Two weeks ago I wrote an article about Jerusalem, its vibrant energy, and the stubborn distance between its different groups. I ended with a suggestion, a hope, and a recycled Lennon lyric: let us recognize that despite the differences, we…
Legal battle over passport highlights United States’ refusal to recognize Jerusalem as a part of Israel
A United States passport is one of the most powerful documents in the world. It entitles the holder to travel unimpeded throughout most of the world’s countries, and affords the full protection of the United States government. Like all passports,…
The Temple Mount: conflict and future
Following this summer’s tragedy and controversy with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the recent closing and reopening of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem triggered an additionally sensitive dimension for Israel’s stability. On Wednesday, October 29, Rabbi Yehuda Glick, founder of the LIBA…
The Day the Buses Stood Still
Israel needs America – financially, diplomatically, and militarily. It’s a fact. So when U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton makes an observation, even about a relatively minor point of domestic policy, Israelis tend to sit up and listen. That is…
Palestinian ‘freedom riders’: the protest we’ve been waiting for?
Israeli police have detained six Palestinians dubbed West Bank Freedom Riders who boarded a Jerusalem-bound bus used by Jewish settlers. The activists say they drew inspiration from 1960s US civil rights demonstrators who campaigned under the same name against segregated…
Obituary: Nosson Tzvi Finkel (1943-2011)
By Joshua Friedlander The passing of elderly rabbis is a fairly regular, if unhappy, event in Jerusalem; but few of them as wide a ripple across the Jewish world as that of Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, rosh yeshiva (dean) of…