Collection of essays and articles written either for publication or sinply to help me think the issues through
Some powerful insights from a man who sees reality in terms of generations and centuries. Rabbi Berl Wein, one of Judaism’s popular English language lecturers has an interesting assessment of whom the Internal enemies of Israeli society really are! There was once a fascinating commentary on life in the form of a comic strip called Pogo. One of its most telling captions to my memory was the paraphrasing of the famous line “We have...
Someone wrote a powerful book, describing a future world where the single authoritative voice of public opinion, public consciousness broadcast from the walls of every room human beings inhabited. A society where the very thought of Freedom of Thought (let alone speech) was heresy. When I first read the book, way back in the 1960′s, I thought it allegorical. It seemed to me that the author was describing a reality akin to Nazi Germany or Communist Soviet...
For the longest time I’ve listened to conversation of the deaf between the liberal Israeli Left and the Muslim world. It was so obvious to me that both sides were talking a different language, albiet using English words. I recently read an essay by Dror Eydar in Israel Hayom. Talk about an apology to Turkey comes under the category of a rational Western debate. In fact, in a liberal debate, an apology is perceived...
I’ll be honest. I really do not understand American politics. Still, I do read English (or at least the Canadian dialect) and do see things that I think I understand, and that occasionally impress me. The following excerpt caught my eye, specifically because I truly believe exactly the same accusation could be made against the Israeli Political Establishment.
Much was made of President Obama’s dismissal of the idea of American exceptionalism, when he noted that the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism, etc. No doubt Achilles believed in the latter, as Hector believed in Trojan exceptionalism. But in many ways there truly is no more exceptional a nation than modern Israel.
When I was in high school, I has this deep-set belief that if people agreed with me, I must be doing something wrong. To make things really clear, it wasn’t so much because I considered myself a saint. I knew the difference between right and wrong and I can assure you that I knew that I was far from sainthood. No, the reason I believed this was simple. People, in my perception of humanity...
Postwar Jewish refugees left everything they had in Europe—no ‘right of return’ requested. There are some articles that are so to-the-point that I feel I have no choice but to add them to my personal little collection of intellectual gems. Secretly I’ll admit that I’m envious. I wish I had written them. Warren Koxzak’s article, “If the Jews had followed the Palestinian Path” is definitely one of them. Originally published in the online edition of the Wall Street...
Here are Moshe Aylon’s remarks as published by Haaretz: “There is no doubt that there is a political and diplomatic earthquake taking place in the Arab states and perhaps also Iran, and what is clear is that it is not tied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Obama’s speech is negative in this context because it brings back the claim that there is a connection.” It is fascinating to see how fixated the American administration is...
There comes a time when the issues become so clear, so unambiguous that men (and women) of principle have no choice but to publicly state their position on questions of the hour. To do otherwise only assists the perpetration of a travesty of justice and mocks all the values we purport to live by. What about you?
There is an anecdote about an Israeli driver who accidentally hits a sheep belonging to an Arab. The driver gets out and offers to pay for the sheep. The Arab refuses. The driver offers to pay for five sheep, for ten sheep. The Arab still refuses. “What do you want?” the frustrated driver asks. “I want that sheep,” the Arab says, pointing to the dead sheep. That is the Nakba in a nutshell. The...
