One of the more surprising twists in recent Middle East punditry is a sudden surge of interest among pro-Israel hard-liners in the fine points of international law. The topic isn’t usually popular with hawks; they tend to see it as an infringement on national sovereignty, employed mainly as a club for bludgeoning Israel. Seeing it…
The month of December brought some bad news for Jewish day school advocates. According to the Avi Chai Foundation, which tracks these things, day school enrollment saw a “modest decline” of about 1.4% in the 2011-12 school year, compared with the year before. The sharpest decline was reported among the Solomon Schechter schools of Conservative…
I was planning to write this week about some startling news regarding Jewish day schools, but an incident over Shabbat changed my plans. At dinner with friends, I was surprised to find that nearly everyone present saw President Obama as hostile toward Israel. Here was a liberal-leaning, Upper West Side crowd, yet most hoped for…
Democrats have never recovered from the trauma of 1994, when they lost the House of Representatives to Newt Gingrich’s Republicans and found themselves in the minority for the first time in 40 years. One Democrat emerged relatively unruffled, however: Barney Frank of Massachusetts. “I’m used to being in the minority,” he famously wisecracked in a…
Let’s face it: Once you get past the turkey and stuffing, this whole Thanksgiving business raises as many questions as it answers. We’ve all been hearing since we were kids that this is the great all-American holiday, the one that belongs to everyone regardless of color or creed. Its simple, universal message, we learned, is…
Fans of New York Times columnist Paul Krugman might get a kick out of this. Nearly a decade and a half ago, the acclaimed economist savagely reviewed a new book on the perils of economic globalization, dismissing it as “simplistic,” “foolish,” “thoroughly silly” and more. He said the author, Rolling Stone investigative journalist William Greider,…
Several readers have written in to protest my last column, which dissected conservative responses to the recent summons to Jewish unity issued by the Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee. Reader complaints are nothing unusual, but this time some good points were raised that forced me to rethink. In the process I’ve come across some…
You didn’t have to be a great lover of Israel to get choked up at the sight of Gilad Shalit walking unsteadily into the sunlight of freedom October 18, after five years of being locked in a hole somewhere in Gaza. At the same time, you couldn’t miss the anguished second-guessing that dominated public discussion…
100% of profits support our journalism
