In the early days of the Trump administration, I wrote an essay expressing serious reservations about the modest but growing movement by churches and synagogues to offer aid and housing to undocumented immigrants. Since then, America has changed, and so have I. My initial unease was not because of what “sanctuary” tries to do, I…
An intriguing alliance, ad hoc but no less notable for the fact, took place in Israel’s Knesset recently. Two Haredi parties, United Torah Judaism and Shas, came to the defense of the Joint List of Arab parties to block a bill that would ban religious institutions from using loudspeakers. The legislation was clearly aimed at…
Years ago, I came to the conclusion that, as a Jew, I am religiously homeless. While I am not very observant, I feel very Jewish — I just don’t perform all the rituals or believe in many of the archaic rules. But at the same time, I am unabashedly pro-Israel and believe that Jerusalem is…
It’s July 4, and I’ve just come home after three days’ absence. My toddler puts his little arms around my neck, lays his head on my shoulder and doesn’t move for 15 minutes. He follows me all throughout the day, yells in distress if I leave the room, bites me if I don’t pay enough…
Recently, two seemingly unrelated events transpired in the relations between Israeli and American Jewry: Last month, the Jewish Agency’s board of governors voted for Isaac Herzog (former chairman of the Labor Party), to become chairman of the organization, in a direct rebuttal of the prime minister’s choice of candidate. Next, two senior ministers avoided taking…
Since before the election, we’ve all heard periodic calls for dialogue between those who support Trump and his policies, and those who do not. The most recent wave, in anticipation of the July 4 holiday, included a tweet by author Stephen King instructing progressives and Trump voters to hug so that we can “all be…
A couple of nights ago, I was walking to my apartment with a friend, who is an Ashkenazi Jewish woman. My Denver neighborhood is aggressively white, and I live with a white roommate. So needless to say, with my brown skin and my natural coils, I usually stick out like a drop of oil in…
The awful night my family crossed the Soviet border is still seared in my mind. Hours of threats and violent searches had pushed us to the edge. I stared at the guards with machine guns. My father stared at the guard captain who was deciding our fate. But the rest of my family was looking…
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