Mark Ira Kaufman

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Jul 24, 2021, 1:49 AM

The First Great Teflon Terrorist: Arafat’s Munich Encore

The day after the September 11 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center Palestinian Authority President Yassar Arafat publicly donated a pint of blood at a hospital in Gaza City for victims of the most deadly attack...

Jun 26, 2021, 3:04 PM

The rift that keeps on rifting

The message from Iran was clear a year before the presidential election. After Donald Trump reshaped American foreign policy into an avatar of his deal breaking and dishonesty, Iran had another justification for its 68-year-old distrust. And Iran’s 2020...

May 23, 2020, 5:36 PM

Dying to attend church is better than dying because you did

Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne is shown leading a service at the River at Tampa Bay Church in Florida on March 29, 2020. Rev. Howard-Browne was subsequently arrested for encouraging hundreds to attend his megachurch. (courtesy River at Tampa Bay Church)

Earlier this year as Passover and COVID-19 were streaking towards each other at what people my age describe as the speed of time, Jews all over the world agonized over the decision to have their traditional seders. When push came...

May 8, 2020, 2:35 PM

Does God want us to risk life, or to save it?

Hundreds of members of the Orthodox Jewish community attend the funeral for a rabbi who died from the coronavirus in the Borough Park neighborhood which has seen an upsurge of (COVID-19) patients during the pandemic on April 05, 2020 in the Brooklyn Borough of New York City.(Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Some of you reading this are frum. If you are שומר שבת (Sabbath observant) you know -- or should know that there are circumstances under which מלאכות (stuff you're just not supposed to do on the Sabbath) are not...

Feb 22, 2020, 9:30 PM

Bernie Sanders’ Anti-Israel Tunnelvision

I like Bernie Sanders’ positions on most issues. Although he’s often an insufferable blowhard whose condescending moral certainty about everything rings like fingernails on a blackboard, he seems to care about people and, as such, has an acceptable moral...

Feb 18, 2020, 6:31 AM

Trump’s Most Harmful International Anti-Obama Episode? It Might Be Iran.

My first Obama "Is this for real?" moment happened before he had been in office even five months. What's more, it was his fulfillment of a campaign promise that originally disquieted me... a lot. During the campaign he promised...

Jan 3, 2020, 11:47 PM

The Broken Art of the Broken Deal

With the chaos created by the recent killing of Iran's top military leader, understanding what things were like before Donald Trump gave his famous anti-Midas touch (turning gold into lead) to U.S.-Iran relations one needs to look back about...

Dec 15, 2019, 10:19 PM

To Know America’s Foreign Policy, Follow Trump’s Money

When Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (also referred to as MBS) had Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi murdered and immediately dismembered for easy disposal in 2018, many accused President Trump of doing nothing about it. The accusation is buttressed by...

Dec 14, 2019, 9:11 PM

The Palestinians are an ‘Invented people?’ Okay. Who isn’t?

In 2012, as former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich sought the American Republican presidential nomination, he appeared on a Jewish cable TV program to curry favor with Jewish voters. During the interview Gingrich declared that Palestinians are “...an...

Sep 7, 2019, 9:22 AM

The Vanishing Jewish Passion for Truth

Someone on Facebook recently directed people to website promoting a theory that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee during Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings. To be precise, a rightwing website called Star Political jumped on a Fox...

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About Me

Mark Ira Kaufman majored in physics. He later worked as a studio musician for many years before turning to writing. He has been published in The Plain Dealer, The Beacon Journal, The Jerusalem Post, and Midstream Magazine. He also was writer and editor of The Mark Ira Kaufman Journal.