This past Saturday saw the untimely passing of Professor Ruth Gavison z”l, one of Israel’s leading intellectuals and legal minds, at the age of 75. Ruth Gavison was the rarest of individuals: a searingly brilliant legal theorist and a deeply engaged citizen in the life of her country, a person with little patience for small…
On Wednesday, hours before the first Democratic presidential primary debate aired, the Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Bernstein predicted that Democrats would evince a major party image never before seen in American politics. He was mainly speaking of the unprecedented racial and gender diversity among the Democratic hopefuls, but he could have just as easily been referencing…
This week’s Democratic debates made for good television – as sparks flew between candidates in tussles few expected. From former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro arguing with former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke about decriminalizing border crossings to California Senator Kamala Harris taking former Vice President Joe Biden to task over his long-held opposition…
I hate to put Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler in the same sentence. It trivializes Hitler’s obscene crimes to compare them with Trump’s often pathetic foibles. And it understates our nation’s historic commitment to constitutional democracy to suggest a serious parallel between the twenty first century United States and 1930’s Weimar Germany. But I can’t…
Today, just hours after a UN speech that drew mocking laughter from world leaders, President Trump emerged from a meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu saying, “We are with Israel 100%.” As the saying goes, with friends like these, you don’t need enemies. As Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump systematically work to dismantle liberal democracy…
Should we be concerned about the state of Israeli democracy? Recent worrying events have included the passage of a Nation-State, as well as prime ministerial efforts to corral the press and ongoing campaigns to limit judicial independence. But are these signs that democracy and civil liberties in the Jewish proposed? What Is a Democracy? To…
This hasn’t been an easy month for Jewish American progressiveswho support Israel. Early this week, Peter Beinart, a prominent journalist and critic of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, was detained for an hour at the airport in Tel Aviv. Israeli authorities grilled him about his political activities before allowing him into the country. Beinart’s account of…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in damage control mode. Yesterday, noted author, political commentator and Forward columnist Peter Beinart wrote about his experience being detained at Ben Gurion Airport by Israeli secret service and questioned about his views in a widely shared article. Just hours later, Netanyahu himself released a statement in which he…
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