Noam Neusner
By Noam Neusner
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Opinion The Surprising Quirks and Lesser-Known Pleasures of My Dad, Jacob Neusner
When my siblings and I were growing up in Providence, Rhode Island, our childhood had a soundtrack and it was this: the constant clacking of a typewriter or word processor from the office in the attic. My father, Jacob Neusner, the famed scholar of Judaism who passed away October 8 after penning or editing more…
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Opinion Hillary Clinton and the Myths Jewish Democrats Like To Tell Themselves
Some of my best friends are Democrats, and they haven’t embraced this party loyalty foolishly or without due consideration. In their minds, they have their own best interests — and the interests of this nation — at heart. When they vote Democratic, donate Democratic and affiliate Democratic, they act with the sincere belief that they…
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Opinion Don’t Apologize for Being Jewish — to the Left or the Right
There should be a conversation in the Jewish community about the conversation that is being had about us. If you’ve missed it, here’s what it sounds like. On the hard left, populated largely by fans of Bernie Sanders, the Jews are too powerful, too privileged and too white to deserve any protections against bigotry, ad…
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Opinion How Republican Jews Utterly Failed To Prevent Rise of ‘Toxic’ Donald Trump
There is no sugarcoating it — these are the darkest days for Republican Jews like myself. Donald Trump, the most likely Republican candidate for president, has built within our party the nearest thing America has ever seen to a European nativist working class political movement. Such movements, to put it mildly, have never been good…
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Opinion The Intifada Will Be Live Streamed — Is That Bad?
We in the pro-Israel community have spent the past decade bracing for the next intifada — another uprising. And now that it seems to be upon us, we are set with our talking points: why peace talks failed, why the Hamas and Palestinian Authority unity government is to blame, how the Israelis try to protect…
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Opinion Why Eric Cantor’s Loss Will Hurt Jewish Democrats, Too
There is a gleeful air among liberal Jews about the political demise of Eric Cantor, and perhaps that is a credit to Cantor’s effectiveness. Nobody ever rejoices at the self-immolation of an incompetent opponent. If Cantor was not good at opposing the liberal agenda, liberals would certainly bemoan his loss. Yet Cantor’s sudden disappearance will…
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Opinion A Conspicuous Silence in Congress
If there is one so-far unexplained mystery about the agreement with the mullahs in Iran, it is this: Why are Senate Democrats so silent? This is, after all, President Obama’s biggest diplomatic overture ever. Right or wrong, nothing else he does overseas will be remembered or noted with as much attention. Normally, a party’s leadership…
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Opinion At Scandal-Plagued IRS, Agents Make Crucial Judgments About God and Taxes
Of all the things we’ve learned about the Internal Revenue Service these past few weeks, the most amazing item is this: The IRS has a highly attenuated sense for the proper place for God in our lives. Just listen in on a telephone conversation from 2012: An IRS agent named Sherry Wan is telling the…
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