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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir in the Knesset plenum in Jerusalem, March 19, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Yair Zivan

The coming storm

The country’s global standing has never been worse. Without a change in government, Israelis will soon feel it in their wallets, travel and security

(Art by Sefira Lightstone, www.sefiracreative.com)

Judy Klitsner

Our new delicate Simchat Torah dance: A time to weep, a time to rejoice

When our feet move in rhythm, but in heavy steps, and our voices rise in song, but crack with the weight of memory, the community will help warm the chill of absence

Students lead prayers outside New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's residence in Manhattan, September 18, 2026. (Ramaz school via Facebook)

Avi Weiss

‘If I am not for myself, who will be for me’ still comes first

As Jewish students challenged Mamdani’s antizionism at a prayer vigil, I saw the sage Hillel’s teaching come to life: We cannot forget ourselves when we care for others

In this December 28, 1962 file photo, anti-Stalinist poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko speaks during a reading of his poetry in Moscow's Tschaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow. (AP Photo)

How a poem let Soviet Jews remember in public

Sixty-five years ago, Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s ‘Babi Yar’ put into print a history Jewish families had been forced to carry in private

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attends a ceremony at the monument to Jewish victims of Nazi massacres, at Babyn Yar in Ukraine's capital Kyiv, September 29, 2021. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

Yevgen Korniychuk

Babyn Yar: When history becomes a battlefield

Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel: ‘The Jewish people know better than many others how dangerous it becomes when a lie is repeated so often that it begins to be accepted as truth.’

Lisi Levisohn

What the sukkah lets in

The sukkah’s flimsy walls remind us to open our hearts to the pain, the joy and the needs of other people – even when they’re not ‘one of our own’

Young men writing essays. (iStock)

Daphne Lazar Price

I want to read the essays

When you were accused of drugging and gang-raping a woman and given the opportunity to mitigate against the alleged crime, what did you say?

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Oct 1, 2026, 3:07 AM

Politicians Want the Cowboy’s Vote. But Where Does He Belong?

Dr. Semoff came at me with a needle when I pulled my gun out and hit him in the head. I was three or four. From then on I had to check my pistols with nurse Liz, who said...

Nassir Hussein Kahin

Oct 1, 2026, 3:06 AM

The Red Sea Shift: When Others Begin Telling Somaliland’s Story

For three decades, Somaliland’s diplomatic argument has lived under the shadow of Somalia. Almost every international discussion began from the same point: territorial integrity, African caution, fear of precedent and the assumption that Hargeisa’s future had to be negotiated through...

Karen Miller Jackson

Oct 1, 2026, 3:03 AM

Simchat Torah: An Unfinished Story

Simchat Torah will never be the same. Three years after October 7, this day will always carry a sense of before and after. A day once associated with joy, dancing, and women’s hakafot is now also a time to...

Alexander A. Winogradsky Frenkel

Oct 1, 2026, 3:02 AM

The Thirty-Eight Dances Quiet Rounds

Jerusalem can be crossed without entering very much of it. People follow familiar streets, pass doors whose languages they cannot read, and know exactly where they belong. Sometimes a short journey changes that arrangement. The thirty-eight minibus offers such journeys....

Celeste Aronoff

Oct 1, 2026, 2:58 AM

How I’m Going to Save the World

I scroll and read and share and quote about Israel & Jews non-stop. I consume ‘Suicidal Empathy’ by Gaad Saad and agree with every example, every conclusion. I follow increasingly conservative commentators and news outlets, arguing with my various...

Oct 1, 2026, 2:56 AM

The Miracle We Would Have Called a Tragedy

Some events need no embellishment. They need us to look clearly at what happened—and at what nearly did. On Wednesday, a FlyDubai flight travelling from Dubai to Tel Aviv made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia after a violent incident...

Oct 1, 2026, 2:54 AM

A Blessing of Love: Recalled

A group of Kfar Aza evacuees gathered in a group hug for the Priestly Blessing (Oct. 19, 2023)

On the morning of October 8, the day after the atrocious and tragic events of October 7, I attended morning services on Simchat Torah, at Congregation Beth Israel, where I serve as the community's rabbi. I was in a...

Mordechai Silverstein

Oct 1, 2026, 2:51 AM

The Voice That Never Leaves Us

In the final lines of the Torah, God shows Moshe the Promised Land and tells him that, after his death, He will fulfill the promise He made to His people to give them the land: “This is the land that...

Judith R. Robinson

Oct 1, 2026, 2:50 AM

Is Trump Hatred Syndrome Adding to Jew Hatred?

It has become clear to me that in addition to rising anti-Semitism in America there is a new layer of anti-Israel sentiment growing quickly here, especially among Democrats and younger voters. Also, concurrently, there is very little way to...

Joel M. Levenson

Oct 1, 2026, 2:48 AM

May We Be Worthy

In the song Acharei HaNetzach, “Beyond Eternity,” by Peer Tasi, there is one one line I keep playing over and over in my mind ever since I heard it the first time: Zman hu yam, ach lo hachof. Time is the...

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