A Jewish New Year Resolution: Scaling Back Our Use of the “D” Word

By Leigh Nusbaum This is not a salvo—this is a challenge. This past year, both Jewish and secular, has been an incredible conundrum for Jews in Israel and the Diaspora. From the Arab Spring, to the breakdown of relations with Turkey, to the global recession, to the Palestinian bid for statehood—we find ourselves fumbling for some sense of stability. While some of us grope in the proverbial dark, others of us find a crutch to lean on. When it comes to Israel, I’d argue that the crutch is the “D-word”—delegitimization. To “delegitimize” has traditionally meant to diminish the authority of, but recently this word, as well as the new buzzword “delegitimization,” have come into vogue when discussing Israel. In this new context, the word has taken on a new meaning—to hurt the legitimacy of an authority, usually a...

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Born This Way

By Steven Philp According to a recent study conducted by researchers at the University College London, people may hold certain political views simply because they were born that way. The survey of politicians and students found that there are marked structural differences in the brains of people with different political viewpoints. These differences were focused in two primary areas; participants with conservative political views generally have a larger amygdala, which regulates fear and related emotions, and a smaller anterior cingulate, which is associated with courage and optimism. In a Time Magazine article, lead researcher Professor Geraint Rees explains that the results were unexpected: “It is very surprising because it does suggest there is something about political attitude that is encoded in our brain structure through our experience or that there is something in our brain structure that...

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