When Israeli music producer-to-the-stars Eitan Gafni put on a global song contest for Jews nearly two decades ago, finding contestants was difficult.
Rabbi Daniel Gordis, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, caused a storm within the Jewish community a few weeks ago when he published a piece arguing that the connection by students at America’s liberal rabbinical schools — the future leaders of the Jewish communities of the Diaspora — toward Israel was weakening.
The entire Jewish community should applaud the recently announced plan by The Jewish Federations of North America, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and several major Jewish federations to invest millions of dollars over the next few years to fight the delegitimization and demonization of Israel. These groups understand that if academic and cultural boycotts are legitimate when aimed at Jews in the West Bank today, they will soon become legitimate when aimed at Jews in Tel Aviv tomorrow; and, you can be sure that after that, the boycotters will set their sites on Jews in New York, Los Angeles, Peoria … and everywhere else that Jews live.
For Mahmoud Abbas and U.S. Jewish leaders, their second date featured a little more substance and a little less flirtation. And this time the Palestinian Authority president brought a wing man.
From the birth of the Zionist movement more than a century ago through its 60 years as a Jewish state, Israel has come of age amid a vastly changing world: two world wars, the technological revolution and economic globalization with all its attendant challenges.
It\’s impossible to augur the future of the Jewish people. It can only be summed up in two words: \”I hope.\”
Founded with the express purpose of \”ingathering of the exiles\” — but with no more large groups of Jews to save — Israel is facing the end of the era of mass aliyah.
Israel is a free society. The rights of the minority, of the oppressed, indeed, of the criminally foolish are protected. Mr. Chomsky would be as free in Israel to pronounce this nonsense as he is in the United States. Were he to move to the Arab world, he would be persecuted as a Jew (as, indeed, he might be in France). And were he, God forbid, persecuted, Israel would offer him a home, under the Right of Return. That is what Israel means to me.
One of the bonuses of living in exile is that you can see Israeli society more clearly, one lunch, party, speech or cappuccino at a time. When I\’m in the Holy Land, I lose myself in a noisy, beautiful, hectic, joyful and soulful blur.It\’s as if I\’m inside a boat in a stormy sea. Here in the Diaspora, Israel comes at you in neat little waves. Over the past month, I\’ve had encounters with four passionate Israelis, and each, in their own way, has helped me make sense of the craziness of what it is to live the Zionist dream.\n
Do Jews outside Israel have the right to criticize Israeli policies relating to defense and security matters or eternal issues, like concessions on Jerusalem?
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