(JNS)—Despite the intense focus on Israel’s ongoing political stalemate, the Israeli media has found plenty of room in recent days to run lengthy features on food, music, sports, shopping and gossip. Stories have included the victories of...

The annual intersection of Chanukah and Christmas is once again approaching and with it the combined joy of the season. The close proximity of the two holidays this time of the year becomes complicated because of the different meaning and...

(JNS)—The news out of Iran should shock the conscience of the world. As The New York Times reported in a front-page article published on Monday, when Iranians tried to protest their government’s arbitrary decision to drastically raise gasoline...

What is the essential philosophical difference between the Greeks and the Jews? Over two thousand years ago a battle ensued between the Jewish nation and the Greek empire that culminated in the retaking and dedication of the Temple and the continuati...

(JTA)—A Facebook friend is looking for nominations for the Great Chanukah Song. I’m not impressed by the candidates. The classics—“Maoz Tzur (Rock of Ages),” “Oh Hanukkah Oh Hanukkah,” “Sevivon” and “I Have a Little Dreidel” --...

NEW YORK (JTA)—Here we go again: Just this week, two more cases of the abuse of Holocaust imagery have surfaced and created an international stir.  In November, Russian figure skater Anton Shulepov wore an Auschwitz-themed costume during his free...

(JNS)—The long-awaited indictments of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on corruption charges haven’t changed many minds in the Likud Party. His loyal followers are still not only convinced of his indispensability, but also of the bogus n...

(JNS)—The following quotes are from Jewish citizens of various European countries, gathered during a survey earlier this year on Jewish perceptions of anti-Semitism that was carried out by the European Union. “Anti-Semitism and racism are like...

(JNS) Ever since the Muslim conquest, occupation and colonization of the Middle East and North Africa in the seventh century, the region’s Jews, among others, lived under a dhimmi status. While the Arabic term dhimmi has been translated as...

(JNS)—The U.S. position on the future of Judea and Samaria should be based on U.S. interests in the context of a violent, volcanic, uncontrollable and unpredictable Middle East, where agreements are as tenuous as are the regimes which conclude...

NEW YORK (JTA)—Although it hasn’t yet been determined whether the brutal stabbing of a young father on his way to morning prayers in Ramapo, New York, was a an anti-Jewish hate crime, it was described by the local police chief as a “vicious,...

(JNS)—With Michael Bloomberg’s announcement that he will be running for president as a Democrat, the former New York mayor may have given American Jews a reason not to decamp for the GOP en masse. Yes, I realize that the Democratic Party has...

Monday will long be remembered as a turning point in Middle East history. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement Monday that Israeli settlements are not illegal per se is the most significant shift in U.S. Middle East policy in the past...

(JNS)—Amid all the hubbub over the latest wave of Palestinian Arab rocket attacks against Israel, one extremely important part of the story passed almost unnoticed. I call it Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas’s dirty little secret. A...

(JNS)—U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Monday that the United States no longer considers Israel’s settlements in the West Bank inconsistent with international law. This policy shift comes in the wake of last week’s ruling by...

(JTA)—This week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States no longer considers Israeli Jewish settlements in the West Bank to be illegal. Following the announcement, many 2020 Democratic candidates claimed the decision would...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s Nov. 18 announcement that the U.S. now regards Israel’s West Bank settlement enterprise as “not inconsistent with international law” is just the latest blow delivered by the Trump administration to the prospec...

WASHINGTON—On Monday, Nov. 18, Pastor John Hagee, the founder and Chairman of Christians United for Israel, expressed support for the Trump administration’s revocation of the Hansell Memorandum: “I want to express my profound appreciation to...

Dear Editor: The American Jewish Congress greets yesterday’s historic announcement by the Trump Administration on the legality of settlements as a step in the direction of moving both sides towards a meaningful resolution. We reject the concept tha...

(JNS)—The atmosphere on North American college campuses today is one in which anything that can be labeled, fairly or unfairly, hate speech or which might make virtually any group feel “triggered” or otherwise upset can be banned or otherwise...

Technology has brought the world ever closer together, but increasingly, political instability, terrorism and war reminds us how very far apart different places remain. In 1963 when I made my first flight to Israel, our Air France flight had to stop...

More than 150 rockets were fired at Israeli civilian targets by the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists from Gaza within hours after the Nov. 12 targeted air strike assassination of Baha Abu al-Ata, a top commander of Islamic Jihad...

BIRMINGHAM, England (JTA)—My heart jumped when I saw the phone number of my oldest son’s school on the screen. “Hello?” “Is this Dr. Skinazi?” “Yes.” “Don’t worry, Lucas is fine. Only—I just wanted to let you know that there...

(JTA)—She was 16 years old and alone in a refugee camp in a foreign country when we met her. Sobbing, she told us how she hoped that her brother might be somewhere in this camp, “camp number 18.”  She had heard that he might be alive—if...

Everything was going well until I checked my phone. I had just finished teaching Sunday school at a synagogue in Evanston, Illinois, and was on the bus that would take me back to my apartment on the far north side of Chicago. It was a beautiful day....