יום ראשון, ה׳ כסלו תשפ״זSunday, November 15, 2026
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Reports in recent days suggest that Republican opposition to the possible nomination of UN Ambassador Susan Rice as secretary of state seems to be softening. Critics such as Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham are changing or at least modifying their tune regarding concern over Ms. Rice’s statements in the aftermath of the attack on U. S. diplomats in Benghazi.
We doubt anyone outside of the Palestinian street really believes the stream of Hamas hyperbole that it emerged from Operation Pillar Of Defense in a better position than before. Of course, we have come to expect this sort of fantasy-based spin from much of the Arab world. Indeed, all reports prior to the cease-fire indicated that Hamas’s military capacity had been severely degraded and its ability to shoot rockets at Israel largely neutralized, at least for now. And Hamas lost some of its top military commanders.
I have not done this before. I have never memorialized two of the closest people to me in one article. I gave it a lot of thought, and it is not just because they died within hours of each other two years ago that I decided to do this. It is also because there was a tremendous connection between them, and as I thought of each one I was overwhelmed by the similarities.
By dvora
How long does it take to write and publish a book? One recently released work took some eighty-four years to see the light of day in Jerusalem. But with its publication the Torah world has been blessed with a new, vowelized edition of the Torah Temimah, complete with the supra-commentary Meshivat Nefesh – a work begun in the 1920s by a prolific rabbi among whose works was a weekly column several decades later in The Jewish Press.
By Matt Barber
At times, complicated issues are most clearly understood in simple terms. Speaking before the Knesset in 2006, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (who at the time was the opposition leader) captured, in two brief sentences, that which lies at the heart of the ongoing, centuries-old Arab-Israeli conflict: “The truth is that if Israel were to put down its arms, there would be no more Israel. If the Arabs were to put down their arms, there would be no more war.”
I come across Yair Michaeli standing amid the bustle of an Israeli shopping mall, a clipboard in his hand. He appears to be a serious-minded Israeli haredi. What is he doing in a place like this?
Without the individual, the ballot box is only a tool for collectivist impulses and identities.
As Israeli air strikes and naval shells bombarded Gaza last week, the world asked the question that perennially frustrates, confuses and enrages so many people across the planet: Why aren’t the Americans hating on Israel more?
By Barry Rubin
For many months before he was rushed to Paris for medical attention, everyone who followed him closely knew Arafat was sick.
In Europe, Israel-bashing remains one of the favorite pastimes of the media.
Is Hamas really on its way to moderation and pragmatism, as some Western political analysts and diplomats have come to believe?
This past week should teach us one thing; in the eyes of the enemy, Israel is one Israel.
Only by resisting the noose, can Israel survive. Only by fighting to free its hands, can it resist.
By Barry Rubin
Originally published at Rubin Reports. What’s been happening in Egypt this week is as important as the revolution that overthrew the old regime almost two years ago. A new dictator has arrived and while the Muslim Brotherhood’s overturning of democracy was totally predictable, Western policymakers walked right into the trap. They even helped build it. […]
By David Wilder
Frequently, when speaking with groups here in Hebron, I ask if anyone knows where the name ‘Palestine’ originated? More often than not, no one replies. So, let’s set the record straight.
By Anav Silverman, Tazpit News Agency
Anet Haskia is not the typical mom of a soldier serving in the Israel Defense Forces. A Muslim Arab, who grew up in a mixed Arab-Jewish city in the north, Haskia is breathing a little easier this week.
When Jacob is fooled into marrying Leah, he accepts her as a partner and eventually the mother of his children. But his yearning is for Rachel.
The difference between victory and defeat often comes down to morale.
When my daughter first made aliyah she was a student at Hebrew University. After a year she called me and told me she was enlisting.
By Harold Rhode
It hard to imagine that at least some of Israel's leaders do not understand the Muslim mindset.
By Soeren Kern
Over the past several years, immigrant gangs have proliferated geographically across all of Denmark.
By Barry Rubin
I’m amused by those who think that Hamas won the recent conflict.
The sole purpose of this ceasefire is to allow Netanyahu to survive the coming election.
By J. E. Dyer
Morsi has assumed dictatorial powers in Egypt. Courageous Egyptians are protesting that move, but Morsi has less compunction than Mubarak did, and we can expect the protests to be dealt with effectively. Those of us who said Morsi was an Islamist extremist who would quickly reestablish authoritarianism in Egypt – with a sharia flavor – were right. There’s a new Pharaoh in town.
By Sheni Leumi
Linguistics for the next round of fighting.
If the targeting of innocent civilians by terrorist organizations is not wrong, then morality has no meaning.
By Barry Rubin
Of course, everyone knows that this ceasefire won't last. The key to anything more durable is if the Egyptian government decides that it wants to avoid another war because of its own interests.
Hamas is not interested in being engaged. Its goal is the destruction of Israel.
By Meir Indor
The same government that caved to the media and the Schalit Task Force by releasing 1,027 terrorists from prison last year has caved yet again—this time despite the fact that Hamas violated red lines by shooting missiles at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
By Sheni Leumi
I am not ashamed to say I am an Israeli Jew, I am a loser today in the war with Hamas.
Muhammad As’ad Bayoudh al-Tamimi is a Palestinian columnist living in Jordan. In the past he has often clearly expressed the opinions of the man on the Arab street. Following the interview that Muhammad Abbas gave to Channel 2 (aired on Nov. 2, 2012), in which he gave up the right to return to live in […]
Unless the U.S. clarifies its position regarding King Abdullah and reiterates its full backing for his regime, the Muslim fundamentalists are likely to step up their efforts to create anarchy and lawlessness in the kingdom.
By Hillel Fendel and Chaim Silberstein / KeepJerusalem.org
For probably the first time since the Yom Kippur War nearly 40 years ago, air raid sirens sounded this week in Jerusalem and environs. The sounding of the sirens occurred about two minutes after sundown on Friday, such that Sabbath-observers had no direct way of ascertaining where, what, how many, or who, if anyone, was hurt.
What is the solution to the constant missile attacks in southern Israel? Those with a solution are the people who warned against signing the Oslo Accords in the first place. These people continue to be sidelined. Clearly, the Oslo advocates have no intention of giving up the profits and perks of the “peace industry” that they have created.
For the most part, we Jews have always accepted the obligation to ward off disaster as best we can. For the most part, we generally understand that all humans have free will. Saadia Gaon included freedom of will among the most central teachings of Judaism, and Maimonides affirmed that all human beings must stand alone in the world “to know what is good and what is evil, with none to prevent him from either doing good or evil.”
Getting at the truth of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi is a work in progress and this is certainly a story with legs. Why U.S. personnel were not given adequate protection despite danger signals for weeks prior and why the Obama administration, in the face of intelligence information to the contrary, downplayed any terrorist dimension in the assault, urging instead that the attackers were ordinary Muslims upset about an anti-Muhammad video, is sure to be the focus of intense congressional attention.
True to his word, President Obama has demonstrated that when it comes to Israel’s security, he does indeed have the country’s back. In the current confrontation with Hamas, he has from the start unequivocally laid the blame on Hamas and said Israel has the right to defend itself and that for the crisis to end Hamas must stop firing rockets at Israel.
By Rabbi Shimshon HaKohen Nadel
Minutes after candle-lighting, sirens rang out in Jerusalem, disturbing the peace and tranquility ushered in by Shabbat. Earlier that day, my wife and I assured our parents that we are far from the rockets in our home in Har Nof, a quiet suburb nestled in the Jerusalem Forest.
Where else but in Israel would a fresh-faced, eight-year-old Little League rookie wearing a New York Mets uniform smile and casually ask you, “By the way, during the game today, if a rocket is fired at Modiin, where do we run?”
The fact that the casualty toll from the first days of the Gaza fighting was three Israelis and 30 Arabs “underscores what critics of Israeli policy called Israel’s disproportionate use of military force,” The New York Times reported on Nov. 17.
By Jason Maoz
Roughly 30 percent of those Jews who had voted for Reagan in 1980 went for Mondale in 1984.
Charles Krauthammer is widely regarded as one of the most influential political commentators in America today. A contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and The New Republic, Krauthammer is also a nightly commentator on Fox News’s Special Report with Bret Baier and a weekly panelist on PBS’s Inside Washington. Close to 250 newspapers carry his weekly column, which earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 1987.
In the wake of the presidential election, American Jews must once again ask a fundamental question that seems to defy both societal trends and a clear resolution: why do Jews overwhelmingly support the Democratic candidate, year after year, election after election?
By Barry Rubin
If 2011 was the year of the Arab Spring, 2013 looks to be the year of the Arab Fall.
By J. E. Dyer
Why are we sending an amphibious readiness group (ARG) with a Marine expeditionary unit (MEU) embarked to sit off the Levantine coast? U.S. officials say it’s to be prepared for any eventuality, including the need to evacuate American citizens, as the conflict between Hamas and Israel heats up.
While spending Shabbat with her family in Jerusalem, Marian Stoltz-Loike, Ph.D, dean of the Lander College for Women-The Anna Ruth and Mark Hasten School (LCW), and the vice president for Online Education at Touro College, heard the piercing sound of an air raid siren, a warning that a rocket attack from Gaza was imminent. The following is a letter she sent to the students of LCW about her harrowing experience:
Israel’s leaders know that there isn’t a diplomatic solution. But what can they do? Over the years, Israel has become so dependent on the U.S. — for advanced weapons, spare parts, etc. — that it is almost impossible to say no to US demands.
Israel is a sideline in a regional struggle by fractured populations who are divided by ethnicity and religion, language and natural resources, to unite into a single commonality.
Scenes of jubilation over the rocket attacks on Israel were also reported in several Palestinian cities in the West Bank, including Ramallah, the center of Palestinian "pragmatism and moderation."
By Barry Rubin
This strategy has often worked against a Western adversary or Israel.
The Orthodox Jewish world continues to seesaw back and forth about the pros and cons of the Asifa on Technology at Citifield in New York. Debates abound about on the best Internet filters, blocks and technological band-aids to which will surely repair the dangerous environmental influences of the outside world. Let’s ban or block the Internet and suddenly our children will be less distracted, our communities more heimish and our learning and davening more for the sake of Heaven instead of rote blabbering to get it over with.
Once upon a time it was the objective of the military to win wars. Now the objective of the military is to avoid incidents.
So long as we obsess over abortion, gay marriage, and contraception to the exclusion of any other values, we cannot fix our problems.
By Meir Indor
Terrorism cannot be contained, only destroyed.
By Barry Rubin
Originally published at Rubin Reports. A lot of people have asked the purpose of Israel’s defensive war against Hamas. Some, including those supposedly expert on the region, have been mystified. They cannot seem to figure out what is going on or what the goal of this Israeli operation could be. The answer is simple. Given […]
By Uri Bank
I will also work towards being your “Congressman” in the Knesset, with the level of connection and accountability that Anglos are accustomed to.
By Barry Rubin
There will be no “permanent end” to this rocket war madness or all of the other varieties of madness that are getting worse in the region.
By Daniel Pipes
If Hamas knows it cannot defeat the Israel Defense Forces and will get a bloody nose for its efforts, it obviously has motives other than victory in mind.
Obviously, the Palestinians have been radicalized to a point where they are not ready to hear about any concessions to Israel or tolerate the presence of an Israeli businessman in a Palestinian city.
By Daniel Pipes and Cynthia Farahat
Morsi's power today unquestionably brings major short-term benefits for himself and the Brotherhood.
Not long after Qatar's leader paid a visit to Hamas, this latest war began.
By Sandy Eller
Tofu. For most of us, the word conjures up images of a spongy white unpalatable mass that is best left on the shelf of our local health food emporium. But for New Jersey resident David Mintz, tofu is a magical substance that holds endless possibilities, particularly for the kosher consumer.
By Barry Rubin
Can Israel sustain this situation? Of course, that is basically the framework in which it has been living and prospering for 64 years. Is it preferable? Of course not. What is the world going to do to make it better? Nothing.
By Barry Rubin
Neither side takes U.S. policy very seriously.
By J. E. Dyer
No summary of today’s events would be complete without mentioning the backstory on the IDF’s operation name.
By Dov Shurin
On the Shabbat when we read the portion of Chayei Sarah, Chevron residents are joined by thousands of people from all over Israel and around the world in celebrating Father Abraham’s purchase of the Cave of Machpelah and its surrounding fields as a burial place for Sarah Imeinu.
Israel, with an understandable desperation, still seeks to discover some discernible correctness and reassuring clarity in the theatre of world politics. However, the polite diplomatic meanings with which it is pressed to "make peace" remain squalid and elusive. Ominously, these meanings continue to seethe menacingly.
It is morning and my car glides down the mountains of the Shomron into the smog of greater Tel Aviv. Another crazy day of running in the primaries is about to begin. My cell phone rings. A young, determined voice is on the other end.
By any measure, our newly reelected president has a great number of issues that will compete for his attention and among which he will have to prioritize. During the presidential campaign we repeatedly voiced concern that Mr. Obama might reprise the full-court press treatment he accorded the Israeli-Palestinian conflict early in his first term, and we can only hope he will focus elsewhere.
There are some fascinating questions that come to mind regarding the current controversy concerning Gen. David Petraeus, and in the coming weeks and months many of the blanks will doubtless be filled in. To be sure, the personal dimension to the story will continue to draw much attention – infidelity and personal failure in high places will always have a certain allure. But there are some serious public issues involved that we hope will be pursued.
● The president of the United States, in the midst of a policy dispute with the Israeli prime minister, glared into the television cameras and angrily declared, “It is not the business of other nations to make American foreign policy.” Barack Obama? No, Ronald Reagan.
By Sandy Eller
It was William Shakespeare who posed the question "What's in a name?" These days, if someone calls you "Shakespeare" it probably means he or she thinks you are pretty bright, or at least can write well.
As the dust settles and the fog lifts from this tumultuous year of political campaigning, we are left to wonder how our country will evolve. Will the economy bounce back? Will our schools make progress? And how about U.S. relations with Israel? Will they grow weaker or stronger? Will the administration support an Israeli strike on Iran?
For most of the past two years, if not the past four, many conservatives and Republicans assumed that Barack Obama could not be reelected. A poor economy, an unpopular liberal agenda shoved down the throat of the country, and a largely uninspiring presidential leadership style combined to create a widespread belief on the right that the 2012 election would be a lay-up for them.
The key to winning the game is in the numbers. Demographics.
Mention the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and the image of a blue tzedakah box likely comes to mind. Starting in 1904, Jews throughout the world dropped coins into these blue boxes, helping the JNF buy and develop land in Palestine on behalf of the Jewish people. Although the state of Israel was founded in 1948, the JNF continues to function, helping develop the country in a variety of ways. It has planted 250 million trees in its 108-year existence and still owns 13 percent of the land. The Jewish Press recently spoke with JNF CEO Russell Robinson.
As we commemorate the fiftieth yahrzeit this Friday, the second day of Kislev, of Rav Aaron Kotler – the greatest Jew, in the opinion of even many of his fellow Torah luminaries, ever to set foot on North American soil – we are obligated to reflect on his achievements and the lessons he taught.
If only my city were to treat me with the same courtesy they accorded Kaddafi.
There are clear mental dysfunction and depravity that go along with being an adult who sexually abuses children.
There are a lot of Nazi comparisons being thrown around these days. Where might they be most accurately directed?
Are we going to be Hamiltonians, Jeffersonians or Jacksonians? The question is what do we want?
By Barry Rubin
The most important foreign policy effort President Barack Obama will be making over the next year is negotiating with Iran. The terms of the U.S. offer are clear: if Iran agrees not to build nuclear weapons, it will be allowed to enrich a certain amount of uranium, supposedly for purposes of generating nuclear energy (which Iran doesn’t need) and other benefits, supposedly under strict safeguards.
Straight from the Jerusalem Boardroom #171
We may be in different parties, but Jeremy Gimpel is representative of the English-speaking community in Israel. His message represents the selfless Zionist commitment of the community in the political sphere. My hope is that all Anglos who are members of the Jewish Home should make sure they turn up at the polling station and support Jeremy Gimpel and help him get into the Knesset.
By J. E. Dyer
Attacks from Gaza on Israel have ramped up significantly in the last several days. An Israeli patrol was hit by what was thought to be a roadside bomb on Tuesday (three were wounded), near the border fence with Gaza. On Saturday, terrorists in Gaza fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli jeep with four infantrymen in it, as the patrol operated in the area of the roadside bomb attack. The four soldiers were wounded, one severely. More than 80 rockets have been launched from Gaza into Israel since the attack on the jeep on Saturday, 10 November. At least three Israeli civilians were injured in the rocket attacks. Geography is beginning to rear its head again, as Israel has also sustained incursions into the Golan from Syria in recent days.
However bad many Americans think that the Obama administration is on security matters, at least one thing can be said in their favor: they are not Europeans.
By Barry Rubin
With President Barack Obama reelected there is every reason to believe that he will continue the tax, regulatory, and economic policies of his first term. That means the U.S. economy is unlikely to improve quickly, steadily, or even at all during the next four years. The problem is not just Obama’s own strategy on these issues but also the lack of business confidence in his plans.
The notion of the “Reagan Democrat” is one cliché that should be permanently retired.
By Barry Rubin
Originally published at Rubin Reports. General David Petraeus was the hero of the victorious surge strategy in Iraq. But he also has the distinction of becoming America’s first Politically Correct field commander. His strategy in Afghanistan was in line with that of the Obama Administration by putting the emphasis on winning Muslim hearts and minds […]
Come right in and step right up. See the bright lights and the oddities of nature. Inside folks, for the low price of twenty-two trillion dollars, you can see Binders of Women, Team Big Bird and entire reams of green windmills and fields full of bayonets and horses. Here lies become the truth and everything is full of sugar. And the highlight of the show with be Barack, the Exotic Prince from the Wilds of Indonesia and Kenya, with a special appearance by Oprah and a hologram of JFK. Here in the Carnival of Fools, the party never stops and no one ever has to pay the bill.
Petraeus seems to have resigned over marital infidelity. And if so, did he have to leave his position? Why, because he displayed personal weakness? But this was a public, as opposed to a private, position. And years of counseling unfaithful husbands and wives has taught me that private failings do not necessarily indicate public faithlessness.
Coming to Kever Rachel one cannot help but recall the traditional domed structure that once stood as a humble memorial to the greatest of women. Unfortunately a fortress like edifice of towering large concrete slabs has now replaced that familiar picture. It was here, at this holy site, that I first met Evelyn Haies, an American mother, grandmother, and globetrotter.
By David Wilder, Tazpit News Agency
The present Jewish community of Hebron tries to continue walking in the footsteps of our illustrious Forefathers, learning from their deeds, and acting accordingly. Therefore, when Rabbi Shalom Alkobi, then director of the Machpela authority, realized he had an opportunity to seek a blessing from one of our generation’s most righteous people, he did so, without thinking twice.
By Soeren Kern
A majority of people in France, according to a new poll, believe that Islam is too influential in French society, and almost half view Muslims as a threat to their national identity. The survey reveals a significant degradation of the image of Islam in France. The findings also show that French voters are growing increasingly uneasy about mass immigration from Muslim countries, which has been encouraged by a generation of political and cultural elites in France dedicated to creating a multicultural society.
November 13, 2026 
