The depth and quality of relations between Israeli and Diaspora Jews are perennially on the public agenda. The new Pew report, Jewish Americans in 2020, provides insight into our current point in time. It allows us to examine whether and how relations between the two largest Jewish communities – in Israel and the United States – are in a state…

Credit: pio3/Shutterstock.com The recently published Pew report, Jewish Americans in 2020, points to a somewhat disturbing reality within US Jewry: two polar opposite forms of being Jewish and of Jewish identity are growing on the margins of the Jewish community. These forms are especially growing in the younger age cohorts, and they are becoming increasingly significant. Both differ from what…

In May 2021 Israel faced violent confrontations on two fronts, within the common broader context of Jewish-Arab relations in the Israeli-Palestinian space. One front was Hamas-controlled Gaza, from which over four thousand rockets were fired at Israeli cities. The other was the domestic front, centered around violent incidents of various kinds within Israel (including East Jerusalem): demonstrations, riots, arson, Molotov…

The Pew Research Center’s new study of American Jews offers a wealth of data. Some of its findings are headline-making and can be expected to dominate the news, while others are more obscure. It is often the more obscure information that is truly important and interesting. Here I suggest examining one particular finding. The researchers examined the degree of connection…

Credit: Alex Eidelman / Shutterstock.com

The past year was the year of television. The lockdowns, social isolation and extra free time strengthened a medium that has in any case flourished in recent years. And in the era of television, the year of television, it was also a shining time for Israel’s (relatively) new public TV channel Kan 11. In last month’s Israeli Academy of Film…

Despite everything they have in common, the Israeli Jewish experience differs greatly from the Diaspora Jewish experience. The two communities don’t always have the same interests or find the same issues compelling, and they disagree on quite a few matters, both those relating to values and those relating to modes of action. Understanding these tensions in depth, and trying to…

The conflation of Israel advocacy and Israel education has resulted in growing numbers of North American Jews ill prepared to understand and negotiate the complexity of contemporary Israel.