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Is Israeli Society Healthy or Afflicted?

This break from reality isn’t only critical to the individual, but to a nation’s well-being. Holiday prayers remind us of our inherent vulnerability: “…Which nations will live by the sword and which nations by peace, which will go hungry and which will be sated” (Rosh Hashanah liturgy). This verse drives home the random, transient and fragile nature of the supreme…
27/09/2016
Drop in French Jews’ immigration to Israel ends record-setting boom
Europe's Jewry

Drop in French Jews’ immigration to Israel ends record-setting boom

By i24NEWS Jerusalem think-tank suggests investing in mechanisms to better integrate new arrivals into Israeli society The number of French Jews immigrating to Israel this year is expected to drop by 40 percent, according to a new assessment published Monday, ending a three-year boom which saw France for the first time overtake the United States as the number one provider of…
27/09/2016
Europe's Jewry

How to Save Israel’s Shabbat

Battles about cinema openings, clashes over automobile traffic and wars over shopping malls have, in general, ended with crushing defeats for the religious side. Many activities that were formerly banned in the name of the religious status quo are now conducted in the open. Thus, the operation of shopping malls, industry and cultural and public events that necessarily involve religious…
23/09/2016

Surprised? Meet Israel’s New political Center

Who are Israel’s Arab citizens? Their civic identity is Israeli while their national identity is Palestinian. There are some who want to sharpen the apparent contradiction embedded in this complex identity. On the one hand, there are Jews who demand “loyalty” to the state as a condition of granting equal rights to Arab citizens. On the other hand, there are…
08/09/2016

Israel’s Tragedy: One Country, Separate School Systems

Some 63 years ago, the Knesset enacted the State Educational Law, which allowed Arabs, ultra-Orthodox, Religious Zionist and secular Jews to maintain separate schools systems. While it must have seemed a good idea at the time, ultimately the results have been tragic. Today, it is not uncommon for students to never meet someone who is “different” until they enter the…
21/08/2016

Clinton Could Have Clout Over Israel

The ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) monopoly over the Chief Rabbinate and the country’s religious services, along with the Haredi veto on any changes in the status quo vis-à-vis religion and state, may seem like an internal Israeli affair – but they are not. Members of the Jewish community in the United States have a great interest in what is going on in…
21/08/2016

Companions on a Shared Quest

Tisha be’Av, the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, the day on which we commemorate the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem, relates not only to the past, to what was, but also to what exists today, to the here and now. The Second Temple was destroyed, the Sages tell us, because of sin’at ḥinam—groundless hatred. Today, such…
14/08/2016

A Holy War Over Israel’s Character

From a strategic standpoint, the infuriating statements, including that the Reform movement is not a Jewish movement but a Christian movement, made last month by Rabbi Yigal Levenstein, head of the pre-army academy in Eli, are not as important as the platform from which he made them: the First Zion and Jerusalem Conference. This conference is the opening shot of…
03/08/2016
2016 Annual Assessment

2016 Annual Assessment

Annual Assessment 2016 5776 PROJECT HEAD Dr. Shlomo Fischer CONTRIBUTORS Avinoam Bar-Yosef, Susanne Cohen-Weisz, Rémi Daniel, Chaya Ekstein, Dan Feferman, Avi Gil, Inbal Hakman, Michael Herzog, Simon Luxemburg, David Landes, Dov Maimon, Steven Popper, Uzi Rebhun, Shmuel Rosner, John Ruskay, Noah Slepkov, Shalom Solomon Wald, Einat Wilf EDITORS Barry Geltman Rami Tal
01/08/2016
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