America was conceived as a haven of refuge—Thomas Paine says so in Common Sense—for people fleeing from religious and political repression and violence all over the world. He said we would be an “asylum for mankind,” and he did not mean an insane asylum
Yossi Klein Halevi has taken on several roles in the Israeli-Palestinian drama since he made aliyah in 1982. He’s been a protagonist in the conflict—“I chose a side when I became an immigrant”—and served in the army during the first intifada. Later, he became a journalist, trying to understand both sides’ complexity
Jews must take the lead in standing up to the Hungarian leader’s anti-Semitism.
Reactions to the embassy move to Jerusalem show how little they understand Israelis.
Thoughts on two eight-year-old converts—and Michael Chabon.
When I was in second grade my mother told me to read upside down. “You’re reading too fast,” she said, “it’s upsetting the teacher.” She had been instructed to do this as a child, and it was only natural for her to pass this wisdom on to me. Even now, I occasionally flip the book over in order to savor the story.
Since their origin in the early 1500s in Yemen and elsewhere in the Arab world, coffee houses have provided an important social meeting place for people from all walks of life, especially creative, political and business types.
Last April, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to name the main terminal at San Francisco International Airport after Harvey Milk, the gay rights martyr who was assassinated 40 years ago. The decision further (and literally) cements Milk’s legacy as the best-known LGBT activist in American history.
Entrada de la Luna, New Mexico, is a small town with a big mystery. Why do its Spanish Catholic families light candles on Friday night? Why doesn’t anyone eat pork? The answers, it turns out, lie half a millennium ago, in 15th-century Spain.
