Tag Archives: Israel

It’s the shortest Shabbat of the year and time is running short, but there is just time for a few items for Good News Weekend. My first item is the discovery of a rare 3rd century synagogue in the Golan Heights which has a beautiful mosaic floor (via DavidinPT): Fragments …

Indictments, political logjams, intensifying drum beats of potential conflicts on multiple borders: we are awash in confusion, uncertainty and the potential for paralysis. It is exactly because we are in unprecedented, uncharted and therefore frightening waters that we need to take a collective deep breath, step back and employ the …

Our PM has not only helped restore Jews to geopolitical history, he has placed Israel not just in the corridors of power, but increasingly, at the table of power. For those whose middle-of-the-night dreams include the vanquishing of the Royal Family – the turning away of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu …

I have made no secret of it: the current election campaign has not exactly been an enlightening period for Israel. For many of us, this has been a source of great sadness. Our nation is capable of better – of a more elevated campaign. There has been too much back-biting, …

FACT: For many centuries, Palestine was a sparsely populated, poorly cultivated, and widely neglected expanse of eroded hills, sandy deserts, and malarial marshes.  This was Mark Twain’s description when he visited in 1867: A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds—a silent mournful …

Racism is a form of hatred which believes that all members of a particular group are inferior and/or evil.  In itself, it is ugly but not dangerous, a localized noxious belief system based on bigotry.  Racism becomes toxic when it spreads and obtains power. Such is the state of Palestineism, …

It is difficult not to savour the irony of two United States congresswomen who advocate boycotts of Israel crying foul at being denied entry into the very country they seek to erase.  Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, two members of the Democratic Party’s “Squad” of neophyte congresswomen from the Party’s …

As writer of this letter I am not someone who makes it her life’s mission to bring others down.  In fact quite the opposite.  I look for positives wherever I can and try not to be critical. I have read with interest the different opinions on all sides of the …

The Palestinians have only themselves to blame for unifying the bulk of the Israeli public and for not being a hot issue of division in the forthcoming Israeli elections. A century of unbroken Palestinian intransigence is best expressed by the Palestine Arab Executive Committee’s statement in 1921, “Either us or …

My North African Jewish-Amazigh* grandparents came from Djerba, Tunisia, to Israel in the early 1950s. Around the same time that my father’s parents arrived in Israel from North Africa, my mother’s parents came to Israel from Baghdad, Iraq.  They were also forced out of their country.  They had been part …

The Jewish connection to the Land of Israel did not begin in the wake of the Holocaust or with Zionism in the late 19th century. The Jewish people have lived in the Land of Israel for 3,000 years.  If one does not want to accept the Bible as a source …

The terminology used by the United Nations that Israel is “illegally occupying Palestinian Land” has angered Israelis for a long time. The Israelis do not believe that the land is “Palestinian,” that they are “occupying it” or that living in and controlling such land is “illegal.” The Trump Administration agrees …

There are many misconceptions about the Temple Mount, the Kotel and the Al Aqsa mosque. Confusion and even much conflict can be dispelled when the facts are made clear! 1. What is the holiest site on earth for Jews? Did you answer, “the Kotel”? If you did, that’s a mistake …

This is not so much a review of the book “The Rage Less Traveled: A Memoir of Surviving a Machete Attack,” it’s more a summary of my experience reading it and why I believe this is a must read for everyone, including those not specifically interested in Israel.  Choosing to …

And a source of sadness, as well. I refer, of course, to the current political situation in Israel. For days, I held off posting because I was waiting for resolution with regard to formation of a coalition. Now the time to write has come. ~~~~~~~~~~ I want to begin by …

In the US today, “white people” are being shamed into feeling that somehow they, and all their forebears, are directly responsible for the persecution of whoever makes it onto the accepted list of the “oppressed.” Israel does not relate to that. The recent Conservatism Conference in Jerusalem, sponsored by the …

Apartheid. Just the mention of the word is emotive, evocative and provocative. For millions of South Africans who suffered under the apartheid regime, the word is synonymous with suffering, discrimination and racism. Today the word apartheid has been hijacked by Israel’s detractors as a way to launch a well-orchestrated assault …

It’s a difficult time for pollsters. Whether it be in the USA, Israel or Australia, it seems that the common denominator is that they are not an accurate indicator of too much at all. Moreover, exit polling which was usually regarded as being more exact, also proved to not be …

Israel is one of the most misunderstood, misrepresented and maligned countries on earth.  The question is, why? Jew hate?  Or because our “hasbara” is terrible?  In pro-Israel circles either (or both) of these are go-to explanations however neither are enough to explain the dissonance between Israeli reality and the concepts …

It’s Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, and, as remarked upon by both local and foreign observers, the country swings in a schizophrenic kind of way from the mourning, sorrow and remembrance of Yom Hazikaron to the flag-waving patriotism and general merry-making of Yom Ha’atzmaut. Prayers marking the transition from the …