“Isn’t it time America elected its first female president? After all, Israel already had one, way back in the 1960s.” That’s a question I used to ask when I first moved to New York as an Israeli student. I usually delivered it with a cheeky smile and a glint of patriotism. I was proud of…
Barbara Walters and George Weidenfeld. The first time I was introduced to British publisher Lord George Weidenfeld — who died at 96 on January 21, 2016 in London — was at the November 22, 1998 American Friends of Ben Gurion University in the Negev Dinner at the Hotel Pierre at which BGU president Avishay Braverman…
Yehuda Avner, a speechwriter and advisor to four Israeli prime ministers, has died. Avner, who wrote a memoir about his government service called “The Prime Ministers,” died Tuesday in his home in Jerusalem at the age of 86. Yehuda Avner’s son-in-law, David Sable, called Avner “Begin’s Shakespeare.” He also wrote in a statement sent to…
In 1946, I came to America as a poor immigrant boy with my parents. I didn’t have much say in the matter, being only 1 year old. My folks, Srulik and Faygeh Puchtik, later changed their name to Porter, like all the other Porters who came to the goldene medine, since it was easier to…
In an unusual step, Ynet has published an English translation of Nahum Barnea’s weekly Friday column from the August 28 Yediot Ahronot weekend supplement. It’s a powerful indictment of the way the Gaza war was managed, its costs to Israel’s long-term security and political integrity. He talks to the soldiers and officers as well as…
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…
When Andy Warhol’s “10 Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century” was originally exhibited at the Jewish Museum in New York in 1980, it was popular with the Jewish public, but generated controversy among art critics. Hilton Kramer and Robert Hughes accused Warhol of pandering to the synagogue circuit. Kramer wrote: “The show is vulgar….
Nelson Mandela with wife Winnie Mandela and Jewish comrade-in-arms Joe Slovo, May 1990 / Getty Images When I heard on Thursday afternoon about the death of Nelson Mandela at age 95, my mind was a jumble of complicated thoughts. I thought about the day I first learned about the South African freedom struggle, in the…
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