Article Archives

Getting Birthright Wrong

In mid-June, The Nation magazine, which for decades has provided a special platform for Jewish critics of Zionism, published an article by a young alumna of Birthright Israel, the organization that since 1999 has sent 260,000 young Diaspora Jews (including this writer) on free ten-day tours of the Holy Land.

Capital Crime. Capital Punishment?

Since its founding, the only person ever to be executed by the state of Israel has been the notorious Nazi, Adolf Eichmann. But the brutal murders of Udi and Ruth Fogel and three of their young children this past March has the IDF weighing the possibility of seeking the death penalty for the Fogels' murderers.

Where Have All the Volunteers Gone?

In the 1990's, the Harvard social scientist Robert D. Putnam triggered national hand-wringing over his book Bowling Alone, which showed plummeting rates of voluntary and charitable activities among Americans, a people known since de Tocqueville's day as the world's most public-minded citizenry.

Where Have All the Volunteers Gone?

In the 1990's, the Harvard social scientist Robert D. Putnam triggered national hand-wringing over his book Bowling Alone, which showed plummeting rates of voluntary and charitable activities among Americans, a people known since de Tocqueville's day as the world's most public-minded citizenry.

In the Wake of the Altalena

Ships and their comings and goings have lately been a fixation over at Haaretz, Israel's chief left-wing newspaper. One of the paper's advocacy journalists has been writing enthusiastically about joining up with a pro-Palestinian flotilla that intends to smash Israel's naval blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

Jews, Communism, and Espionage

In the history of the American Left, Jews have been disproportionately represented—disproportionately, that is, relative to their share of the American population. At the extremes, they have also been active participants in what has sentimentally been called the "romance" of American Communism.

Montreal, a Love Story

The second International Yiddish Theater Festival, an elaborate ten-day fete whose program ranges from carnavalesque performances to academic symposia, just wrapped up last week in Montreal. What is especially surprising about this celebration is that Montreal is a city with a Jewish population of less than 80,000.

One Woman Army

Andrei Sakharov, the great nuclear physicist and human-rights campaigner, had been dead for two years by the time I came to his Moscow apartment in the early summer of 1991. Elena Bonner, his widow, was there, still defiantly at war with the faceless foe that had slaughtered her family, exiled her and her husband, slandered her Jewish name, and lied about it all.

Following the Strong Horse

A Druse physician from the Golan Heights, who works at an Israeli hospital, was one of 24 members of his community arrested for pummeling IDF troops with rocks during so-called Naksa Day protests. Just where do Druse loyalties lie?

The Osirak Precedent

In May 1981, eight Israeli fighter jets were on the runway waiting for the go-ahead to execute the most daring operation ever undertaken by the Israeli air force: flying more than 1,000 miles east over enemy territory to destroy Osirak, Iraq's nuclear reactor.