Ops & Blogs | The Times of Israel » Tuvia Book http://blogs.timesofisrael.com The Marketplace of Ideas Tue, 18 Jun 2013 06:28:20 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 A Model Role Model: Yityish (Titi) Aynaw, Miss Israel 2013 http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-model-role-model-yityish-titi-aynaw-miss-israel-2013/ http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-model-role-model-yityish-titi-aynaw-miss-israel-2013/#comments Mon, 10 Jun 2013 18:03:57 +0000 Tuvia Book http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/?p=134388 Yesterday I had the privilege to meet with Yityish (Titi) Aynaw, Miss Israel 2013.  She is really someone to look up to, not only because she is over six feet tall! Ms. Aynaw is someone who is a role model for our youth, and indeed for all of us.  Titi overcame tremendous adversity to reach [...]

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]]> http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-model-role-model-yityish-titi-aynaw-miss-israel-2013/feed/ 0 Get up, and walk the Land! http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/get-up-and-walk-the-land/ http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/get-up-and-walk-the-land/#comments Fri, 07 Jun 2013 16:12:27 +0000 Tuvia Book http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/?p=133536 Fulfilling the first commandment, the first Jew, Abraham, received from God to: “Lech Lecha” (“You go!”) has played a seminal role in forming and strengthening my own Zionist Jewish identity.  Walking the length and breadth of the Land of Israel, whether through orienteering and marching during my IDF army service, teaching at Alexander Muss High [...]

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]]> http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/get-up-and-walk-the-land/feed/ 0 Israel and Iran: What would Menachem Begin have done? http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/israel-and-iran-what-would-menachem-begin-have-done/ http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/israel-and-iran-what-would-menachem-begin-have-done/#comments Sun, 26 May 2013 12:48:56 +0000 Tuvia Book http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/?p=129748 As we approach the thirty-second anniversary of “Operation Opera,” the bombing and neutralizing of the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq, which presented a “clear and present danger” to the Jewish State, during the tenure of Menachem Begin, one might think that history has a strange tendency to repeat itself.  Back then there was a country [...]

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]]> http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/israel-and-iran-what-would-menachem-begin-have-done/feed/ 0 The Alexander Muss High School in Israel Experience! http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-alexander-muss-high-school-in-israel-experience/ http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-alexander-muss-high-school-in-israel-experience/#comments Fri, 17 May 2013 00:38:18 +0000 Tuvia Book http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/?p=126776 In the sleepy suburb of Hod Hasharon sits the campus of the jewel in the crown of experiential Israel education.  The Alexander Muss High School in Israel (AMHSI) has been the leader in this field for over four decades.  I was privileged to spend some of the best years of my life teaching the core [...]

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]]> http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-alexander-muss-high-school-in-israel-experience/feed/ 10 “The Most Policy Relevant Action:” The Israel Experience Trip http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-most-policy-relevant-actionisrael-education-jewish-identity-and-the-israel-experience-trip/ http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-most-policy-relevant-actionisrael-education-jewish-identity-and-the-israel-experience-trip/#comments Sun, 12 May 2013 03:13:05 +0000 Tuvia Book http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/?p=125216 ‘Tis the season of Birthright!  Once again we are starting to notice the ubiquitous Birthright and Israel Experience teen-tour buses on the roads of Israel.  One of the proven paths focusing on an enhanced understanding of Israel to strengthen Jewish identity is the Israel experience trip.  Gil Troy (2006) notes that, There is a positive [...]

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]]> http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-most-policy-relevant-actionisrael-education-jewish-identity-and-the-israel-experience-trip/feed/ 0 Why the Birthright Mifgash Works http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/why-the-birthright-mifgash-works/ http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/why-the-birthright-mifgash-works/#comments Mon, 06 May 2013 12:53:49 +0000 Tuvia Book http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/?p=123360 The Birthright Season is upon us again!  A central component of the Birthright program is the Mifgash.   “Mifgash” is the loosely translated Hebrew word for a “meeting,” that is in this case a direct physical encounter between Israeli and American peers during the Israel trip.   The Mifgash enables Israelis and Americans an opportunity to spend [...]

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]]> http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/why-the-birthright-mifgash-works/feed/ 0 Saving Children’s Hearts in Israel http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/saving-childrens-hearts-in-israel/ http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/saving-childrens-hearts-in-israel/#comments Wed, 01 May 2013 16:21:54 +0000 Tuvia Book http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/?p=122550 The old adage of, “a picture paints a thousand words” is given new meaning by the picture below: Where:  The Pediatric ICU at the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, Israel When: During “Operation Cast Lead.”  The IDF operation in January 2009 that involved a massive military incursion into the Gaza Strip to track down and subdue the sources [...]

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]]> http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/saving-childrens-hearts-in-israel/feed/ 1 The Scourge of Post-Zionism http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-scourge-of-post-zionism/ http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-scourge-of-post-zionism/#comments Sun, 28 Apr 2013 02:36:16 +0000 Tuvia Book http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/?p=121570 Two events recently seemed to highlight that the Jewish State has a severe case of schizophrenia. One the one hand, the annual Yom Ha’Aztmaut ceremony, complete with the heads of the political and military echelons of Israel singing, or attempting to sing, popular Zionist songs, honouring 120 exceptional soldiers at the President’s residence in Jerusalem [...]

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]]> http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-scourge-of-post-zionism/feed/ 8 Women Reading from the Torah and “Kevod Ha-tsibur” http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/women-reading-from-the-torah-and-kevod-ha-tsibur/ http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/women-reading-from-the-torah-and-kevod-ha-tsibur/#comments Tue, 23 Apr 2013 16:44:47 +0000 Tuvia Book http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/?p=120550 Prime-Minister Netanyahu’s recent support of the “Sharansky Plan” to extend the plaza of the Western Wall to include egalitarian services and services where women will be free to pray aloud and read from the Torah without fear from harassment is a welcome and positive step to making the holiest site of the Jewish people a [...]

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]]> http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/women-reading-from-the-torah-and-kevod-ha-tsibur/feed/ 6 The Agony and the Ecstasy: From Yom Hazikaron to Yom Ha’Azmaut http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-agony-and-the-ecstasy-from-yom-hazikaron-to-yom-haazmaut/ http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-agony-and-the-ecstasy-from-yom-hazikaron-to-yom-haazmaut/#comments Sun, 14 Apr 2013 05:04:00 +0000 Tuvia Book http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/?p=117280 I attended my first funeral when I was nineteen.  The theme colour was purple.  On that beautiful spring day hundreds of mourners from my Givati unit were gathered to pay our final respects to one of our brothers-in-arms.  After the appropriate prayers and psalms were recited, the silence of the military cemetery was shattered by [...]

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]]> http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-agony-and-the-ecstasy-from-yom-hazikaron-to-yom-haazmaut/feed/ 0 Women of the Wall and Unity amongst the Jewish People http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/women-of-the-wall-and-unity-amongst-the-jewish-people/ http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/women-of-the-wall-and-unity-amongst-the-jewish-people/#comments Thu, 11 Apr 2013 16:46:19 +0000 Tuvia Book http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/?p=116916 The Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, former refusnik Natan Sharansky, has been charged by Prime-Minister Netanyahu to help find a resolution to the Women of the Wall issue.  Sharansky said that the current situation in which, “The Western Wall is a place of conflict and dispute must end, and that it must be [...]

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]]> http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/women-of-the-wall-and-unity-amongst-the-jewish-people/feed/ 0 Witnesses in Uniform: Celebrating Israel @ 65 http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/witnesses-in-uniform-celebrating-israels-sixty-fifth-independence-day/ http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/witnesses-in-uniform-celebrating-israels-sixty-fifth-independence-day/#comments Tue, 09 Apr 2013 18:25:46 +0000 Tuvia Book http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/?p=116058 This time of year in the Israeli calendar is an emotional roller coaster.  We proceed from Yom HaShoah (Holocaust and Heroes Memorial Day) to Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day for the IDF) to Yom Ha’Azmaut (Independence Day) all within the space of a week!  From agony to ecstasy, from death to life and from despair to [...]

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]]> http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/witnesses-in-uniform-celebrating-israels-sixty-fifth-independence-day/feed/ 0 The last cantor of Wlodawa http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-last-cantor-of-wlodawa/ http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-last-cantor-of-wlodawa/#comments Tue, 02 Apr 2013 12:42:17 +0000 Tuvia Book http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/?p=114502 On a beautiful sunny Shabbat in 1938, my grandfather, Chuna Goldman, led his last Shabbat service in the great Synagogue of Wlodawa in Eastern Poland. He was the community’s last cantor. The synagogue was packed and many of the congregants, including all of my Grandfather’s ten siblings and their spouses and children, had come to [...]

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]]> http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-last-cantor-of-wlodawa/feed/ 9 Bar Kochba and Pesach: Zionist Hero or Rabbinical Rogue? http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/bar-kochba-and-pesach-zionist-hero-or-rabbinical-rogue/ http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/bar-kochba-and-pesach-zionist-hero-or-rabbinical-rogue/#comments Sun, 31 Mar 2013 02:21:14 +0000 Tuvia Book http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/?p=113782 Every Seder the legendary second century CE warrior Bar-Kochba features in the Haggadah incognito during the unusual and seemingly irrelevant tale of the five Rabbis sitting in Bnei Brak: It once happened that Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Elazar Ben Azaryah, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Tarfon were reclining in Bnei Brak. They were discussing the [...]

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]]> http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/bar-kochba-and-pesach-zionist-hero-or-rabbinical-rogue/feed/ 2 Apologies Necessary: Talking Turkey http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/apologies-necessary-talking-turkey/ http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/apologies-necessary-talking-turkey/#comments Sun, 24 Mar 2013 05:26:09 +0000 Tuvia Book http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/?p=112316 A couple of days ago Israeli Prime-Minister Netanyahu, under immense pressure from the visiting American President Obama, apologised to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for the deaths caused on the Gaza Flotilla raid and, to add insult to injury, agreed to pay reparations to the “victims.”  This outrageous and Orwellian apology goes against everything [...]

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