זכור פן תשכח: Commemorating Kristallnacht 73 Years Later

On the night of November 9, 1938, Jewish homes, synagogues, shops, and towns all across Nazi Germany and Austria were targeted in a brutal campaign of antisemitic orchestrated violence and vandalism.  Tonight marks the 73rd anniversary of these grisly events.…

Walkout at Wayne State: Any Better Than the Irvine 11?

Watch the video. Listen to the audio. The clip displays a civil protest and walkout organized by students at Wayne State University in Detroit during a lecture delivered by Jerusalem Post writer and IDF spokesman Gil Hoffman.  [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-QqnRj8Ax4] These students…

Occupy Boston Occupies Israeli Consulate

It appears that the Occupy Movement has made yet another addition to its extensive list of grievances. This one addresses the ongoing conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians. Although such sentiments have been expressed earlier in the Occupy demonstrations, this…

Rabbi Chaim Addresses Trends In Jewish Academic Success

“Parents’ Weekend at UCLA” revealed many of the intimate details of Jewish life on campus. One of these details was the extent to which our leadership takes note of our involvement and progress within the greater UCLA community. On Friday…

Gilad Shalit Prisoner Exchange: One Compromise Too Many

On October 18, 2011, Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was finally delivered into the waiting arms of his relieved and long-suffering family after years of terrifying imprisonment. Shalit was captured over five years earlier on June 25, 2006 by notorious Gaza-based…

Multinational Initiative Seeks Peace Through Environmental Cooperation

Friends of the Earth Middle East, (FoEME) founded in 1994 originally under the name EcoPeace, is an organization without national identity because it is run by, and serves, three distinct peoples in the Middle East. Israeli co-director Gidon Bromberg was…

Halloween and Judaism: a contradiction or a coalition?

Halloween—the night of disguised merriment and childhood dreams. The night where it doesn’t matter if you were an all-star on your high school baseball team, genius enough to discover the theory of relativity, or had the body of an angel—you…

Tenure Shields Professor From the Consequences of Hate Speech

KENT STATE UNIVERSITY — On Monday evening, KSU students were treated to a presentation by Ishmael Khaldi, a rising star in the Israeli diplomatic corps. Khaldi has served as Israel’s deputy consul general to the Pacific Northwest, and he currently serves…

אליעזר גפני: Israeli-American wisdom beyond computer science

Sitting in his office in Boelter Hall, I imagined that Professor Eliezer Gafni seemed to fit the image of the typical Israeli—he is blunt, enjoys hiking, and has a huge Indian tapestry hanging on his office wall. The mountains of…

Plaskow’s feminist theology lacks one thing — Theology

Welcome back to Steiner’s Two Cents — the section in which I probe the interaction between feminism and Judaism as it is filtered through traditional text. Last week, I assessed Moshe Meiselman’s “Jewish Woman in Jewish Law,” which, in my opinion,…