Join Peter Beinart for a Twitter conversation about this piece with the hashtag #ForwardIsraelChat on Tuesday, 5/1, at 5pm. “In our time,” wrote George Orwell in 1946, “political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.” British colonialism, the Soviet gulag and America’s dropping of an atomic bomb, he argued, “can indeed be…
They used to tell young Orthodox Jewish girls a story – they may still – about 93 Bais Yaakov girls who were selected by the Nazis to be their sex slaves and put in an apartment full of beds. And when the Nazis arrived to claim their plunder, they found 93 corpses. 93 Bais Yaakov…
As the end of the school year approaches and the temperature rises, so are tensions at the most Jewish college in the United States. Last week, Barnard College students voted in a referendum to divest from eight companies that do business in Israel. Anti-occupation groups were exultant; pro-Israel organizations devastated. Then the administration unilaterally rejected…
The story Michael Cohen and President Trump usually tell about how they met focuses on real estate, about glitz and glamour and great views. Cohen says he started buying apartments in Trump World Tower in 2001. Trump says Cohen’s choice of investments shows he’s a smart man and hires him. But another, grittier business may…
At the age of seventy, Israel is the cultural center of the Jewish world. Whether in the fields of literature or cinema, theater, dance, or food, Israel can no longer be described as one hub among many, equal in standing to that which continues to be produced in Europe or the United States. Rather, Hebrew…
Ever since I first embraced the mad romance of sports’ fandom as a boy, a romance that I have never outgrown, I just assumed that the reason there weren’t more Jewish professional athletes is that Jews weren’t very good at sports. A genetic thing. Sure, there was an occasional Hank Greenberg or Al Rosen or…
In today’s increasingly tribal, zero-sum world, there is no discussion more tribal and zero-sum than the one surrounding Israel. Despite the plaintive cries of lovers of Israel that support for Israel does not mean one has to agree with every action Israel does, this seems to be the exact reasoning both the pro-Israel and anti-Israel…
Did you know that Stefan Zweig’s suicide note is housed in the National Library of Israel? So are Gershom Scholem’s love letters to his first wife, which mention the time he saw the poet Chaim Nachman Bialik at lunch, along with the philosopher Ahad Ha’am. In a recent visit, I held my breath as I…
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