“Ben Gurion Looks at the Bible” Holds Wisdom for the Current Chapter of the Jewish Story

Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, was a socialist who rejected the Marxist belief that all important struggles are economic. Rather than believing that religion, nationalism, and moral ideals obscure economic struggles, he saw intellectual and moral struggle as important…

On Campus, Jewish Students Now Confront the Quintessential “Covenant of Fate”

When he delivered his essay Kol Dodi Dofek to an audience of American Jews on the eighth anniversary of Yom Ha’atzmaut in 1956, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik formulated his vision of post-1948 religious Zionism by referencing the terrors of Treblinka,…

SATIRE: World Peace at Last- UN Agrees that Israel is the Worst

Notes:  This story is inspired by current events. The situation in this story is exaggerated, and the quotes are created to be satirical. The views expressed in this post reflect the views of the author(s) and not UCLA or ASUCLA…

Am Yisrael Chai- UCLA Jewish Community Stands Together Amidst Terror Attacks in Israel

This article contains information about the attacks in Israel. For those who wish to avoid recounting the events of the past few days, or have lost friends and family, we recommend you stop here. ———— On the 50th anniversary of the…

Explaining Judicial Reform in Israel

Following the election of long-time Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu last November, the Prime Minister has assigned positions in government to politically repressed right wing politicians who have had long-standing issues with the Israeli Supreme Court. Netanyahu himself was indicted…

What a New Democratic Iran Would be Mean for Israel and Iranian Jews

As Israel continues to thwart the Islamic Republic of Iran’s terrorist activities in the Middle East and inside Tehran, the ongoing protests inside Iran, despite the government crackdowns, many Iranian Jews and Israelis are continuing to have hope that the…

The Rise and Fall of the Israeli Left

Imagine if every season was election season.  Millions of Israelis felt a sense of deja vu this past November when they cast their ballots for the fifth time in just over two years. Many things were left up in the…

Why Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Return as Israel’s Prime Minister is Good for the Arab States

Following the election of Likud leader Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu as Israel’s prime minister and the new conservative coalition in the Knesset, Arab leaders from Bahrain, Jordan, Sudan, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Egypt congratulated the incoming administration. Despite the mixed…

Hen Mazzig: Confronting the Rise of “Modern” Antisemitism

When Hen Mazzig came to speak at the UCLA Hillel in late October, I had no expectation of seeing him again ten days later at the Jewish National Fund’s National Conference in Boston, some 2,500 miles away from Westwood.  While…

Book Review: The “Titan of Tehran” by Shahrzad Elghanyan

Over the summer, I had the privilege of reading the biography of former Iranian Jewish leader and businessman Habib Elghanyan, “Titan of Tehran,” written by his granddaughter Shahrzad Elghanyan. In her book, Elghanyan traces her grandfather’s rags to riches backstory,…