Ops & Blogs | The Times of Israel » Avi Zimmerman

My Grandfather’s Time, Our Nation’s Future

Avi Zimmerman — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 08:59:40 +0000

Grandpa – I’m still overwhelmed by your uncanny sense of time. You always had a way of knowing what needed to be done and when, and your recent choice of when to move on from this world was no exception. I assume that you knew that you were returning your soul to our Maker on [...]

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Miluim Part 1: A stone’s-throw away from home

Avi Zimmerman — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 06:50:52 +0000

Draft notices for Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reserve duty are a wake up call for all who respond. Especially when you’re called up for military service close to home. I’ve seen much of Israel and its neighboring countries from the perspective of a soldier. The IDF has taken me for stints of service along the [...]

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Time to remove Israel’s masks

Avi Zimmerman — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 21:27:30 +0000

Israel has long been the victim of its own self justification. Sadly, both Israel’s adversaries and advocates relegate themselves to lowest-common-denominator partisan tactics that undermine the very complexities that once motivated them to take an active interest in Israel. Fortunately though, once a year we are given an opportunity to lose ourselves in sobering intoxication, [...]

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Netanyahu’s wife-beater

Avi Zimmerman — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 08:23:07 +0000

Anti-Semitism is yesterday’s news. Blood libels are nothing to tweet home about. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dressed in a sleeveless white undershirt is worth a double-take. The cartoon appeared in the UK based Sunday Times. It depicts Israel’s prime minister building a wall, using Palestinian blood as mortar. The image is adorned with the [...]

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Early election results: Ron Nachman wins

Avi Zimmerman — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 22:01:37 +0000

Although once a Member of Knesset, Mayor Ron Nachman had no plans to run in Israel’s 2013 national elections. After all, he didn’t need to: Ron Nachman built a city. In 1972 he founded the pioneering “nucleus” (6,000 people instead of the customary ten to twenty families); in 1978 he led the first families atop an [...]

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Bab al-Shams: Political Palestinianism Turns to Zionists for Inspiration

Avi Zimmerman — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:23:07 +0000

Political palestinianism* may be the most extensive and successful public relations campaign the world has ever seen. Yet the movement was recently compelled to set its traditional methods aside and adopt tactics that have long been the hallmark of the Zionist enterprise. The Zionist strategy of creating “facts on the ground” in the face of [...]

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For Jerusalem: Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

Avi Zimmerman — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 15:54:37 +0000

Wind and rain storms are striking above and across Israel, leaving uprooted trees, injured pedestrians, damaged property and a flooded shopping mall in their wake. As is often the case, all eyes are fixed on Jerusalem. But this time it’s not about politics or inter-societal conflicts. This time Israelis are looking in eager anticipation towards [...]

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2013: The Jews, The Zionists, and The Arab with the Big Black Glasses

Avi Zimmerman — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 11:36:30 +0000

You can tell a lot about a person by the way he handles controversy, and even more by whether he perceives controversy in the first place. It’s safe to assume that in 2013 attempts to propagate the notion that Jews and Zionists are two separate populations will live on. The true test to the validity [...]

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Running for Ron

Avi Zimmerman — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 15:14:41 +0000

To date, my short experience on Twitter has taught me that 140 characters or less may not be enough to truly inspire, but at times they’re enough to move you to action. In my case, the inspirational bedrock that made a few tweets meaningful is the lifetime of Mayor Ron Nachman, and the legacy of [...]

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Manhattan, Moscow, Samaria: The Genesis of Ariel University

Avi Zimmerman — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 22:43:39 +0000

Cold rains couldn’t dampen the countless rallies that repeatedly swept the streets of Manhattan for more than a generation. Jews half a world away were punished and imprisoned for the crime of having an identity under a communist regime. Their brethren, who knew the taste of freedom, refused to remain complacent. “Let my people go” [...]

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