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The Stranger in Our Midst

Even if we cannot eradicate the complexity of our tradition's attitude to conversion, we must understand the pain it causes for those who seek to join us. Lies, Damn Lies, and Middle East Memoirs

Gary Sick's success is indicative of how lucrative stridently politicized pseudo-research on the Middle East can be.Darkness Visible

Himmler and Heydrich were careerists. This is not to say they were not anti-Semitic: They were, rabidly so. But fanatical anti-Semitism was also a good career move in Nazi Germany.The Miracle

The state of Israel is the product of more than 4,000 years of Jewish history. "If you want to understand our country, read this!" said David Ben-Gurion on the first occasion I met him, in 1957. And he slapped the Bible. But the creation and survival of Israel are also very much a 20th-century phenomenon, one that could not have happened without the violence and cruelty, the agonies, confusions, and cross-currents of our tragic age. It could even be argued that Israel is the most characteristic single product, and its creation the quintessential event, of this century.1948: Palestine Betrayed

Zionist Jews were not interlopers in Palestine. The creation of the Jewish state was not an "original sin" foisted upon the Arab world. The tragic flight of the Palestinian refugees was overwhelmingly not the fault of the Zionists. To the contrary, at every momentous junction the Zionists opted for compromise and peace, the Arabs for intransigence and belligerency.  This, in summary, is how most people once understood the Arab-Israel conflict. Today, however, as Israel marks its Independence Day, an entire generation has come to maturity believing a diametrically opposite "narrative" . . .  War Diary

"Arab Legion reported to be trying to smoke out the Haganah who had entered underground channels . . ." Excerpts from a British clergyman's 1948 journal.Standards and Practices

The idea that one may convert without intent to carry out mitzvot is a minority opinion.Klein’s Nachtmusik

"May my publisher be drowned in ink, may he be crushed between presses, may the printer's devil take him"—and other dyspeptic dispatches from A.M. Klein.