“Wherever she sat and led the discussion, there was the head of the table.” Thus observed an early associate of Henrietta Szold’s in Hadassah, the powerhouse American women’s Zionist organization that she founded in 1912.
For liberal supporters of Israel, the unresolved status of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza presents a dilemma: a choice between a single state with so many Arab citizens as to inevitably dilute the Jewish character of the country, or the insistence of control over but denial of equal rights to millions of Palestinians, diluting if not destroying Israel’s democratic character.
As the author of five highly regarded novels, ranging from the award-winning In the Image (2002) to the memorably time-shifting Eternal Life (2018), Dara Horn is recognized as an accomplished fiction writer and as a storyteller who draws inspiration from centuries of Jewish history.
What makes a place holy? And who gets to decide? Such abstract questions become concrete and emotional when we talk about Jerusalem.
After 50-something years, and to the astonishment of our children and grandchildren, at the end of June my husband and I packed up our things and left Jerusalem, moving halfway across the country to settle in Zichron Yaakov, a quaint, hilltop village overlooking the sea.
Hard to believe it’s come to this: The word “antisemitism,” coined in the 19th century by a German journalist, is being weaponized by Jews against Jews.
It’s incompatible with the essence of a liberal arts education.
2021 has turned out to be another unpredictable year. As wave after wave of news stories reporting death and mayhem rolled over us, I found myself thinking about the Enlightenment.
London-based comedian Rachel Creeger, cohost of the podcast, “Jew Talkin’ To Me?”, talks about growing up in a traditional home and listening to the men in the family tell jokes on Shabbat and how it feels to now be the only Orthodox Jewish woman on the British comedy circuit. Rachel is in conversation with Michael Krasny, retired public radio host of KQED Forum and the author of Let There Be Laughter: A Treasury of Great Jewish Humor and What It All Means.
Both Rachel and Michael are part of the Moment Symposium “What is Your Favorite Jewish Joke – And Why?”
In 1980, we wrote about the fight to boycott the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin—and why the protest ultimately didn’t come to pass.
When important baseball games fall on Shabbat or the High Holy Days, what’s a Jewish baseball player to do?
