יום חמישי, ל׳ אב תשפ״וThursday, August 13, 2026
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By J. E. Dyer
There may no longer be a unifying “center” to hold the GOP together.
By Jeremy Rosen
In Judaism sex is regarded as something wonderful, positive, and a gift of God.
By Soeren Kern
"The next thing could be that Danish nurses are forced to go under cover as Muslim women..." — Danish People's Party
By David Wilder, Tazpit News Agency
Three thousand new apartments should be transformed into 30,000 new apartment buildings.
'Shomer negiah,' the halachic bar on physical contact with the opposite sex, is wrongly treated by many as a Chumra that many do not observe.
By Barry Rubin
The non-member 'state' status will sink the Palestinian leadership even deeper into an obsession with intransigence in practice and paper victories that mean nothing in the real world.
Not a week passes without some new rumor from Syria tearing up the social media channels. Here's the latest about Assad.
By Barry Rubin
I’m amused by those who think that Hamas won the recent conflict.
I'm not a fan of Shimon Peres - I have to be honest. If I look back over his career as a politician...well, I'd rather not. But Peres has his moments. He is very supportive of women. I heard him speak a few months ago. He spoke of men as babies and says women run the world, ground it, nurture it.
There it was, a backyard full of my basement furniture, and bags and bags of waterlogged papers.
Once again I find myself congratulating the man I did not vote for. Barack Obama has been re-elected for a 2nd term as President of the United States. As I said in my endorsement of his opponent, the President is a good and decent man. I don’t think he has been a bad President. He just hasn’t been a great President.
Haveil Havalim is a great idea (I'm not going to post the normal shpiel here - just let me say it's our way of sharing a whole bunch of interesting blogs and blog posts that were posted this last week in the Jewish-Israel blogsphere.
The issue of what happened in Benghazi, Libya in September 11, 2012 is likely to come up in at least one if not several of the different topic areas. President Obama will seek to put a definitive end to the questioning about how his administration handled the crisis, and presidential-hopeful Mitt Romney will seek to lay out the inconsistencies in the narratives presented by this administration over the course of the six weeks since the tragedy.
By Hadar Sela
Definitely not on the standard list of tourist destinations in Israel, and less well-known than its counterpart in Yaffo (Jaffa), the flea market in down-town Haifa is well worth a visit whether you’re buying or just browsing. The market is open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and of course it is best to get there as early as possible – with well-honed haggling skills!
I never liked comedienne Sarah Silverman. I never thought she was all that funny. Her humor is mostly vulgar and designed to shock people into laughing. Most comedians will tell you that if the only way you can make people laugh is with vulgar jokes, then you’re not really much of a comedian. But I digress. What upsets me the most about her is her very open self-identification as a Jew. Normally when successful people tout their Judaism, it makes me proud. But when she does it – it is an embarrassment. In fact I wish she would just change her name… or go away altogether.
By J. E. Dyer
The short answer is: because he’s got nothing. There is no record to run on, no argument to make for four more years. The ideology that drives him is outdated and bankrupt. He has, in fact, implemented his policies – Republicans have had little means of stopping him – and those policies are the problem. But there’s a slightly longer answer too.
By Barry Rubin
The Obama-Romney debate has been analyzed from many angles, especially about who won. Yet in the course of the event, Obama said what might be the most revealing slip he has ever made. This one phrase tells more about Obama and the ideology of his left-wing supporters than every other word they have spoken in the last four years.
The enmity I have observed between groups here in the holy land has been a source of great disappointment to me. Not that I didn’t know it exists. But I have encountered numerous instances of it I and did not realize the extent of it.
Live from Israel - Learn to read, speak & write Hebrew with qualified academic Israeli teachers online from your home. Learn Hebrew at your pace and time - according to your level.
By Tzvi Fishman
Sudden t’shuva is different. It seems to come about all at once with superhuman energy and willpower.
By Barry Rubin
Egypt, the Arab world’s most important single country, has been turned from an ally of America—albeit an imperfect one of course—in maintaining and trying to extend Arab-Israeli peace into a leading advocate of expanding the conflict and even potentially going to war.
By Barry Rubin
The information released about the Democratic convention seems to show it is designed to prove how radical the party is, to play to the most limited possible sector of the population.
The new school year is just around the corner, and as the summer days wind down the air is filled with the anticipation of the approaching back-to-school season. During this time, students and their parents often feel the apprehension and worry of preparing for school. Of course, we’d rather take advantage of these final warm vacation days and really enjoy ourselves, but the nervousness of the new school year is palpable. The best cure for this anxiety is to help ease the fear of the unknown by preparing for school. Set your children up for success by helping them prepare for this transition smoothly. Here are some tips to help you and your children experience this season bump-free.
By Tzvi Fishman
Rabbi Kook explains that t’shuva comes about in two distinct formats, either suddenly, or in a gradual, slowly developing fashion. Both of these pathways to t’shuva are readily found in the baal t’shuva world. Some people will tell you how their lives suddenly changed overnight. Others describe their experience as a long, challenging process which unfolded over years. Many factors influence the way in which t’shuva appears.
Fact is there is of course nothing wrong with raising standards of religious observance. As long as it is voluntary. But when schools start making new demands along those lines, they completely ignore individual choice. Being Machmir should be an individual choice and not forced upon anyone. These strictrures have nothing to do with basic Halacha. They have to do with image.
By Sandy Eller
Approximately fifteen to twenty million Americans are afflicted annually with the epidemic keratoconjunctivitis, an infection or irritation of the thin, clear membrane, known as the conjunctiva, that lies over the white part of the eye and lines the inside of the eyelid. More commonly known as conjunctivitis or pink eye, because of the uncharacteristic red and possibly swollen appearance the eye takes on during this condition, it is most commonly caused by either or a viral or bacterial infection.
By dvora
China assaults the senses with a cacophony of sounds and colorful sights amid its teeming masses. As we arrived for a month’s trip in October the noxious smog of vehicle-packed Beijing assailed our nostrils. But the past still dwells in the shadows of the modernized capital. At dusk a row of elderly stooped men shuffled along the road beneath our apartment in Mao-style uniforms. We would see the same gray men plodding by in the morning.
I am disgusted that after ordering all flags to fly at half-mast in 1972, the Olympics Committee rushed to raise the flags of 10 Arab nations who protested mourning the massacre of Jews/Israelis. And today, I am beyond sickened by the thought that complicity has turned to action; that the Lebanese could demand a wall be built - and the Olympics Committee complied.
By Jeremy Rosen
Real progress is being made to generate lab grown meat that tastes as good as the real thing without the fuss -- isn’t this something we Orthodox Jews should welcome?
By Alex Abel
Photographers will join the combat fighters in the Golani Brigade for a full eight month course. The purpose is to prepare them to document major operational events and improve the IDF’s challenge with public relations. Captain Micah Ohana explained anyone can have a camera and distort an image that then becomes shown to the public. […]
By Barry Rubin
Because of political reasons and especially due to the ideological monopoly of certain forces over Western institutions, most of the academics, analysts, journalists, and politicians who speak on these issues get away with pushing the moderation thesis. They are virtually never asked to provide proof. This wrong idea thus sets current U.S. policy and creates a great risk of future crisis, instability, repression, and severe damage to U.S. interests.
We often sit through the haftorah wondering, “Why do we read the haftorah anyway?” Krias HaTorah of the parsha makes sense—we read a portion of the Chumash each week so that we finish the entire Torah over the course of the year. But we’re not reading a portion of Navi each week so that we can finish all of it on some kind of schedule.
By Barry Rubin
By now it's clear that President Obama isn’t going to visit Israel in his term of office. And yet that’s pretty curious, isn’t it? After all, American politicians who seek Jewish support usually find a trip to Israel a pretty good way to claim pro-Israel credentials. And Obama has been desperate to do so, especially this year. Why, then, isn’t Obama going to visit Israel? Of course, we cannot definitively answer that question but here are some thoughts.
Women who seek the opportunity to do Asanas in an environment which is more Hoshannah than Ganesha – and teach other women to do the same - can now sign up for a special course designed especially for Jewish Yoga aficionadas who want to teach the healing art to others.
Cpl. May Karen serves as a shooting instructor in the IDF Ground Forces. "I knew I wanted to become an infantry instructor even before enlisting," she says. IDF female shooting instructors go through an extensive course where they learn how to use different weapons and specialize in shooting techniques. They then teach combat infantry soldiers who will use it in battle.
By Barry Rubin
How to respond to the misinformation and fear that makes a potential Romney voter a soft-core Obama supporter.
CBS News icon Mike Wallace of "60 Minutes" fame, the tough interviewer who may not have invented confrontational journalism but certainly perfected it, died Saturday night. He was 93 and was surrounded by family members at the Waveny Care Center in New Canaan, Conn., where he had lived recently. Jeff Fager, chairman CBS News and […]
When you‘re here, over the rainbow, it is different. Being out-of-town is not about living in some neighborhood of Brooklyn (other than Boro Park, Williamsburg, or Flatbush). Living out-of-town also does not mean living in other parts of the Big Apple, like Manhattan or Queens. It doesn’t even mean living in the suburbs – like the Five Towns or Great Neck. Being here, over the rainbow, means living away.
By Barry Rubin
To view government as a form of deity or an inevitable friend of the poor and downtrodden is an illusion. Government is not a magic box, but a can of worms. To see it as a player, with its own interests, that should be as distrusted as any bank or corporation is the purest form of common sense, the very triumph of common sense over ideology and dogma that made America great, its people free, and real democracy possible.
By Tibbi Singer
This week the 124th class of IDF Naval Officers, including three women, completed their training and were stationed on deck Israeli Navy vessels. While most IDF women serve only two years, these three officers have already served through the 36-month naval officers' course, as graduates will be required to sign up for at least an extra 16 months.
I love coffee, but I cannot drink it. This has been the case since my doctor issued the verdict last month - no coffee and no milk. I was quite disappointed to hear that as I love coffee, but I was determined to follow expert medical advice. That conviction, however, did not last more than one week into a new semester with a full course load.
Herman Nackaerts, deputy director general of the IAEA, said his team "had a good trip."
Amjad Awad and his cousin Hakim were convicted last November of the murders.
August 14, 2026 
