‘A work of progress’
May 16, 2012
Acceptance of gay rights is as close to consensual as any issue in the Jewish community. Excepting the Orthodox, three-quarters of American Jews support same-sex marriage, and the majority of Jewish groups back gay rights. Read More
Advertisement
Democracy in action
May 9, 2012
To see the very public squabble over Iran between Benjamin Netanyahu and various members of Israel’s current and former defense and intelligence staffs, one has to wonder: What kind of government can’t seem to speak with one voice on so urgent a matter? The answer is: a democracy. Read More
No joke
May 2, 2012
In a bit he recently repeated on The Daily Show, British comedian Ricky Gervais jokes that the Nazis must have been incompetent if it took them two years to find Anne Frank’s hiding place. It’s not a very good joke, but it’s not exactly an assault on the memory of the Holocaust. Nevertheless a Jewish journalist named Dan Bloom would like to see Gervais or Jon Stewart acknowledge that the joke was inappropriate. Read More
Advertisement
Reasons to celebrate
April 25, 2012
iEngage, an effort of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem to strengthen the dialogue between Israel and world Jewry, marked Israel’s 64th anniversary of independence by asking its contributors to describe what they are celebrating on Yom Ha’atzmaut 5772. Read More
Teaching the Shoa
April 18, 2012
In this week’s cover story, inspired by today’s commemoration of Yom Hashoa, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Johanna Ginsberg asks a provocative and perhaps unanswerable question: Should the Holocaust be taught as a unique — and uniquely Jewish — atrocity in human history? Or should the curricula of “genocide studies” be universalized to include other tragedies and crafted to impart lessons in tolerance and moral courage? Read More
The ‘real’ Israel
April 11, 2012
While other reporters followed Gov. Chris Christie on visits with “political, education, and business leaders or to Jewish and Christian holy sites” during his five-day trip to Israel, columnist Mike Kelly of The Bergen Record left the bus to interview a resident of the Kalandia refugee camp in the West Bank and to meet with a former New Jerseyan, David Wilder, who serves as a spokesman for the Jewish residents of Hebron. Read More
Bittersweet
April 4, 2012
Every year, the Passover seder asks Jews to make a leap of the imagination. According to the Haggada, in every generation we are obligated to regard ourselves as if we had come out of Egypt. In his new translation and commentary on the Haggada, novelist Jonathan Safran Foer calls this demand on the imagination a “radical act of empathy.” “We are asked not to receive a story,” he explains, “but to be characters within it, to feel as if we, ourselves, are being liberated from Egypt.” Read More
Wrong direction
March 28, 2012
In an assault on Israel in all but name, a rogue’s gallery of anti-Israel activists is planning a “Global March to Jerusalem” on March 30, to coincide with what the Palestinians call “Land Day.” Marchers plan to gather at Israel’s borders in what they are calling a peaceful protest, but which actually seems calculated to provoke a violent reaction from Israel. Read More
‘Stand united’
March 21, 2012
United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ and the Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey condemn the tragic terror attack on a Jewish school in southern France that has left at least four dead, including three children. Read More
‘Free’ trips, big payoff
March 14, 2012
We knew Taglit-Birthright Israel pays huge dividends in terms of Jewish identity. The free trips to Israel for Jewish youth — a joint venture of private philanthropists, local federations, and the State of Israel — have sparked feelings of attachment and peoplehood in a population once considered “at risk.” Read More
Follow NJJN
E-Newsletter Signup