ALIYAH 2010 – Hello Obama, Goodbye America
Sitting next to Josh Markovitz, a recent UCLA law school graduate from Hancock Park, on the Nefesh B’Nefesh charter flight on August 18, he told me about the moment his dream of making aliyah became more urgent.
“What sticks out is the day Barack Obama got elected, especially when I was in UCLA, which was an Obama shrine,” he said from the El Al coach seat, just after breakfast, about an hour away from touching down on Israeli soil. “Everyone knew about his alliances with people who generally felt ill will towards Jews and the Jewish state, and the people didn’t really care. I think at that moment, I suppose, I understand that it isn’t their fault, but my values and things I care about are not necessarily the same things shared by the majority of Americans.”
The most well known of these “alliances” is Obama’s Chicago pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose anti-American and Israel statements are well-publicized. Markovitz was the only law student who wore a McCain/Palin kippah during elections.
I wondered how many people on this flight to Israel felt the same as Markovitz. Suspicions of Obama’s anti-Israel bias are strong among Orthodox Jews, who, judging from appearances, made up the majority on this particular charter flight. Since Obama was elected, aliyah across the board in North America and Israel has risen about 20 percent, although a variety of factors, such as the economy and normalization of aliyah, have served as an aliyah trigger, as discussed in
JJ Inside The Print
One of the most celebrated books in the Jewish world last year was my friend Yossi Klein Halevi’s “Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor,” described by...
Next time you complain that your weekend is filled with kids’ birthday parties, spare a thought for friends I’ll call Isla and Jess. Every time...
Los Angeles’ KCBS channel 2 news contacted me three times last week for an on-camera interview. The station’s reporters had read a story in the...
As part of my bucket list experiences over the past couple of months, I learned how to braid and bake challah and the basics of...
After a video of New York University student Leen Dweik confronting Chelsea Clinton at the Christchurch, New Zealand, massacre vigil went viral in February, thousands...
This is a message for those heroes in the LGBTQ community, not just for my friends and my family members and my students, but for...
While the Middle East anxiously waits for details of the Trump “Deal of the Century” — a reference to the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan shepherded by...
There is no question anti-Semitism is on the rise internationally at a level not seen in decades. Sometimes couched as anti-Israel, we find supporters of...
A well-known joke describes a boy excitedly announcing Babe Ruth’s 60th home run to his grandfather, who responds: “Nu, is it good for the Jews?”...
There are no chartered Nefesh B’Nefesh flights or air-conditioned Birthright buses in Israel-based American novelist Ashley Rindsberg’s world. Rather, Rindsberg’s tale involves a lot of...
Here is a question that might sound strange: Do you want Jewish American liberals to have views identical to those of non-Jewish American liberals, or...
“Dear Future Neighbor: I call you ‘future neighbor’ because we aren’t yet neighbors. Neighbors live in equality. Neighbors have shared rights and duties. Neighbors share...
At some point every child fantasizes herself a foundling, left on a doorstep by a princess to be raised by a simple shoemaker and his...
One verse, five voices. Edited by Salvador Litvak, Accidental Talmudist And whenever the cloud lifted from the Tent, the Israelites would set out accordingly; and at...
It was pouring rain last week when I attended a live taping of Ed Levine’s weekly “Special Sauce” podcast at the splendid Rizzoli bookstore in...
Watch out, Los Angeles, there are young Jewish women taking the streets by storm with their fabulous short haircuts — and they feel great about...
When Los Angeles entrepreneur Leah Fredkin started Equality Goods in 2017, she had no idea it would become a chapter in her coming-out story. At...
Following advocacy efforts by The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to sign a...
On June 13, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) hosted a fundraising culinary event at the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel to honor Israeli spice master Chef...
The production of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel’s “Indecent” is, at its core, an homage to Yiddish theater. You’d be forgiven, however, if at first...
In his book about 20th-century symphonic music, “The Rest Is Noise,” Alex Ross writes that in the early 1900s, young European artists were determined to...
In “Madam Yankelova’s Fine Literature Club,” the women who gather for weekly dinner parties have something far more sinister in mind than simply discussing books:...
The documentary “Back to the Fatherland” examines the odd (and to many, the embarrassing) phenomenon of young Israelis leaving the dreamland of generations of Zionists...
When you think of Israeli music, the explosive, extreme form of heavy rock known as speed or thrash metal isn’t the first thing that comes to mind....
One measure of Rabbi Tirzah Firestone’s elevated stature in the Jewish world is the fact that her new book has been heartily endorsed by such...
Lawrence “Larry” F. Arnold died April 29 at 84. Survived by daughters Jessica Mayerson, Stephanie, Alissa Block; 7 grandchildren. James Bachner died May 21 at...
This week marks the beginning of summer, and one of the delicious highlights of the season has to be watermelon. I like watermelon in everything...
In 2017, Sarah Idan was crowned Miss Iraq, becoming the first woman in 45 years to represent her country in the Miss Universe pageant. While...
Northridge-based Abraham Joshua Heschel Day School held a May 23 Tefilat HaDerech (“Traveler’s Prayer”) ceremony for the seven sixth-grade robotics students who headed to Montevideo, Uruguay, to...
FRI JUNE 21 “The Laws of Women” Upcoming Women’s Torah Study meeting “The Laws of Women” offers the Jewish perspective on love, marriage, sex, adultery,...
Women and Conversion We at the Sandra Caplan Community Bet Din found Kylie Ora Lobell’s description of the final steps in her conversion process (“Are...
