NEW YORK (JTA) — Dear Natalie Portman,I was looking forward to seeing you receive your Genesis Prize in our homeland, and disappointed upon hearing the news that you would not travel to Israel to receive what some call the “Jewish Nobel” because...
By Rabbi Avital Hochstein
• Published April 18, 2018
JERUSALEM — Rabbi Donniel Hartman, who lives in Jerusalem yet works regularly in North America, likens Diaspora Jews to grown children who have left their parents’ nest and created their own space and home outside the homeland of the Jewish people.The...
It’s hard to say for sure whether the following fable was really told in the Warsaw Ghetto, but it’s grimly funny enough to warrant repeating.The story goes that at the height of World War II, Winston Churchill consulted with the Hasidic Rabbi of...
The second commentary I ever wrote for the Jewish Light was titled “Our Kvetching Culture,” in which I argued that we (humanity, including Americans) have never had it so good, yet never felt so bad.That was five years ago. This contradiction has...
The recent organized protests of Israel by Palestinians in Gaza have caused many of us a great deal of concern. I am writing to provide some context and urge respectful engagement with one another as these events unfold over the course of the next few...
(JTA) — Remembering the Holocaust is a solemn duty that all of humanity shares. On Yom Hashoah, which starts on Wednesday evening, as we reflect on those heartwrenching events – among the darkest in human history – we should remember the heroes...
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Rabbi Donniel Hartman, who lives in Jerusalem yet works regularly in North America, likens Diaspora Jews to grown children who have left their parents’ nest and created their own space and home outside the homeland of the Jewish...
SAN FRANCISCO (J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — My Dear Land, It is almost your birthday.At 70, you are not a young country anymore. Some will consider me a stepdaughter because I left you, deciding to move an ocean away. I left...
I love my kids. Truth be told, though, sometimes I don’t always love feeling like I have to attend every one of their activities. For a while, I compared myself to other parents—who seemed so eager to sit through every single minute of every single...
By Jonathan S. Tobin, JNS
• Published April 5, 2018
Was the Palestinian “March of Return” a propaganda success for Hamas? If you think Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is a reliable barometer of international opinion, then maybe the answer is “yes.”On Sunday, Sanders—the former and possibly future...
Shortly before taking the oath as an associate U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg spoke at a program honoring women at the 1993 American Bar Association annual meeting. I was a news reporter covering the event for Reuters and lucky enough...
I fell in love with Washington, D.C., for the first time in the spring of 1964. I was one of a few dozen students on a trip to the nation’s capital, an opportunity organized and chaperoned annually by University City High School.I had no particular...
