Israel: Jewish and Democratic

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Marc J. Rosenstein

Jan 10, 2025, 9:07 AM

The Jewish Power Blog: Complicity and Resistance

When God reveals to Abraham the plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah on account of their wickedness, Abraham is troubled, for his cousin Lot and his family live there. Abraham poses a challenge to God on a theoretical level:...

Andy Blumenthal

Jan 1, 2025, 10:03 PM

Reconciling with Germany

Today, 80 years after the Holocaust, I grapple with a profoundly complex and deeply personal subject: my evolving perspective on Germany. It's a topic I never imagined I'd address publicly. To be candid, growing up in the long shadow cast...

Sam Lehman-Wilzig

Dec 27, 2024, 8:00 AM

From the State of Israel to the State of Judea

While we are celebrating Hanukkah today, a question arises: why isn’t the State if Israel called the “State of Judea”? Not only was the last successful Jewish war of independence led by Judah Maccabee, but the nation that earlier...

Dec 26, 2024, 9:35 PM

The Hanukkah and Shabbat lights and Lessons for Today

The lighting of candles, or oil, plays a central role in Jewish life. Shabbat and festivals commence with the lighting of candles and Shabbat concludes with the lighting of a candle, we light candles to commemorate our loved ones,...

Moshe-Mordechai van Zuiden

Dec 24, 2024, 5:47 PM

Israel’s government uses the war as an excuse to plunder the workers further

Capitalism means the economy is doing great and the people are starving I'm not talking ideology here; I'm talking figures. In the seven-front, multi-year war, Israel's stock market is booming, the shekel is high, The Gross Domestic Product grew by...

Dec 24, 2024, 1:20 PM

The festival of judicial independence

Who rules on whether the oil is pure? The rabbinic version of Hanukkah we follow today says it's not the priest-kings, it's the court.

Richard Lederman

Dec 22, 2024, 6:52 PM

Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism redefined

It would be futile to attempt to analyze the entire debate about whether or not anti-Zionism is antisemitism. The point is that the entire debate is flawed, and if American Jewry–the vast majority of which is Zionist but utterly...

Andy Blumenthal

Dec 22, 2024, 6:54 AM

If You Can’t Beat Them, Blame Them

Yesterday, a radical Islamist terrorist from Saudi Arabia plowed his car through a German Christmas market, killing five people and wounding more than 200. Yet, the reaction on social media was sickeningly to call him "a diehard Zionist who...

Dec 20, 2024, 12:14 AM

Inching toward theocracy

Illustrative. The Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee discusses a bill to expand the number of municipal rabbis across the country, June 18, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/ Flash90)

Like every religious Jew, I pray daily for the restoration of judges 'as in days of old' - a legal system rooted in Halacha. But not this way

Allen S. Maller

Dec 14, 2024, 2:19 PM

Hanukah Hasmoneans and our duty to Always Hope

The post-Biblical eight-day Jewish holiday of Hanukah (which begins this year on the evening of 12/25/24) started with a religious miracle; and ended with failed political leaders and policies. Hanukah begins with a family of priests (kohanim) from the village...

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