Nadine Epstein
03 Nov
2016 November-December, From the Editor

From The Editor // November/December 2016

This incredibly polarizing presidential campaign and election are finally behind us. To quote from Robert Hunter’s lyrics in the Grateful Dead song “Truckin’,” “…what a long, strange trip it has been.” This was a campaign like no other in my memory. Along with so many Americans, I was horrified by the angry rhetoric regularly hurled at immigrants, women, Mexicans, Muslims, African-Americans, and, yes, Jews. And like so many American Jews, I was continually surprised by how many times Jews, Judaism and various Jewish-related controversies came to dominate the news cycle. Although accustomed by now to playing a prominent role in presidential elections, American Jews today are less used to this kind of attention. Sadly, this campaign will be remembered for numerous incidents that either were discomfiting to Jews or, in some cases, constituted outright...

Continue reading

17 Nov
2015 November-December, From the Editor

From the Editor // November/December 2015

During the Rwanda genocide, I thought about taking in a Tutsi family or adopting an orphan. But I had a baby and a job, I was writing a book and was absorbed by family problems, so I never did. A couple of months ago, when I heard NPR senior host Robert Siegel interviewing a Syrian refugee on All Things Considered, I immediately felt the same way. My husband and I are empty nesters in a home full of rooms that are mostly used for storing clothes, books, musical instruments, household items—all the consumer paraphernalia that Americans accumulate. We have a small house, but why couldn’t we, I wondered, share some of it—and some of our extra stuff—with a family from Syria that needs a safe space and time to find its way in a new...

Continue reading

Michael Ben-Eli and Ali Alhawashla examining medicinal plants
01 Jul
2015 July-August, From the Editor

From the Editor // July/August 2015

When I was in Israel in late 2013, I drove across the rugged expanse of the Negev on Route 31. At the time, Israeli newspapers were full of articles describing highly controversial demolitions of Bedouin homes and villages, failed plans to resettle the Bedouin, and ongoing tensions between the Bedouin and the Israeli government.

Continue reading

29 Oct
2014 November/December, From the Editor

From the Editors // Nadine Epstein & Sarah Breger

Israel is a bifurcated nation. On one side, it is a robust democracy with active executive, legislative and judicial branches. On the other, it has a fourth branch of government—an official religious arm in the form of the Orthodox chief rabbinate. Through its control of “personal status” issues such as marriage, divorce and burial rights as well as broader societal ones such as kosher certification and Shabbat ordinances, this central religious authority wields enormous power over the lives of not only Orthodox Jews but all Jewish Israelis.  With this issue, Moment launches a new project, “Israel: Theocracy in a Democracy,” in which we will examine some of the many ways that Israel’s official rabbinate comes into conflict with the country’s democratic values. Our cover story, “An Uneasy Union,” investigates the rabbinate’s monopoly over marriage and divorce....

Continue reading

02 Jul
2013 July-August, From the Editor

From the Editor

TIRO and TINP are obstructing clear thinking and solutions. As editor of a truly independent Jewish magazine, I find myself traveling in many circles, listening to many different points of view. One of the topics that I regularly hear about is the two-state solution. I can’t help but notice—it is so glaring—that when talk of an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority arises among Jews, two diametrically opposing mantras are repeated ad nauseam with equal solemnity: “Time is running out (TIRO)”—its sister variation is “Time is not on Israel’s side”—and “There is no partner (TINP).” Those who believe peace should and can be achieved through a two-state solution in the near future regularly invoke the first. Those who don’t usually utter the second. TIRO / Time Is Running Out! These mantras and other similar ones have become...

Continue reading

26 Feb
2013 March-April, From the Editor, Israel

From the Editor

One could argue that Israel is the country where non-Orthodox Jews have the least religious freedom: They can’t marry, divorce or convert according to their own religious preferences. Welcome to Moment’s religious freedom issue. I’d like to be able to report that religious freedom in the world is on the rise, but sadly, the facts don’t support this. Indeed, there was a growing tide of restrictions on religion between 2009 and 2010, as tallied in a new study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Overall the study shows that fewer people have the rights laid out in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion,” including “freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom either alone or in community with others and in public or...

Continue reading

1234