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Ofer Chen

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Jun 5, 2026, 12:03 AM

An Urgent Call to American Jews

There are moments in history when silence is not prudence but abdication. There are moments when standing on the sidelines is not moderation but a moral failure. And there are moments when those who refuse to confront reality eventually...

May 30, 2026, 5:07 PM

The Mirror of Stéphane Hessel

There are certain critics whose voices Israeli society finds particularly difficult to confront. It is easy to dismiss harsh criticism as ignorance or as evidence of a failure to understand the complexities of the Middle East. It is equally...

May 21, 2026, 11:58 PM

Stranger in My Own Country

For many of my friends in the United States, Israel has become an increasingly contested subject. Some see it as a democratic society struggling to survive in a hostile region. Others see a country gradually losing its moral character....

Mar 23, 2026, 12:50 PM

The Mirage of Victory

Some wars are lost on the battlefield. Others are lost before they even begin. The current conflict with Iran belongs to the latter. Not because of weak soldiers or inferior technology, but because of a deeper failure: leadership, language,...

Mar 13, 2026, 6:46 PM

The Impossible Victory

The current war has become a stark symbol of the Israeli tragedy: while soldiers on the front lines, pilots in the sky, and civilians on the home front display remarkable determination, the nation’s decision-makers offer a spectacle of ignorance,...

Mar 5, 2026, 11:36 PM

Gavin Newsom’s Pivot and Netanyahu’s Failed Gamble

The war currently waged by Israel and the United States against Iran appears, at first glance, to testify to a deep and strategic alliance between the two countries - an almost 'intimate bond', as government spokespeople in Jerusalem are...

Mar 1, 2026, 5:53 PM

The Moral Language of War – and What It Hides

In his poem The War to Come, published on the eve of World War II, Bertolt Brecht offered an unsettling insight into the nature of modern warfare. Wars, he suggested, are not necessarily battles between absolute good and absolute...

Feb 26, 2026, 10:35 AM

Netanyahu, Israel’s Government, and the Rise in Antisemitism

Since October 7, 2023, antisemitism has risen sharply and in well-documented ways around the world. From university campuses in the United States to the streets of London, Paris, and Berlin, anti-Jewish incidents have spiked - both online and offline....

Feb 23, 2026, 1:28 PM

Aharon Barak and Israel’s Democratic Crisis

Aharon Barak - a world-renowned legal scholar, a fearless Attorney General who fought public corruption, and a groundbreaking Supreme Court justice - is one of the most influential figures in Israeli legal history. Yet today, his legacy lies at...

Feb 17, 2026, 5:27 AM

Democracy in Retreat

On January 4, 2023, Israel's Minister of Justice convened a press conference to announce the launch of a 'governance reform'. The plan was presented as a unique solution to a specific Israeli crisis of governance. In reality, however, it...

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About Me

Ofer Chen has a PhD in the history of the Jewish people and a post-doctoral degree in law. He wrote a book about the ideological and social changes that have taken place in Israeli society, and has written many articles in the field. He serves as a researcher at the Institute for Diaspora Studies at Tel-Aviv University and at the Leo Beck Institute, Jerusalem.