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…
This weekend, the Jewish people came under threat. I don’t mean the people themselves so much as the idea that there is a single unified Jewish people, a concept that thanks to a new poll was revealed to be more of an anachronism than a truism. The idea of Jewish peoplehood has been such an…
This past week, the Trump administration inaugurated one of its signature foreign policy accomplishments: the official relocation of the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It was a striking moment, with the celebration coinciding with the killing of scores of protestors in Gaza. The embassy move and the withdrawal from the Iran Deal were…
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