The French writer François Mauriac is quoted with the sentence, “I love Germany so much that I am glad that there are two of them.” This was pretty much the attitude among the Jewish community in Germany, in which I grew up in the 1970s and ’80s. The Jews of postwar Germany felt protected by…
German demonstrators join Europe-wide round of protests against Israel’s attack on Gaza. Unlike other groups, Jews are blamed for the actions of Israel — and are coming under attack worldwide. Getty Images. (Reuters) — As the death toll in Gaza rises, so does anger against Israel – and sometimes, by extension, Jews – in Europe…
The losses of Jacob Birnbaum on April 9, just a few days before Passover, and then Yuli Kosharovsky on April 15, the first day of the Festival of Freedom — both of them giants of the Soviet Jewry movement — seem particularly poignant. It happens to be the 50th anniversary of the first demonstration in…
‘At what point,” columnist Jeffrey Goldberg tweeted recently “do the Jews of America and the Jews of Israel tell the Jews of Europe that it might be time to get out?” While Goldberg did not elucidate the reasons for his stark view of the future of European Jewry, it is likely that he had in…
Anyone wishing to understand the shifting realities of American Jewish life has reason to celebrate this month. After a four-year hiatus, the American Jewish Year Book is back in print. This is no small thing. Begun in 1899, the annual volume was for 108 years the essential source of facts and figures on Jewish community…
Reminiscing on the golden days of Jewish American activism, two heroes of the Soviet Jewry movement took to the stage at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America in its main plenary session on Monday. Natan Sharansky, the former refusnik who is now head of the Jewish Agency for Israel and Nobel…
When principles and interests collide, it is often difficult to discern which is which. An apposite example, with a thoughtful conclusion, came to pass just days ago, when the Union for Reform Judaism and its public affairs arm, the Religious Action Center, were asked to support a global boycott of all Hyatt hotels and to…
“I’m not criticizing, but simply making an observation” — “Je ne critique pas, je constate” — is a favorite rhetorical dagger of the French. It was unsheathed on Monday when CRIF, the Council of Representative Jewish Institutions in France, acknowledged Francois Hollande’s victory over Nicolas Sarkozy in a press release. Under the (awkward) title, “In…
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