Jewish History

( The Times of Israel) – Could someone earn a commendation for deliberately breaking the holiest object ever created, one that was crafted and inscribed by God Himself? According to a midrash [scripture interpretation], this is exactly what happened to Moses. In our weekly scripture reading, Exodus 30:11–34:35 [“Ki Tisa”], Moses shatters the tablets after […]

Antisemitism

Death shaded the Life of this Holocaust historian. The cancer Memoir he began in Hospital was a final ‘Act of Love’

The Conversation

By Tess Scholfield-Peters, University of Technology Sydney (The Conversation) – Mark Raphael Baker began writing his final book, A Season of Death, from his hospital bed, in the wake of his terminal pancreatic cancer diagnosis. His second wife, Michelle, would later observe: “More than a comfort or distraction, in him it was a need.” The […]

Jewish History

What Hannukah Teaches us about Violence and Peace

Yakov M. Rabkin

( The Times of israel ) – Biblical accounts teem with violent episodes. Just a few days ago, we read in the synagogue the story of Jacob’s two sons, Levi and Simeon, massacring the entire male population of a city in a devious scheme using a religious pretext. (Genesis 34) Their father was so aggrieved […]

Anti-Zionism

Voices for Justice in Palestine

H. Patricia Hynes

Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment, Feature) – They gather every Saturday morning on the Greenfield Common, Massachusetts from 11-Noon. Their signs and banners read: LET GAZA LIVE FREE PALESTINE CEASEFIRE – NO ARM$ TO ISRAEL NEVER AGAIN FOR ANYONE Why? Johanna (Jo) Rosen stands on the Common because she is “heartbroken and outraged by […]

Anti-Zionism

Weaponizing Antisemitism

Common Dreams

By Ellen Cantarow and Jennifer Loewenstein | – ( Commondreams.org ) – All of us—and we are legion across the worldmust keep our eyes on the genocide in Gaza, as well as on the vicious pogroms underway in the West Bank. A recent statement by James Elder of UNICEF reports that in Rafah, “The European […]

Anti-Zionism

Antisemitism and Antizionism: A Dangerous Conflation

Yakov M. Rabkin

Montréal (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Antisemitism is making the headlines. The Israeli Prime Minister describes as antisemitic the accusation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and even American students who are calling for a ceasefire. What Israel is doing does in fact provoke antisemitic acts against synagogues, Jewish schools and even individual […]

Anti-Zionism

Zionism’s Expired Shelf-Life: Why Naomi Klein is right that it has become Pharaoh

H. Scott Prosterman

Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Previously I’ve argued that Zionism has run its course as a political movement, and accomplished its goal: The creation of a viable Jewish nation-state. I’ve also argued that Zionism under Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi) has become a driving force in nurturing global anti-Semitism. He has perverted […]

Featured

Israel on the Brink as Ultra-Orthodox Exemption from Military Service is Set to End

H. Scott Prosterman

Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Featured) – On March 29, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the government to stop subsidizing the academies and yeshivas (seminaries), whose students have been exempted from military service since Israel’s founding. This move, brought by Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara, was prompted by the expiration of prior government actions to maintain […]

Islam

Europe’s Jewish Scholars of Islam

Shalom Goldman

Middlebury, Vt. (Special to Informed Comment) – At the end of the nineteenth century, the Turkish government asked its Minister of Education to prepare a report on European universities and the possibility of introducing Western style higher education to the Ottoman realm. The Minister travelled to the great European educational institutions and submitted his report […]