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Neshama Carlebach

Dec 7, 2021, 5:31 PM

I’m stepping back from hugs and embracing the mitzvah of consent

Some of my most unnerving moments... (illustration by Avi Katz)

Just as we’re exiting COVID lockdown into a touch-starved world, I’ve had the uncomfortable realization that my family’s tradition of hugging needs to be re-examined

Nov 30, 2021, 2:27 PM

For the love of Israel, we need to say: The Reform Movement is Zionist

Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem (PD-Wikimedia)

How could future Jewish leaders write an open, public letter in the middle of a war, missiles raining down on our people, without ever mentioning Hamas?

Yossi Klein Halevi

Nov 23, 2021, 1:47 PM

To the students who walked out on Palestinian-Israeli dialogue

Students at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign holding signs that read 'STOP NORMALIZING GENOCIDE' stage a walk-out at the event 'Remaining In Dialogue,' with Yossi Klein Halevi (seated) and Mohammad Darawshe (at lecturn), October 7, 2021 (Screen grab from a video of the event)

I've learned you can’t cancel a people: Mohammed Darawshe and I are modeling a painful conversation about injustice and existential fears

Menachem Bombach

Sep 26, 2021, 11:11 PM

Thou shalt love your child who leaves religion

(courtesy)

Just as God accepts us regardless of our weaknesses, so must we ultra-Orthodox accept our children when they choose a different way of life for themselves

Kamal Abdel-Malek

Jun 7, 2021, 10:42 AM

For an Egyptian teenager like me in 1967, an Israeli victory was inconceivable

Gamal Abdel Nasser with pilots at a Sinai airbase along the border with Israel prior to the Six Day War in June 1967 (PD)

In an excerpt from his memoir, a professor of Arabic literature describes the horror at learning his country had lost the Six Day War and the shockwaves that followed the defeat

Jun 1, 2021, 12:53 AM

America is over. I’m moving to Israel

I don’t know if another Holocaust is possible in the US, but after what I’ve seen lately, I do believe that at some point Jews will no longer be welcome here

Rachel Sharansky Danziger

May 31, 2021, 2:03 PM

I will not be a lamb on the altar of your purity

'Agnus Dei' (The Lamb of God) by Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbarán (1598–1664) (PD via Wiki Commons)

Once I felt if only I explained more, if only I explained better, surely you would understand that I’m fighting for my life. Not anymore.

Donniel Hartman

May 19, 2021, 6:54 PM

Why Israel lost this war

Pro-Palestinian activists and supporters in London let off smoke flares, wave flags and carry placards during a demonstration against Israel amid fighting between the Jewish state and Palestinian terrorists in Gaza, on May 15, 2021. (Tolga Akmen/AFP)

As criticism of the war shifts to a foundational critique of Israel itself, Israel can't afford to not make its case. This it can do only by reclaiming the moral high ground

Evan Fallenberg

May 16, 2021, 4:41 PM

A violent mob destroyed the oasis we created in Acre

Damage caused by a violent mob at the Arabesque Arts and Residency Center in Acre, May 12 (courtesy)

Can the people in this sad, beautiful, ravaged land ever learn to respect the differences and distinctions between us and use them for an enhanced joint future?

Feb 12, 2021, 1:05 PM

In Iran, I was taught to hate Israel and Jews. Then I watched Schindler’s List.

Frame from the 1993 movie, Schindler's List.

Spielberg's movie undid decades of lies, inspired me to visit Auschwitz, and taught me that the truth will always, eventually, come to light

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