fbpx

GET HOME DELIVERY! CLICK HERE »

ADVERTISE
pick up locations
HOME DELIVERY
donate

Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

Category

Commentary

A Solution to Israel’s Demographic Peril

Larry Derfner July 21, 2005

When Israeli Arabs protest that talk of the \”demographic threat\” is racist, can Israeli Jews blame them? If non-Jewish professors and politicians anywhere on earth spoke of a Jewish demographic threat to their countries, what would Jews call it? What, for that matter, would decent non-Jews call it?

Raising the specter of the Arab demographic threat to Israel is, in fact, racist — if you believe that Zionism is racism, that a Jewish state is a racist state.

I don\’t believe that (even while I know there is no shortage of Jews whose Zionism doesn\’t amount to anything more than racism). Although the Jewish state by definition \”belongs\” to the Jews more than it does to its non-Jewish citizens, I don\’t consider it a force for racism, but the opposite: Whatever racism exists in Israel, the Jewish state came into being as an answer to racism of a rather larger magnitude — the habit of anti-Semitic oppression.

‘Yeah, But:’ 2 Words Lead to Dark Side

Hesham A. Hassaballa July 21, 2005

In the wake of the terrorist attacks in London, I can\’t help but despair at the ever-spiraling violence in our world today. And it pains me even more deeply that a significant portion of that violence occurs at the hands of Muslims in the name of Islam.

Of course, we have all condemned this latest attack in London. We have all stated that Islam is a religion of peace. We have all stated Islamic terror is neither sacred nor Islamic.

Yet, inevitably, I get a question from one — or more than one — reader which goes something like this: \”Yeah, but what about the suffering of Muslims in Iraq? Isn\’t that also wrong? Why don\’t you condemn that?\”

Twenty-Nine Days to Make Mitzvot

Tzvi Kahn July 21, 2005

Aryeh Green and Yosef Abramowitz were sipping tea in a Bedouin tent last year in Sde Boker, a kibbutz in Israel\’s Negev desert, when they had an idea. Participants at a conference of Kol Dor, an organization that seeks to revitalize Jewish activism and unity across the globe, the two were discussing how the group could promote Jewish identity and peoplehood.

Letters

Jewish Journal July 21, 2005

Letters to the Editor on various subjects.

A Textbook Attack

Rob Eshman July 14, 2005

It is impossible for me to look at images of the double-decker bus blown apart in last week\’s terror attacks in London and not think of Bus No. 37.\n\nBus No. 37 was the mangled hulk of an Israeli bus that activist brothers Ed and Bernie Massey sent on a tour in November 2003, as part of traveling exhibit on terror.

Bombings Bolster Commitment to Life

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks July 14, 2005

As if mocking the scenes of jubilation at London\’s successful 2012 Olympics bid, the terrorist explosions that came the next day left devastation in their wake.

Clash of Ideas Should Be Addressed

Judea Pearl July 14, 2005

The age of terror, it seems, has sprouted an era of dialogue. A host of conferences designed to bring together East and West are cropping up everywhere.

Never before, perhaps, have so many talked so optimistically about so serious a problem. But behind all the words is one unspoken disagreement that may imperil any chance for progress.

My direct encounter with this optimism took place at a high-profile get-together, the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar, in mid-April. Organized by the Qatar government and the Brookings Institution, the conference was packed with more than 150 scholars and leaders from all sides who diligently discussed both the needs and the means for achieving democracy, reforms and renaissance in the Muslim world. Strikingly, there was hardly a Muslim speaker who did not tie the implementation of such reforms to progress toward settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Immeasurable Faith

Leonard Fein July 14, 2005

Perhaps there was a time when the secular/religious divide — it is of the Jews I write — made sense. In Eastern and Central Europe from 1850 to 1930, it may have been the case that seculars Jews were genuinely secular, as some few remain today.

New Articles

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.