From 7 a.m. today until 8 p.m. tonight, millions of Americans will engage in their ultimate civic duty and vote for the president of the United States and various other local politicians and initiatives. While it would be foolhardy to…
Deflection of political criticism leads to unfriendly international neighborhoods
Many of Israel’s ardent defenders would sooner point to injustices taking place in other Middle Eastern countries than entertain the idea of having a discussion about what the Jewish State is doing right and what it is doing wrong. Israel…
Israel and apartheid: a lesson in the risks of media bias
For Israel, a country trapped under the brutally judgmental microscope of global scrutiny, public image is everything. A recent poll published on October 23, 2012 by Haaretz (a leading Israeli news source), and its accompanying piece by Israeli journalist Gideon…
Blurring democracy: the Orthodox vision of respecting women
It was my first time at the Western Wall. It should have been a beautiful and emotional moment, one that allowed me to connect to the history of the Jewish people. And yet, something irked me. Perhaps it was the…
Inked: a living Holocaust memorial
In Zakhor, the famous commentary on Jewish history and memory, historian Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi writes, “Only in Israel and nowhere else is the injunction to remember felt as a religious imperative to an entire people.” Confluent with that statement is…
Ultra-Orthodox Jews, unemployment rates, and the Israeli economy
As Americans and inevitable participants in this country’s financial infrastructure, we are all acutely aware of the unforgiving crisis engulfing the economy of the United States and spreading to the rest of the world. In the wake of the ailing…
Answering the call: Jerusalem Online U as a supplementary education for college students and beyond
The Problem: anti-Semitism on American university campuses In order to make life a little simpler and to make sense of a chaotic world, humans subconsciously overlook pressing problems, preventing themselves from seeing the harsh reality in front of them and…
Sikhs, Semites, and the Ignorance Problem
VIDEO: Fox Host Asks About Anti-Semitism At Sikh Temple Following the shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin on Sunday, Fox News host Gregg Jarrett asked a nephew of one of the victims, “Have there been any prior acts of violence against…
The Occupation We Choose to Ignore
For thousands of years, my ancestors referred to an arid strip of desert land as our home. Our language bespoke the pain and joy of our national history. We practiced the religion of our ancestors, and we organized our society…
The New Face of Instantaneity: how Twitter describes our world
by Joshua Friedlander Just the other week, New York cops cleared out hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protesters from Zuccotti Park in Manhattan’s financial district. There was a feeling among the protesters that the movement had come of age, that at last…