide of the Jews could be charged, arrested, and imprisoned for libel. Outraged, Holocaust survivors, scholars, public intellectuals, and governments…
Forty years ago, Hillel Halkin wrote a powerful defense of Zionism in the guise of letters to an imaginary American friend. This year, Yossi Klein Halevi published what has become a best-selling book framed as letters to an imaginary Palestinian neighbor. I wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to mimic the skill and impact these two…
The American Jewish Committee’s recent survey has already sparked considerable debate over the future of the Jewish people — indeed, whether there even is a single Jewish people. Most concerning to many is the finding that American Jews and Israeli Jews have diverged to the point that while a majority of both groups see the…
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