Last week, I slammed the Reform Movement for its truly shocking statement about civility in American political discourse. In addition to what was said, how it was said left me wishing for something more from the Movement that claims to…
by Jacob Abolafia A picture hung (and perhaps still hangs) in the library of the Conservative synagogue where I spent my first conscious years attending services. It was of a soldier, standing on top of a tank, wearing a tallit,…
We are well aware, unfortunately, of the prevalence of denying the Nakba in the Jewish community. This letter is meant to be shared with those who are still in a state of denial regarding the Catastrophe that Palestinians commemorate every…
Raphael’s novel, Murder Under the Fig Tree, is the second in a murder mystery series set in the West Bank, featuring a Palestinian Authority policewoman and a Jewish American Palestine solidarity activist.
The irony of the Trump Jerusalem decision is that we are told it “recognizes reality.” Ironic because “recognizing reality” is perhaps the single most essential thing that the American Jewish community has been entirely unwilling to do about Israel and…
With the news of an impending decision to eventually move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, I am taking the opportunity to post excerpts from a Jewschool piece I published in April 2016. The original post followed then-Candidate Trump’s pronouncement that…
I worked hard to identify opportunities for my 13-year-old campers to think critically about issues like gender, and to grow. However, there was and remains a limit to the cultural changes Ramah is willing to pursue, and that limit is…
Former NFTY leaders speak out: Social Justice is for the United States. Cultural connection is for Israel.
To hear some tell it, the Israeli flag is an innocent symbol of liberation, while the Palestinian flag is anything but.
Symbols and slogans take on meaning precisely because they are charged with the weight of fraught, painful, and contradictory pasts. They mean different things to different people. Respecting the power of these collisions constitutes both political good sense and common…