יום שישי, ח׳ אלול תשפ״וFriday, August 21, 2026
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The Second Intifada may have ended seven years ago, but countless Israelis injured during that harrowing period, and in the years since, continue to suffer.
By Hillel Fendel and Chaim Silberstein / KeepJerusalem.org
While Republican presidential contenders Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich vie with each other in expressing ever-stronger support for Israel, polls show Romney has a better chance of unseating President Obama in the November election. It is for this reason that many Israel supporters would like contender Rick Santorum to withdraw from the Republican race to ensure Romney is chosen over Gingrich.
Before we wrap up the primary campaign, I wish to express a heartfelt thanks to all of my supporters. To push the faith-based alternative uphill, over long years and against all odds, is a task that I could never have done alone.
By Rafi Harkham
A war of words has erupted between Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan and American Novelist Paul Auster. Auster seemed to hit a nerve, suggesting that his allegations might be true.
Jorge Luis Borges, the very special Argentine writer and philosopher, sometimes identified himself as a Jew. Although lacking any apparent basis in halacha, he clearly felt himself to be a kindred spirit: “Many a time I think of myself as a Jew,” he is quoted in Willis Barnstone’s, Borges at Eighty: Conversations (1982), “but I wonder whether I have the right to think so. It may be wishful thinking.”
By Dov Gilor
Is it true that creatures from outer space visited New Mexico and that the U.S. government suppressed the story to avoid worldwide panic?
While thousands of U.S. soldiers recently returned home from the Middle East, their redeployment to the area may be imminent due to the ongoing developments on the Iranian nuclear front.
Aside from the obvious looming dangers associated with a nuclear-armed Iran as well as attendant regional menaces, there exists an equally explosive strategic threat to Israel emanating from the country’s post-Zionist and anti-Zionist circles.
Our blinding attraction to drama has captivated so many of us. We love to live it, watch it, or even worse, create it.
A few weeks ago I was asked by a friend in Likud to offer my services as a non-partisan ballot member for the upcoming Likud elections. I was a perfect fit since I have never been a Likud member and have never endorsed a candidate in any Likud primary election. So I stepped up and got the job.
The most dreaded status in Israeli society is to be considered a frier – a sucker, a boob, stupid and unable to withstand being taken advantage of.
The Affordable Health Care Act is the official title of what has become known, primarily to its opponents, as Obamacare. It provides for a variety of changes in the American health care system and has generated enormous controversy, some of which will be the focus of the Supreme Court in the next few months.
Many of us continue to be apprehensive about what the Middle East policy of a reelected President Obama would look like. Though Mr. Obama continues to insist that U.S. support for the security of Israel is "unshakable," his turnaround on pressing Israel on the 1967 lines and settlement growth, while welcome, was unnerving. Not only did it occur at the outset of the presidential campaign season, it was also uncommonly abrupt.
By dvora
Chaim Amsalem, a current member of Knesset and former member of Shas, is in the midst of establishing yet another Israeli political party, called Am Shalem.
“We feel that this is a critical moment in the history of property restitution,” Julius Berman, chairman of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, told The Jewish Press last week, after returning from a weeklong trip to Europe.
An index of the Talmud with more than 6,000 topical and 27,000 subtopical entries is a major undertaking and its publication a seminal event in Jewish scholarship.
Near the end of the nineteenth century, Theodor Herzl, the Viennese journalist who would wrestle with the plight of Jews amid the enticements and dangers of modernity, felt trapped. For his son’s sake he considered conversion to Christianity; to solve the vexing “Jewish Question” he even fantasized the mass conversion of Jews.
The “Syrian people” is a composite of Sunni Muslims, Alawites, Kurds, Druze, Turkmens and Circassians.
PM Netanyahu's recent opposition to two Knesset bills underscores a worrying drift in Israeli political culture from the most basic democratic governing principles like separation of powers, and checks and balances.
By Barry Rubin
The Islamists are not “moderate” and many of the alleged moderates are not moderate. Hence, the hope for moderation and real democracy is limited by the small numbers of those who hold them.
By David Ratner
Rambam Medical Center Public Affairs Director David Ratner describes how the life of a young Palestinian girl was saved by the hospital.
An official ballot member and secretary for the Likud primary gives a first-hand account of the controversy surrounding the election.
If the recent pictures of destroyed outposts had been of Bedouin villages or illegal houses in the Galilee, the whole country would have been up in arms.
“Everything in this world exudes crime,” says Baudelaire, “the newspapers, the walls, and the face of man.” But this “face” does not belong solely to what classic seventeenth-century international law scholar Hugo Grotius called “men of deplorable wickedness.”
Conventional wisdom states that the January 14th mosque fire in Tuba-Zangariya was perpetrated by vindictive Jewish vandals, but upon closer inspection, such a claim seems dubious at best.
By Jason Maoz
Americans never seem to tire of Richard Nixon, the man who strode the nation’s political stage for three decades, as congressman, senator, vice president and president, only to see his career come crashing down when his involvement in the Watergate scandal led to his resignation – the only U.S. president to so step down – in order to avoid certain impeachment.
Ordinarily, Chanukah is a time to hug and kiss the kids as we sing in front of the menorah. This past Chanukah was an exception. Instead of putting my arms around my children, I watched them light the menorah on a streaming video from my iPad while I rested comfortably in my hospital bed.
A Palestinian mufti has called for violence against Jews, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is demanding Palestinian leaders disavow him and America's presidential race could be affected.
After three-plus years of economic challenge and uncertainty, we remain anxious for positive news, the kind that will finally let us believe the worst is fully behind us. Unfortunately, the outlook for the 2012 global economy remains uninspiring: recession in Europe, anemic growth in the U.S. and a sharp slowdown in China and other emerging-market economies all weigh on economist forecasts.
People expressing reasonable, measured criticism of Israel cannot, of course, be considered anti-Israel or anti-Semitic. However, animus to Zionism itself – simply the existence of the democratic Jewish state – frequently betrays denial of Jews’ basic rights and history.
By Our Readers
Interesting Picture By now you must realize the picture in last week's My Machberes column of the Satmar Rebbe and the Belzer Rebbe meeting was not authentic. While I understand that there have been overtures between their chassidim, this meeting has not as yet taken place. But as I looked at the picture I thought, […]
Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas's statement last Saturday that "Israeli intransigence" was behind the collapse of the recently convened Israel-Palestinian talks in Jordan may provide a moment of truth for President Obama.
The current controversy surrounding the film "The Third Jihad" is ostensibly over the propriety of the NYPD's airing it as part of in a training program.
A discussion about the cost of a pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities that reflects skepticism and acquiesces to a nuclear-armed Iran ignores precedents, plays into Iran's hands, and threatens Israel's existence.
Tu B’Shevat is not just “another day.” It’s the Rosh Hashanah for trees, one of four roshei hashanah that occur in the Jewish calendar year (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:1).
There is a place for what Hunter Thompson called “Gonzo journalism,” but it isn’t a wire service news report, where the ancient Five Ws are still appropriate.
Results were derived from OECD report, Education at a Glance 2011.
A significant number of suicide attempts are committed by boys from not just religious but rabbinic homes -- because they thought they were homosexual and had no place in the Orthodox world they grew up in, even if they had never acted on those impulses.
The National Jewish Democratic Council website blasted Gingrich last week for opposition "to the values of the vast majority of American Jews,” when in fact Gingrich's position are highly consistent with "Jewish values".
Let me please start with Fanny Englard, an active survivor of the Holocaust and a friend of mine. She grew up in Germany/Cologne and lives now south of Tel Aviv. Fanny wrote in a letter: “As a twenty-year-old, on 8 May 1945 I was liberated from hell and tried to find my family, but without […]
By David Wilder, Tazpit News Agency
USAID continues to offer funding to Arab 'development and humanitarian projects' in Hebron despite Abu Mazen’s attempt to unilaterally declare a ‘Palestinian state’ at the UN in September 2011.
Israeli national elections are scheduled for November 2013.
The Arab League suspended its observer mission Sunday after government violence this weekend resulted in the deaths of approximately 200 civilians.
The battle lines in the Kadima primaries in March have been drawn: Livni-Mofaz, Round II
Roger Cohen’s New York Times column was the latest in the Obama camp’s efforts to pressure Binyamin Netanyahu to risk Israel’s being nuked by a nuclear Iran rather than cause any ripples in President Obama campaign for re-election to a second term.
I do not like to give advice to people in times of distress. Every time a settlement facing destruction begins to debate whether to take the “offer” (in other words, the extortion) to leave or to cling to its principles and its place, I adopt our Sages’ advice to not judge others until I am in their place.
Everyone who has taught international law, or written about it, knows that the idea of crisis in actually inherent in the subject. More than anything else, this crisis, this continuing or protracted dilemma, is one of efficacy, of effectiveness.
By Dov Gilor
“Remember the Alamo” was an important lesson in history class when I was a child and this was our first visit. It was a bit unimpressive but we enjoyed the History Channel movie about the Alamo in one of the rooms.
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting (CAMERA) monitors media of all types for biased or false reporting about Israel and seeks to educate the public about Middle East issues.
The Jewish Press' Knesset Insider discusses the potential for electoral reform in Israel.
Given its context, the recent declaration of the mufti of Jerusalem that it is Muslim destiny to destroy the Jewish people cannot be dismissed as the primitive rant of a crackpot cleric.
By Barry Rubin
On the surface, of course, there is apparent evidence to assume Israel will attack Iran. Yet any serious consideration of this scenario says this isn’t going to happen.
EU outlawing of Iranian oil imports is already hurting the Iranian economy. But will it have an effect beyond that?
By Aaron Klein
Moscow has been trying to water down United Nations Security Council resolutions targeting Syria in recent days, with Russia insisting that any Council action should not only focus on the Assad government, but also the opposition movement trying to end Assad’s rule.
There is a culture war raging in Israel. The extremists are pushing for an ever-expanding division of the sexes – including separate seating on public buses – and the moderates are refusing to go along for the ride. The struggle has filled newspapers and blogs the world over. And it raises a larger question. How […]
The recent brouhaha surrounding the Puah Institute Conference in Jerusalem (the distinguished panel of speakers did not include women) completely missed the point. In a typical rush to judgment, the media and other detractors turned a heretofore non-issue into an outcry over discrimination, and therein lies the rub.
By Chaim Levin
It’s been more than six months since The Jewish Press published an op-ed titled “Orthodox Homosexuals and the Pursuit of Self Indulgence.” In the article, the writer, while not mentioning my name, calls me shameless and self-indulgent and suggests that I learn to suffer in silence.
Years ago at a Torah Umesorah convention, I heard a presenter state that there is a correlation between derech eretz and the distance one is from New York.
By David Wilder, Tazpit News Agency
Recently my wife and I spent Shabbat in Jerusalem with some friends. They made aliyah a year and a half ago and invited us to spend the day with them in the Holy City.
By Sara Lehmann
New York’s 9th Congressional District will forever be remembered not only for the departure of disgraced veteran Congressman Anthony Weiner but also for who replaced him. Bob Turner’s victory marked the first Republican win in that district since 1923, and his September 2011 election stunned the Democratic Party.
Many Palestinians in Judea and Samaria turn to the IDF and to Israeli medical emergency services to receive medical attention. Whether ill or wounded, local Arabs receive immediate life-saving medical treatment regardless of existing security tensions, and with no pre-requisites.
By Baruch Widen
Vice PM Ya’alon to Likud Anglos: Israel cannot overcome both internal challenges and external threats with an obsolete paradigm he identifies as “Westernism”.
Migron's residents are not waiting for politicians to change their fate and are offering a one million shekel reward to anyone who can provide legal proof that Migron is owned by its residents and is not private Arab land.
By Barry Rubin
Why would anyone even think of making peace with Israel when they are enthusiastic believers in total victory, the idea that events are on their side for wiping out Israel? Everyone in the Middle East understands these attitudes are triumphing, no matter which side they are on.
This week marks the seventieth anniversary of one of the most chilling events of the modern era.
The following article by Professor Beres and Colonel (Israel Defense Forces) Yoash Tsiddon-Chatto was originally published in the April 18, 2007 issue of The Jewish Press. Its warnings and predictions concerning a nuclear Iran have been proven unassailable.
No coercion is good – religious or secular. Today, Israel suffers more from secular coercion than from religious coercion. Unlike the situation in the past, religious soldiers today are forced into combat with women soldiers.
By Hillel Fendel and Chaim Silberstein / KeepJerusalem.org
In a city of Jewish symbols, the Mount of Olives is perhaps the most symbolic of all: With a theatrical view of the Temple Mount and the Old City, it was the last stop for the Divine Spirit before the destruction of the First Beit HaMikdash and will be its first stop when Mashiach arrives.
We were dismayed by a press release the other day from the World Jewish Congress describing a meeting WJC leaders had with PA President Mahmoud Abbas in London.
No one in the know is talking about the reason(s) for the abrupt postponement of the of those much ballyhooed joint U.S.-Israel military maneuvers that had been scheduled for this spring.
By Jason Maoz
The Monitor often is asked for an example of a news story that exhibits such blatant bias it astounds even a jaded observer of the mainstream media. Such a story appeared in the March 29, 2006 edition of The New York Times, on the occasion of the passing of Lyn Nofziger, longtime aide to Ronald Reagan.
By Aaron Klein
“I worry the publicly available information is giving only a very small picture and that Iran is actually even much further along,” Bolton said in a radio interview on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio”
Yes, it is true. I, a haredi with right-wing political leanings, stood on the same stage with representatives of Yisrael Chofshit, Hitorirut Yerushalayim, and Meretz – three secular and very left wing groups – at the massive rally in Beit Shemesh on the last night of Chanukah.
Consider the absurdity of the following statement: “I know an Orthodox Jew who works on Shabbat, eats pork regularly, never wears tefillin or prays or learns Torah, is unfaithful to his spouse, walks bare-headed in public, and eats on Yom Kippur.”
We recently observed the 10th of Teves, which, historically, represents the beginning of the siege of Yerushalayim by Nebuchadnezzar. It was this siege that began a string of calamities that resulted in the destruction of the first Beis HaMikdash.
The Muslim Brotherhood did not initiate the current upheavals in the Middle East, but the Islamist parties in Egypt, as in Tunisia and Libya, have been the chief beneficiaries of the collapse of longstanding authoritarian repressive regimes across North Africa.
It’s not often that I get to speak to a rabbi about to celebrate his 99th birthday.
Yishai and Malkah share stories of liberation in a week when the Torah portion (Vaeira) describes the beginnings of the Jewish people’s fight against Egyptian slavery three and a half thousand years ago.
The new initiatives come on the heels of the European Union's plan to invest in infrastructure in the Arab areas of Area C. According to the E.U.'s numbers only 5.8% of Judea and Samaria's Arabs live in Area C, which comprises 62% of Judea and Samaria.
The negotiations Abbas is conducting with Hamas are intended to create a joint Palestinian strategy in the aftermath of the failure of the peace process with Israel.
Barely five weeks after the Wehrmacht’s onslaught against Russia, Reich Marshal Hermann Goering issued the following directive on July 31, 1941 to Chief of Gestapo Reinhard Heydrich:
There is a sweetness like no other when people who have been friends for more than sixty years have a chance to get together for a couple of hours and just schmooze and catch up on life.
We already know what happens when the Arabs control our holy sites. The Jordanians, who should never have been awarded part of Jerusalem in the first place, did not allow access to Har Hazeisim or for that matter the Kosel despite signing the Armistice Agreement of 1948 which explicitly provided access to Jews.
Yishai uncovers vastly different tastes in everything from Jewish comfort food (with help from Malkah) to Knesset candidates to peace policy in this episode. Colorful culture, deep ideas, and a few tempers running high are all part of the mix as we search for new solutions to age old problems and end with inspiration from the Torah.
Is Islam the solution for hunger? Unemployment? Ignorance? Violence? Poverty? Illness? Neglect? The leaders of the Islamist movements, like the leaders of the nationalist movements, shout one thing and mean the opposite.
Now, because of our efforts, the police have committed to arrest anyone who merely screams at a girl. Success for our present! The national government now wants to work with us to build future neighborhoods for all populations. Success for our future!
We too cannot be so capricious of nature, so weary of our national responsibility, as to give away what is, in truth, not ours alone to barter... We cannot be so selfish as to sacrifice a holy heritage for what is, at best, transitory expediency.
"They arrived in the middle of the night. It was brutal. I woke up after they broke down the door and were already in the living room."
The hoax in question has been developed over the past 40 years or so and is calibrated to be effective on people like you. Its objective is to make you believe that in a particular context, black is white, evil is good, lies are truth and genocide is justice.
According to ancient Jewish tradition, one that certain Talmudists trace back to the time of Isaiah, the world rests upon thirty-six just men, the Lamed-Vav tzaddikim.
It is wrong to throw rocks at IDF soldiers. We must do all that we can to uproot this phenomenon. But the mad witch-hunt that raged recently has nothing to do with concern for and loyalty to the IDF.
By Dov Gilor
After a good meal in Houston Thursday night, we spent the evening at the Quality Inn near the Space Center. Early Friday morning we left for the Space Center so that we could get an early start before Shabbat.
Back in September 2011, in an editorial titled "Magen David Adom: No Time to Blink," we expressed our dismay over reports in several Israeli newspapers that Israel's national ambulance service – its version of the American Red Cross – was in the process of removing the display of the Magen David symbol on its ambulances operating over the Green Line as a sop to the International Red Cross and the Palestinian Red Crescent, which are averse to the display of the Jewish symbol there.
We do not mean to denigrate the impressive military support and cooperation the Obama administration has directed toward Israel.
August 21, 2026 
