The Israeli journalist Ari Shavit is the talk of the town. Widely known in Israel as an influential and well-connected columnist for Haaretz, Shavit has not been a household name in this country.
Like many readers of the Jewish Journal, I have followed with interest and foreboding the recent vote of the American Studies Association (ASA) on whether to boycott Israeli academic institutions.
With Eric Garcetti’s election on May 21, the mayors of the three largest cities in the United States — Michael Bloomberg in New York, Rahm Emanuel in Chicago and Garcetti in Los Angeles — are all Jews.
The last quarter century has witnessed a veritable explosion in the academic field of Jewish studies. During that time, Israel solidified its place as the global center in the field, while in the United States virtually every university and college of note has established its own program, center or chair.
Two momentous events occurred recently in the life of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Last week, he dropped a bombshell on the Israeli public by forging, under the cloak of night, a coalition with Kadima, his party’s leading rival in the Knesset. This move, which forestalled early elections expected in September, demonstrated yet again Netanyahu’s formidable political skills, in this case by co-opting his most dangerous parliamentary foe.
At 4:00 in the afternoon, sixty-three years ago today, Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion took to the podium in the auditorium of the Tel Aviv Museum to make a bold and historic announcement. The preceding days had been filled with often difficult deliberations among Zionist leaders over whether to move ahead with it in the face of American opposition. Eventually, Ben-Gurion garnered enough support among his colleagues to carry the day. On May 14, the fifth of Iyar in the Hebrew calendar, he stood and declared with a sense of historical moment: “We hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine, to be known as the State of Israel.” For Ben-Gurion and fellow Zionists, this announcement brought to an end the millennial aspiration of “Jews…in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland.”
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.