Will Israel Attack Iran?  Ronen Bergman,  New York Times.  Can Israel severely damage Iran's nuclear sites? Would a strike have international legitimacy? Is this the point of last resort? For the first time, at least some of Israel's leaders believe that the response to all of these questions is yes.  SAVE

How Many Came Out of Egypt?  Shlomo Karni,  Torah Musings.  David Ben-Gurion did the math.  SAVE

Rules for Revisionists  Jonathan S. Tobin,  Contentions.  By brandishing the name of Saul Alinsky, does Newt Gingrich intend to send out anti-Semitic dog whistles to the Right? Nonsense.  SAVE

Our Ethiopian Brothers  Elad Uzan,  Jerusalem Post.  Why haven't Israelis come to the aid of Ethiopian Jews, as they have for African non-Jews?  SAVE

"My Name is Daniel Pearl"  Giulio Meotti,  Ynet.  The barbarous murder of this American Jew, ten years ago this week, didn't awaken global public opinion to the most significant truth of our times: Today, every Jew in the world is on the frontlines of war.  SAVE

The Seed of Israel  David Ellenson,  Jewish Review of Books.  He has been accused of heresy and expelled from Shas, but Haim Amsalem's lenient approach to conversion in Israel may yet be a blueprint for a more unified nation.  SAVE

Courting China  Jerusalem Post.  Given its erstwhile alliance with the Arab nations and current support for Iran, China is not Israel's most likely partner. Yet economic ties between Israel and China have never been stronger.  SAVE

Bringing Darkness to Light  Eva Fogelman,  Forward.  Agnieszka Holland's Oscar-nominated In Darkness is a vivid and nuanced portrayal of Jews escaping wartime Poland and an important testament to the righteousness of their rescuer.  SAVE

Majority Rule  Abraham Cooper,  Fox News.  As Western leaders and human rights activists fete democracy in Egypt, they turn a blind eye to the increasing restrictions being placed on Egypt's Jewish and Christian minorities.  SAVE

Then They Came for the Jews  Matthew Fishbane,  Tablet.  With his latest assault on the upper classes and persistent attacks on Israel, President Hugo Chavez has left Venezuela's Jewish community facing a choice between emigration and persecution. (With photos)  SAVE

A Stunning Discovery  Judy Siegel-Itzkovich,  Jerusalem Post.  As Holland, among other countries in Europe, seeks to ban Jewish ritual slaughter, new research demonstrating that stunning animals does not minimize their suffering has come not a moment too soon.  SAVE

Maple Leaf and Olive Branch  Harold Waller,  H-Net.  Canada's desire to distinguish itself from the U.S. and UK sometimes led it away from the policy of "scrupulous impartiality" that it wished to adhere to in the Middle East.  SAVE

Academe Award  Elli Fischer, Shai Secunda,  Jewish Review of Books.  Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, Footnote is a work of serious philosophical inquiry, cloaked in winking academic gossip for those in the know.  (Here, an interview with the director.)  SAVE

A Biographer’s Ethics  Michael McDonald,  Wilson Quarterly.  "Solzhenitsyn up close turned out to be a far less saintly figure than he had seemed from afar . . . [but] Koestler, who has always had a bad reputation for his character, grew in my estimation."  SAVE

Family Romance  Benjamin Ivry,  Forward.  In the Freud family letters, the figure of Jacob Bernays—classical philologist, Orthodox Jew, homosexual, and deep influence on his brother-in-law Sigmund—comes to light.  SAVE

The New Normal  Jackson Diehl,  Washington Post.  In spite of the Islamist ideology of Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government, Turkey may prove to be a key U.S. ally in the Middle East during the coming decades.  SAVE

A Mind Alone  Stefany Anne Golberg,  Smart Set.  In a collection of the Austrian novelist Joseph Roth's correspondence, there aren't any letters written to his parents, or to those who were perhaps his closest friends. There are no love letters—or any letters at all—to his wife.  SAVE

Digital Davening  Michael J. Broyde,  Torah Musings.  Smartphones have already begun to supplant traditional siddurim; but the potential of the digital revolution to transform the experience of prayer has barely been realized.  SAVE

Dividing the Waters  Susan Hattis Rolef,  Jerusalem Post.  A new French report on water usage in the Jordan Valley allows political bias against Israel to mask the real challenges of water conservation facing every country in the region.  SAVE

Revisiting the Reich  Ron Rosenbaum,  Smithsonian.  William L. Shirer's 1960 history of the Third Reich remains the seminal account of the philosophical roots of Nazism and a stark warning of the dangers of mass political movements.  SAVE

The Original Kosher Jesus  Fred MacDowell,  On the Main Line.  150 years ago, Rabbi Elias Soloweyczk published commentaries on Matthew and Mark, aimed not at rejecting the Gospels but showing their concordance with the Talmud.  SAVE