Jewish identity

Reflections by an Arab Jew

by News Sources 02.25.2013

Ella Habiba Shohat writes: I am an Arab Jew. Or, more specifically, an Iraqi Israeli woman living, writing and teaching in the U.S. Most members of my family were born and raised in Baghdad, and now live in Iraq, Israel, the U.S., England, and Holland. When my grandmother first encountered Israeli society in the ’50s, [...]

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Jerusalem attack a ‘microcosm of a national problem’: Jewish racism

by News Sources 08.23.2012

The Times of Israel reports: Last week’s attack on Arab youth in the heart of Jerusalem was a symptom of a larger national issue, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin (Likud) said on Thursday. Rivlin visited 17-year-old Jamal Julani, who was hospitalized after being severely beaten by a group of Jewish teenagers last week in the widely [...]

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How Islam saved Judaism

by News Sources 06.02.2012

David J Wasserstein writes: Islam saved Jewry. This is an unpopular, discomforting claim in the modern world. But it is a historical truth. The argument for it is double. First, in 570 CE, when the Prophet Mohammad was born, the Jews and Judaism were on the way to oblivion. And second, the coming of Islam [...]

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Passover: “Pour out your wrath!”

by News Sources 04.07.2012

On the eve of Passover (yesterday), Uri Avnery wrote about the Haggadah, the book which tells the story of the Jewish Exodus from Egypt: The Passover story does not derive its immense power from any claim to be history. It is a myth that grips the human imagination, a myth that is the basis of [...]

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Philip Weiss reclaims his American spirit

by Paul Woodward 04.02.2012

Philip Weiss writes: I need to reclaim my American spiritual roots. This website [Mondoweiss] has been about Jewishness for me because the neoconservative project for the Middle East made me Jewish (as I have said many times) but I will have a Jewishness that is authentic to my experience. I love the Passover deliverance story [...]

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Brooklyn DA accused of failing to tackle Orthodox Jews’ cover-up of sex abuse

by News Sources 04.01.2012

This might seem like a local story of interest and concern primarily to the residents of Brooklyn, yet at a time when numerous state legislatures across America have occupied themselves with countering an imaginary threat from the implementation of Sharia law, little to no mention is made of its Jewish equivalent, Halakha. The Guardian reports: [...]

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Holocaust scholar Yehuda Bauer talks to Al Jazeera

by News Sources 01.07.2012
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Orthodox Judaism treats women like filthy little things

by News Sources 12.31.2011

Yossi Sarid explains that when ultra-Orthodox men in Israel push women to the back of the bus because they are not fit to be seen or spit on little girls because they disapprove of their dress, these misogynistic forms of behavior are not an aberration — they are the application of Jewish law. If you [...]

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Israel turning into theocracy

by News Sources 12.12.2011

Eric Alterman writes: It is becoming increasingly obvious that a break between Israel and Diaspora Jewry, particularly its American variety, is fast approaching. The reason for this is that Israel is slowly but inexorably turning into a conservative theocracy while the Diaspora is largely dedicated to liberal democracy. The strategy of the “pro-Israel” camp among [...]

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When Israel’s guns go silent, its demons roar

by News Sources 12.11.2011

Gideon Levy writes: This fall a culture war, no less, broke out in Israel, and it is being waged on many more, and deeper, fronts than are apparent. It is not only the government, as important as that is, that hangs in the balance, but also the very character of the state. Our way of [...]

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‘Israel could lose American Jewry’

by Paul Woodward 12.05.2011

The Israeli press is sloppy in all sorts of ways. The headline above comes a Ynet article by Yitzhak Benhorin in Washington. It could be a direct quote from The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg and much of the content of the article could be drawn from recent conversation with Goldberg — the article doesn’t make this [...]

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Israel’s insult to American Jews

by Paul Woodward 12.03.2011

American Jewish leaders sent a blunt message to Israel’s leaders this week: don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Well, maybe it wasn’t quite that blunt, but it didn’t need to be since it’s well understood that an insult to the American Jewish community risks damaging ties between the United States to Israel — ties [...]

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Israeli gov’t warns Israelis in U.S. not to marry Americans but come home

by Paul Woodward 11.30.2011

Philip Weiss found this: an Israeli government advertising campaign that’s sure to alienate a lot of American Jews. The series of ads includes one that shows the look of dread on the faces of Israeli grandparents when they hear their grand daughter say she’ll be celebrating Christmas. I happen to live in a part of [...]

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U.S. Jewish leader: Anti-democratic laws ‘catastrophic’ for Israel’s ties with Diaspora Jews

by News Sources 11.27.2011

Haaretz reports: The leader of the Reform movement in the U.S. warned Sunday, in an exclusive interview with Haaretz, of the damage anti-democratic laws will have on Diaspora Jews and Israel alike. “The anti-democratic laws that have passed, or that are expected to pass, in the Knesset are not bad only for Israel. These laws [...]

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Kissinger in ’72: Jews ‘self-serving bastards’

by News Sources 11.19.2011

Ynet reports: Confidential files released for publication in the United States on Friday reveal a new side to the Jewish-American politician Henry Kissinger, which might anger the Jewish community. Kissinger, who served as the United States National Security Advisor and later as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, [...]

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Palestinian ‘Freedom Riders’ arrested on bus to Jerusalem

by News Sources 11.16.2011

The Washington Post reports: Evoking the nonviolent tactics of the American civil rights movement, six Palestinian activists boarded an Israeli commuter bus linking Jewish settlements in the West Bank to Jerusalem on Tuesday and were arrested as they tried to ride through an Israeli checkpoint on the outskirts of the city. The group, part of [...]

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Young U.S. Jews aim Occupy movement at Birthright Israel

by News Sources 11.10.2011

Haaretz reports: As the various “occupy” movements spread across the United States, headed by the massive Occupy Wall Street events, a group of young Jewish Americans is taking the notion of the “99%” against the ruling “1%” to debunk what they see as the hypocritical U.S. Jewish leadership. In a mission statement titled “Occupy the [...]

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Gender apartheid on the rise in Israel

by News Sources 11.08.2011

The Associated Press reports: Posters depicting women have become rare in the streets of Israel’s capital. In some areas women have been shunted onto separate sidewalks, and buses and health clinics have been gender-segregated. The military has considered reassigning some female combat soldiers because religious men don’t want to serve with them. This is the [...]

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Jewish people are just that, people, and far from chosen

by Paul Woodward 10.09.2011

In his new book, The Wandering Who, Gilad Atzmon, who was born in Jerusalem, describes his experience of being raised in a society that preferred to disregard the Palestinians in their midst. “Supremacy was brewed into our soul, we gazed at the world through racist, chauvinistic binoculars. And we felt no shame about it either,” [...]

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Why fewer young American Jews share their parents’ view of Israel

by News Sources 09.29.2011

Dana Goldstein writes: “I’m trembling,” my mother says, when I tell her I’m working on an article about how younger and older American Jews are reacting differently to the Palestinians’ bid for statehood at the United Nations. I understand the frustrations of the Palestinians dealing with ongoing settlements construction and sympathize with their decision to [...]

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The romance of Birthright Israel

by News Sources 06.20.2011

Kiera Feldman writes: The seekers are young, just beginning to face the disappointments of adulthood. Their journey is often marked by tears. They may weep while praying at the Western Wall, their heads pressed against the weathered stone, or at the Holocaust Museum, as they pass the piles of shoes of the dead. Others tear [...]

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Most American Jews have starry-eyed view of Israel, poll finds

by News Sources 06.01.2011

JTA reports: American Jews strongly believe in Israel’s commitmitment to peace, and largely think the Palestinian leadership and people are opposed to it, according to a new poll. Eighty-four percent of respondents in the survey released last week said the Israeli government is committed to a lasting peace, compared to just 20 percent who said [...]

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‘AIPAC activists beat me’

by Paul Woodward 05.25.2011

Only a few months after Rae Abileah was among a group of young Jewish activists who found themselves the target of Jewish mob violence, she was attacked again yesterday, this time while exercising her right to free speech inside the US Congress. Ynet reports: Rae Abileah, a woman of Israeli descent who interrupted Prime Minister [...]

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Can Israel survive without anti-Semitism?

by News Sources 04.02.2011

Avraham Burg writes: In a very short time we will no longer be able to evade the real questions: Are we capable of apprehending our existence without the hatred of others? Do we really need external anti-Semitism as a means to define our inner identity? Think for a moment about a world in which Jews [...]

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