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Anti-Semitism


Israel: The Miracle Israel: The Miracle
Tuesday, May 10, 2011 by Paul Johnson | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

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.
Crimes of Communion Crimes of Communion
Monday, May 9, 2011 by Allan Nadler | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Two years ago, a Muslim reporter for the Malaysian magazine Al Islam attended a Catholic mass in Kuala Lumpur with a companion, surreptitiously took communion, and put the wafer in his mouth, only to spit it out later. The May 2009 issue of Al Islam featured a cover photograph of the soggy, partially-eaten wafer—to the horror of local church authorities.
Anti-Semitism 101 Anti-Semitism 101
Friday, May 6, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

One of the many dismaying things about anti-Semitism is its lack of originality. The rhetoric and setting change, but the substance persists. Anti-Semitism on American campuses is no exception; but the mere fact that it exists, and that it is virulent, is sufficient to merit the alarm it has caused.
The New Egypt: Back to Belligerence? The New Egypt: Back to Belligerence?
Thursday, May 5, 2011 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Watching Egypt's revolution unfold earlier this year, apprehensive Israelis were reassured by European and American observers that they had little to worry about: Hosni Mubarak's February 12 departure had been provoked neither by anti-Israel fury nor by Islamist fervor, and shouts of "Up with Egypt" in Tahrir Square more than drowned out chants of "Down with Israel" or "Allahu Akbar." 
Hamas-Fatah: Looking for the Red Lines Hamas-Fatah: Looking for the Red Lines
Tuesday, May 3, 2011 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Things can always get worse, and in the Middle East they usually will. That was made depressingly clear once again with the April 27 announcement in Cairo of a reconciliation agreement between the rival Palestinian organizations of Fatah and Hamas.
Calibrating Darkness Calibrating Darkness
Monday, May 2, 2011 by Henry Tylbor | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

A child survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto and then of Auschwitz and Majdanek, Henry Tylbor (1929–2009) eventually settled in New York where he wrote and taught. A polymath, and fluent in several languages, he was especially interested in the fields of linguistics, neuropsychology, the sociology of culture, and their intersections. The present work of autobiographical fiction is among the manuscripts left at his death. In observance of Holocaust Remembrance Day, it appears here for the first time.—The Editors
Easter, Passover, and the <i>West Side Story</i> that Wasn’t Easter, Passover, and the West Side Story that Wasn’t
Wednesday, April 27, 2011 by Elliott Horowitz | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Late in 1948, in the early stages of his collaboration with Jerome Robbins on the musical that would become West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein wrote in his diary: "Jerry R. called today with a noble idea: a modern version of Romeo and Juliet set in slums at the coincidence of Easter-Passover celebrations. Feelings run high between Jews and Catholics. . . . "
Eichmann Goes Digital Eichmann Goes Digital
Monday, April 18, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

This year, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Eichmann trial, Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, together with the Israel State Archives, has posted to YouTube an extraordinary series of videos: over 200 hours of courtroom sessions and testimonies in the original Hebrew, German, and Yiddish, as well as a parallel set with English voiceover. What do they tell us?
A New Germany? A New Germany?
Thursday, April 14, 2011 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

At a joint press conference in Berlin on April 7, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the atmosphere of mutual trust and friendship in which their just-concluded talks had taken place. Germany, he averred, was "a great friend" of Israel. Yet any sober assessment of the Germany-Israel relationship would have to come to a different conclusion.  
A Chosen People? A Chosen People?
Tuesday, April 12, 2011 by Aryeh Tepper | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Within months of Israel's lightning victory in the June 1967 war, French President Charles de Gaulle was asked for his judgment of the dramatically new situation created by the triumph of the Jewish state over its enemies. Still smarting from Israel's refusal to heed his advice and wait passively for the Arab armies to attack, de Gaulle labeled the Jews "an elite people, sure of themselves and domineering."
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Editors' Picks
Diaspora Divided (Sneak Preview of JRB Spring Issue!) Jordan Chandler Hirsch, Jewish Review of Books. Peter Beinart tries to show how one-dimensional support for Israel is alienating young liberal Jews. The trouble is that his own one-dimensional criticism of Israel alienates everyone else.
The Limits of Justice Jerusalem Post. Although concentration camp guard John Demjanjuk died a free man, his conviction by the German courts as an accessory to murder shows how others can be brought to justice.
Invoking Auschwitz David Landau, Haaretz. Although the Right has made insensitive Holocaust comparisons in the past, the Left must realize that another attempted genocide of the Jews is a real possibility.
Ghost Train Benjamin Ivry, Forward. Over seventy years after the fact, and in spite of pressure from American legislators, the French national rail company still refuses to admit its role in transporting Jews to concentration camps.
Nesting Dolls Alina Dain Sharon, Jewish Journal. Twenty years after their Russian exodus, the lives of Jews who emigrated to the U.S., Israel, and Germany differ markedly from those who stayed in Russia.
Proxy War Jonathan Schanzer, Foreign Policy. Although Israelis have come to expect rocket attacks from Gaza, this time the perpetrators are not Hamas agents but Iranian proxies. And however the conflict develops, Tehran will come out on top.
Détente in Dresden Raphael Mostel, Forward. Although Dresden, leveled by Allied bombing, remains a rallying point for neo-Nazis, its citizens have created a culture which mourns its wartime destruction without eulogizing the Third Reich.
Hester Panim? Daniel Pipes, DanielPipes.org. Jerusalem in the Qur'an is a 142-page text—but Jerusalem is nowhere to be found in the Koran.
In Fayyad's Hands Alexander Joffe, Asaf Romirowsky, National Post. Salam Fayyad is both the primary vehicle for a future Palestinian state and its most effective symbol.
Forked Tonge Howard Jacobson, Independent. Dismissed from the UK's Liberal Democrat party for an apparent longing for Israel's extinction, Jenny Tonge cried foul. But hating Israel doesn't grant automatic immunity from the charge of loathing Jews.