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The Politics of Tree Planting

Aiming to transform Israel's aridity, earlier functionaries imported trees unsuited to the Middle-Eastern landscape, putting pressure on a scarce environmental resource: water.Oak Tree

"I will keep standing," sings the Israeli jazz bassist (Video; performance begins at 1:30.)     Extending an Olive Branch

Wary of Turkey's increasing radicalism, Israel and Greek Cyprus are forging a new military alliance to protect their offshore gas fields, and to defend against the growing threat of militant Islam.Building Bridges

Moshe Safdie, the world-renowned Israeli architect, is shutting down the office he opened in Jerusalem in 1970. The future, it seems, is in China.Nazi Family Values

The photo albums of Hitler's associates—the extended Nazi family, as it were—were of little or no interest to researchers immediately after World War II. But historians are taking a second look.Whitewashing Black-Jewish History

Both African-Americans and Jews journeyed from slavery to redemption, ultimately united as allies in the civil rights era. It makes for an appropriate and inspiring school lesson. But is it good history?Mincing Words

The Yiddish expression makhn ash un blote—"to make ashes and mud" or "to make mincemeat" of someone—exemplifies the influence of biblical idiom on Yiddish phraseology. A Separate Peace

A Gur Hasid, who practices a strict sexual separation, will not walk with his wife on the street. He will not call her by name. To address her, he will knock on the table. Or hum.Disjecta Membra

Not for nothing was the Cairo Genizah called "the Living Sea Scrolls": its discoverers revolutionized the study of Mediterranean Jewish life at the very moment that it was drawing to a close.