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Ralph Seliger

Pro-Zionist Peace Activist, Editor and Commentator

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Nov 20, 2025, 8:22 PM

My Parents Fled Poland; I Visit as a Polish Citizen

My tour group spent Shabbat in Warsaw, with most choosing to pray at the Reform congregation (closer to Conservative in ritual). The Soviet-born, Israeli-raised rabbi hosted us for a kiddush-lunch and asked to hear about our feelings on coming...

Nov 6, 2025, 9:06 PM

Mamdani under My Liberal-Zionist Gaze

Back on June 24, 2023, this New Yorker first heard of (and heard) Zohran Mamdani, now my city's Mayor-Elect, on a public radio show called "Capitol Pressroom." A cordial 22-minute segment highlighted the young NY State Assemblyman's bill to...

Oct 8, 2025, 1:06 AM

Jewish Mag’s Extreme Anti-Israel Turn

From the cover of the Dec. 1995 issue of Jewish Currents, featuring the first of about 50 articles & posts I contributed to JC over the next 23 years.

Jewish Currents (JC) is a small left-wing, non-Zionist Jewish publication that I'd been involved with since 1995 as a "token Zionist." It literally grew out of its origins in the American Communist Party to emerge as an independent monthly...

Jul 29, 2025, 6:50 AM

Gaza Catastrophe Also Harms Israel and Jews

I'm active with the liberal pro-Israel Google group of the Alliance for Academic Freedom. We've been intensely debating, mostly critically, Prof. Omer Bartov's "genocide" conclusion, but not to defend the policies of Netanyahu's government. In the past year, Bartov...

Oct 15, 2022, 8:06 AM

FDR’s State Dept. Almost Killed My Parents

My mother is second from left, standing above my father, posing in the Polish countryside with friends and relatives, circa 1930s.

My sister and I grew up on our parents' stories about their survival as refugees, and the struggles and deaths of our grandparents and other relatives too numerous to remember. It was a revelation to me when historical scholarship...

Aug 2, 2022, 6:35 PM

Could the Jews have beaten Rome, or at least not lost?

The Jewish rebellions against Rome have long fascinated me -- for their ferocity, and for the great victories initially won by the Jews against the greatest empire of the ancient world at the height of its power. I’ve long...

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About Me

Ralph Seliger edited The Third Narrative website from 2015 until June, 2025. Prior to that, he edited the print and online publications of Meretz USA (now Partners for Progressive Israel). He's been an active supporter of the Zionist peace camp since 1982. Among other print and online platforms he's written for: The Forward, Tikkun, The Daily Beast, In These Times, Jewish Week, New Jersey Jewish News, Jewish Currents, Huffington Post, Dissent.

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