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Barry Mellinger

Jun 25, 2026, 11:11 PM

Mamdani’s Jews

The deal between those who need a Jew they can point to, and the Jew who has decided to burn the house down. Not a conspiracy. Not a coincidence. A deal, with two parties, two pathologies, and a machine that...

Jun 23, 2026, 3:57 PM

We Forgot How to Pray

While visiting Europe's largest synagogue, I realized one real danger for Jews isn't anti-semitism, it's that most Jews no longer know how to talk to God. Last week I visited the largest synagogue in Europe. Fortunately, I was able to...

Jun 23, 2026, 2:09 PM

I Left NYC for Tel Aviv. It Was the Best Decision I Ever Made.

Author Sophie Mendel

I left my life in New York City in search of community and belonging—in Tel Aviv, I found it. One year ago I decided to leave New York City and move to Tel Aviv. In the wake of October 7th...

Jun 20, 2026, 10:23 AM

The Power of Self-Selection

Perhaps self-selection is one of the most overlooked forces in human history. Photo: Albert Einstein sticking his tongue out for photographer Arthur Sasse after his 72nd birthday party on March 14, 1951. Public domain. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

The Hidden Force Behind Success Why are Jews disproportionately represented among Nobel Prize winners, scientists, entrepreneurs, and intellectuals? Why did America become the world’s dominant economic and technological power? Why did Israel transform itself from a poor, newly established state into one...

Jun 7, 2026, 6:01 AM

Why I Spill Wine on Purpose

In our family, when someone spills wine at the Shabbat table, I spill some too. I started doing it years ago, almost without thinking. A guest knocks over a glass. One of the kids has an accident. And before anyone...

Barry Mellinger

Jun 2, 2026, 2:29 PM

My Heart Is in the East

American Colony (Jerusalem). Photo Dept., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Before we can talk about anything, about Zionism, about Palestine, about 1948, about the argument I actually want to have across this series, we have to sit for a moment with something strange. Something so familiar to Jews that...

Steven C. Wernick

May 30, 2026, 12:33 AM

Anatevka Had No Fourth Path. We Do.

Monday night I saw Fiddler on the Roof. In Yiddish. Part of it was intellectual curiosity. Yiddish was the lingua franca of that world. Sholem Aleichem wrote in Yiddish. Tevye der Milkhiker — Tevye the Dairyman — was born in...

Heather Cathleen Cox

May 22, 2026, 12:08 AM

Across the Øresund: Meeting Elisabeth, Walking Copenhagen with Bente (Part Two)

The Baltic cold has a way of entering the body slowly. In Dragør harbor, the February wind rolled off the Øresund with a bitterness that settled into my gloves, my face, even my breathing. Fishing boats rocked quietly against...

May 11, 2026, 7:00 PM

UK Antisemitism Moves From Margins to Mainstream

Visual cited from the Pexels website and is free for overall use on a commercial platform: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-in-black-suit-jackets-and-black-hats-3501127/

A surge in antisemitic intimidation, paired with political equivocation, is testing Britain’s civic compact and exposing the state’s difficulty in confronting modern extremism. Britain likes to imagine itself as a country tempered by moderation: pragmatic in politics, restrained in rhetoric...

Sam Lehman-Wilzig

May 8, 2026, 11:26 AM

Israel & the Diaspora Moving Apart: Déjà Vu All Over Again

The relationship between Israel and world Diaspora Jews, especially American Jewry, has been deteriorating these past few years. So what else is new? This is a process that has been going on for the past 2,500 years, ever since the...

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