Family, Engagement, and Jewish Continuity among American Jews   Sylvia Barack Fishman and Steven M. Cohen   Learning Jewishness, Jewish Education, and Jewish Identity   Sylvia Barack Fishman and Shlomo Fischer Contributors: Rachel S. Bernstein, Dov Maimon and Shmuel Rosner  

On Shavuot night, hundreds of thousands of people will leave their homes and celebrate a “white night.” For a few hours, they will detach themselves from the powerful forces that move all Israelis — money, politics, celebrities, disputes, and sports. Large numbers of women and men will assemble to study Jewish texts and ideas. This amazing event — the Tikkun…

The State of Israel has an obligation to protect itself and its Jewish identity as long as it does so while creating full civic equality for the members of the state’s Arab minority. The state, and the vast majority of its Jewish citizens, is willing to grant equality to Arabs in Israel. But equality means different things to the Jews…

Israel at 69, re-finding American deterrence. Published in the Jerusalem Post Independence Day is a good time to take stock of the state of the Jewish state – and it doesn’t look so bad. As a Jew, an Israeli and a Zionist, I enjoy seeing the half-full glass on such occasions. Living in a crazy neighborhood as a normal state…

The answer — both simple but also heavy and complex — is personal responsibility. The Holocaust is a Jewish, nationalist and personal event that somehow impacts or relates to every other tragedy we have experienced in human history. The extent of the Holocaust — and its roots in satanic, anti-Semitic ideology — is something we must remember forever, so as…

This article was first published by EJP- European Jewish Press A controversial anti-Israel conference held recently at University College Cork in Ireland, raised once again an old debate over when criticism of Israel is legitimate, and when it is a thin cover for deeply rooted anti-Semitism. This debate is important because to effectively combat anti-Semitism and protect Europe's Jewish communities, it is…

You do not need to be Orthodox or traditional to perceive a seminal ethos in the story. Indeed, Theodor Herzl and David Ben-Gurion, the outstanding leaders of political Zionism who were devoid of any trace of tradition, gave much thought to the story of the exodus and used it to promote their national vision. Many non-Jews, too, had an intense…

The Exodus from Egypt is what brought Israelites their freedom and made them into a nation. It also gave them a responsibility toward the “other.” The precept to love the stranger, foreigner and minority all originated in Egypt. Nationalism was thus a positive force in the building of the Jewish nation, as well as the entire family of nations. However,…

On my second day of work, one of the senior partners, sporting a red bow tie and matching suspenders, entered my office and closed the door behind him, which was against the custom at the company. I tensed up. Why would this shark visit the sardine? And why the need for secrecy? After we exchanged pleasantries, the partner lowered his…