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  • Are they immigrants or invaders?

    May 12, 2017

    Dear Editor: With the recent and current influx of Muslim “refugees” coming into Europe and the United States, one has to ask, “Are these Muslims migrants, immigrants or are they invaders?” There is a drastic difference. The prophet Mohammed said, according to the Hadith, there are five responsibilities or charges for those who practice Islam. They were “to assemble, to listen, to obey, to immigrate and to wage jihad for the sake of Allah.” This is exactly what is happening with today’s immigration. This is also what is known as the “stealth... Full story

  • Sean Spicer, the pope and the Holocaust

    Jonathan Feldstein|May 5, 2017
    1

    Israel observed Yom Hashoah—Holocaust Memorial Day—last week, pausing to remember the six million Jews who were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. As Holocaust survivors age and die, it’s not long before our memory will be without the benefit of people who actually suffered and still bear witness to these unspeakable and unparalleled horrors. It’s all the more important to remember in light of Holocaust denial; claims that the Holocaust simply didn’t happen, that there was no systematic murder of European Jews, or that we are exagg... Full story

  • Current Commotions

    Ira Sharkansky|May 5, 2017

    There’s always something to bother the Jews of Israel. Currently we’re smelling the preparations for a national election. Some may suspect that it wafts over the continent from Britain or France, but it comes from local pressures. The major responsibility may be those long-running police investigations into Sara and Bibi Netanyahu, with a lesser inquiry into one of their sons. Likud politicians are positioning themselves, still careful to say that they support the Prime Minister, but getting ready to replace him. Also playing the election game... Full story

  • Have Nazis overrun the campuses?

    Mitchell Bard|May 5, 2017

    I am loath to criticize other organizations that are trying to help students and combat the BDS campaign on college campuses; however, I have also felt an obligation to correct misinformation put out to create hysteria about the alleged dangers faced by Jewish students. Selective use of extraordinary incidents and flawed data have been disseminated to create a picture of campuses across the country being engulfed with anti-Israel activity and anti-Semitism, a portrayal that is simply inaccurate. Earlier this year, I criticized the AMCHA... Full story

  • No exit? The NY Times and North Korea

    Mel Gurtov|May 5, 2017

    Three opinion pieces on U.S. policy toward North Korea have appeared in the New York Times in the past week. They deserve critical comment. The writers are all very capable people who share a deep concern about Korea’s security and the possibility of a major blowup that would cause enormous human and material losses throughout the Asia Pacific. As a longtime student of Korean affairs, however, I find that these commentaries—which reflect analysis in the U.S. mainstream media generally—are narrowly focused and alarmist. They would make it seem... Full story

  • The American pastor at Erdogan's mercy

    Ben Cohen, JNS.org|Apr 28, 2017

    As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan assumed near-dictatorial powers following his dubious victory in a constitutional referendum April 16, Andrew Brunson, a Christian pastor from North Carolina, was marking his sixth month of incarceration inside a Turkish prison. Brunson, who has lived in Turkey with his family for the last 23 years, was the head of the Resurrection Church in the coastal city of Izmir—that is, until he was detained last October on the vague and unsubstantiated charge of “membership in an armed terrorist org... Full story

  • There must be limits to Jewish Community's 'Big Tent'

    Jonathan S. Tobin|Apr 28, 2017

    What is the one value that the Jewish community should care most about? To listen to many who run Jewish organizations and communal philanthropies, the answer is inclusion. At a time when it is difficult to engage young people, maintaining a “big tent” is a sacred concept. Drawing a line and declaring those on the other side to be outside the community is not merely seen as divisive, but as antithetical to the preservation of the community. But the left-wing group that calls itself Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) seems determined to prove tha... Full story

  • Where is the pride?

    Jim Shipley, Shipley Speaks|Apr 28, 2017

    YouTube is one of the marvels of the Electronic age. You can play eight hours of the singers and jazz artists of the 1940s. You can take a Friday and play Yiddish and Israeli music all the way up to Shabbat. And then there are the other sites. Rachel and I were scrolling and typed in “History of the Jews.” The first video that came up was a vile attack on the Jews from some obscure group that shall remain nameless. Basically it said we had a chance given to us by God and blew it by not recognizing the Messiah and then killing Jesus. It the... Full story

  • The fight against lung cancer

    Shelly Ferrone|Apr 28, 2017

    In 1998, I was diagnosed with lung cancer. After chemotherapy and the removal of my left lung, have been cancer free for 19 years. Luckily, I am able to say that I am a lung cancer survivor. I am one of the lucky ones, because in our country, every five minutes a woman learns she has lung cancer. And the rate of new cases in women has almost doubled in the last 39 years. Yet getting tested for lung cancer is not a top-of-mind cancer concern for 98 percent of women. For many, early detection is key. Only 16 percent of people are diagnosed at an... Full story

  • Pushing Death

    Jonathan Rosenblum, Jewish Media Resources|Apr 28, 2017

    Recently, I had a chance to spend a day with one of my closest friends from law school. Near the end of our time together, he shared the story of the passing of his mother whom I had the pleasure of meeting many decades ago. Towards the end the end of her life, she was hospitalized with pneumonia. The doctor told her oldest son that she would not be able regain her strength unless a feeding tube was inserted. Her son decided against the feeding tube on the grounds that his mother had lived a full life—she was then 96—and that the operation ent... Full story

  • Ken Livingstone: enabler of evil

    Ben Cohen, JNS.org|Apr 21, 2017

    I’ve written many times about the anti-Semitism that continues to plague the British Labour Party—once a noble party of both opposition and government that has now, under its current far-left leader Jeremy Corbyn, become a laughably ineffective opposition with little hope of attaining government leadership. One key reason for that involves the scandals around open expressions of anti-Semitism from party activists and leaders alike, discrediting the party among voters in general and forcing Jewish members to leave what was once their nat... Full story

  • 'Humanitarian' shipment to Gaza masks terror supplies

    Stephen M. Flatow, JNS.org|Apr 21, 2017

    Those cruel Israelis! Palestinian residents of Gaza just want some soccer balls and perhaps a few Frisbees, to help break the monotony of life under siege. Yet the insensitive Israeli authorities, enforcing their ruthless blockade, recently intercepted a shipment of innocent, humanitarian sporting goods that would have brought a little light to the dark of lives of Gaza’s children. That’s what you can expect pro-Palestinian human rights groups and their media supporters to report. The truth, however, is different. Very different. In an attempt... Full story

  • Israel and Obama's political war

    Caroline Glick, www.carolineglick.com|Apr 21, 2017

    Eli Lake from Bloomberg set off a firestorm in the U.S. this week with his revelation that in the last six months of the Obama administration, Susan Rice, former president Barack Obama’s national security adviser, requested that the U.S. intelligence community enable her to use foreign intelligence collection as a means of gathering information about Donald Trump’s advisers. According to Lake’s story, during the course of the U.S. presidential campaign, and with steadily rising intensity after President Donald Trump won the November 2016 elect... Full story

  • Why does America's largest cell carrier call Israel 'Palestine?'

    Karen McDonough, JNS.org|Apr 21, 2017

    When Mark Rosenblatt touched down at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv April 5 and powered on his cell phone, he got the surprise of his mobile technology life. Rosenblatt received a text message from his cell phone carrier, Verizon, reading, “Welcome to Palestine.” “I did a double take,” said Rosenblatt, a high-tech consultant from Edgemont, N.Y. He had traveled to Israel to see his daughter, who is studying in a master’s degree program at Bar-Ilan University. “I was shocked that an American company was falling into some BDS rhetoric,... Full story

  • India can assist U.S. in solving Syria problem

    Apr 21, 2017

    Dear Editor: The international law which has permitted the United States (without UNSC approval) to carry out a missile attack in Syria against the crime of chemical attack on citizens by Pres. Assad and his government, can, as a logical conclusion, permit the U.S. (without UNSC approval) to arrest Pres. Assad and his government and produce them before an International Court for the war crime of using chemical weapons, and simultaneously to fill the vacuum by installing another government in Syria through elections. The U.S. military strike in... Full story

  • Approach Marine Le Pen with caution

    Ben Cohen, JNS.org|Apr 14, 2017

    There was an illuminating report from Paris in The Wall Street Journal this week that related how Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, has been consulting a group of French bankers and captains of industry in a bid to continue the mainstreaming of her party as the country’s presidential election approaches. Named “Les Horaces,” in honor of imperial Rome’s most illustrious and politically astute poet, this collection of dignitaries is preparing Le Pen, who represents what has up until now been a perennial party of opposit... Full story

  • Another day, another attempt to burn Jews alive

    Stephen M. Flatow, JNS.org|Apr 14, 2017

    A group of Palestinians tried to burn some Israeli Jews to death March 23. Just another day in the Middle East. The four attackers drove up to the perimeter of the Jewish community of Beit El, north of Jerusalem, and began hurling firebombs toward homes there. A firebomb, also known as a Molotov cocktail, is of course a deadly weapon. It explodes on impact and unleashes a torrent of flames. We can all easily imagine what would happen if those firebombs had struck people or homes. Fortunately, Israeli soldiers immediately fired at the would-be m... Full story

  • Neighbors

    Shalom Pollack|Apr 14, 2017

    I am learning more than just a language as I study Arabic. As I had hoped, it is allowing me a peek into a culture and mentality. For example, the other day I was riding my bike and stopped to say hello to a young Arab man employed by the city as a gardener. Turns out he is a neighbor of mine. He lives in Jebel Mukabar, which is in ear shot of where I live. I hear clearly (whether I want to or not) the call to prayer each morning from the powerful mosque loudspeakers. I knew enough Arabic to comment that his village has a bad reputation. Over t... Full story

  • U.S. action against genocide: a brief guide

    Rafael Medoff, JNS.org|Apr 14, 2017

    President Donald Trump’s missile strike against Syria inaugurates a new chapter in the long and controversial history of American responses—and sometimes nonresponses—to mass murder around the world. Although the killing of Syrian civilians by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime does not technically constitute genocide—which the United Nations defined in 1948 as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”—there is no doubt Assad has committed heinous and large-scale war crimes. Trump’s d... Full story

  • Stop denying the Israeli consensus on the Palestinians

    Jonathan S. Tobin, JNS.org|Apr 14, 2017

    Yair Lapid is the current favorite to become prime minister the next time the Israeli people go to the polls to elect a new Knesset, at some point in the not-too-distant future. But whether or not the former television star who leads the centrist Yesh Atid party winds up succeeding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he has already done something that ought to influence international opinion about the Middle East conflict. The only question is whether those determined to impose their will on the Jewish state will listen. Last weekend, Lapid... Full story

  • Peter Beinart's children are in for a surprise

    Stephen M. Flatow, JNS.org|Apr 7, 2017

    Israel critic Peter Beinart has announced that when his children “near adulthood, I’ll encourage them to visit the West Bank.” Why? “So they can see for themselves what it means to hold millions of people... without free movement or due process,” he wrote in his column for The Forward. The Beinart children are in for quite a surprise. In his various articles and media appearances, Papa Beinart regularly accuses Israel of occupying and oppressing the Palestinians. I imagine that’s what the Beinart kids hear at the dinner table, too. But when th... Full story

  • With our freedom from slavery, what are Jews free to do?

    Rachael Bregman|Apr 7, 2017

    (Rabbis Without Borders via JTA)—At Passover, Jews over the world gather to celebrate “zman cheirutenu,” the season of our freedom. We will read all about freedom from slavery. We drink four cups of wine to rejoice in the four freedoms given to our ancestors by God. We eat charoset, a mixture of fruits, nuts, juice or wine that represents the mortar used with the bricks we no longer have to place as slaves. Freedom from bondage, from Egypt, from Pharaoh. The idea of being freed from slavery by God is a central tenet of Judaism. We say, remem... Full story

  • Islamist terror includes Hamas

    Ben Cohen, JNS.org|Apr 7, 2017

    As reports of the savage terrorist attack in central London March 22 emerged, it was clear pretty quickly that British authorities were dealing with an incident straight from the Islamist terror manual. The weapons of choice in London were ordinary consumer goods that are easily refashioned for the purposes of murder. The car in which the kids are driven to school is also a makeshift tank that can be used for ramming pedestrians. The knife that chops a salad can also be a machete of sorts, used to hack down police officers and others who get... Full story

  • What made David Friedman's confirmation so contentious?

    Sarah N. Stern, JNS.org|Apr 7, 2017

    David Friedman was confirmed March 23 by the U.S. Senate as America’s ambassador to Israel. But that was only after a highly contentious debate, and unfortunately, only because there is a Republican majority in the Senate. The same was true of Friedman’s prior approval by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The committee’s minority leader, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), voted against him, as did every single Democrat on the committee. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), wrote March 6 that Friedman “lacks the necessary temperament to serve in such... Full story

  • What if time is not Israel's enemy?

    Jonathan S. Tobin, JNS.org|Apr 7, 2017

    At first glance, it was one more example of why the United Nations is a cesspool of anti-Semitism and hatred for Israel. The publication of a report commissioned by the U.N.’s Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia broke new ground by not merely unfairly criticizing Israel, but taking the position that its existence as a Jewish state is illegitimate and, in and of itself, a justification for being branded as guilty of the “crime of apartheid.” Though this was more evidence of the rise of a new anti-Semitism that masquerades as anti-Zio... Full story

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