I come to a land that calls me home
Pulled in by the suns of August.
On each visit, the eyes utter the same words:
Electric. Messy. Miracle.

This time, I'm told: things are changing.
More electric?
A bigger mess?
...

It's not politically correct to talk about differences between men and women. In a society that values equality, this is understandable. As my friend Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky wrote this week on the Morethodoxy blog, "I believe fervently that Orthodoxy has yet to grapple fully or satisfactorily with the dignity of...

What do you do if an annoying and exasperating friend gets in trouble and really needs your help? And what do you do if that friend is also a blood relative, like Israel? I often ask myself that question about progressive, pro-Israel Jews who are furious at the direction in...

It's a little too soon for Time magazine to name its Person of the Year, but I want to put in an early vote for Rumana Monzur, who on June 5 was brutalized by her husband in their Bangladesh home and has decided to speak out on behalf...

The latest buzzword in the Jewish world is "peoplehood."

In a recent article in The Jewish Daily Forward titled "Funding Peoplehood," Misha Galperin, a top official with the Jewish Agency, writes that for the past few years "the organized Jewish community worldwide has recognized that the next...

A little-noted announcement has slipped by everyone's radar: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said he is ready immediately to restart negotiations without preconditions with Israel but that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has "refused to return" to the peace table. Unbelievable, no?

That's right, unbelievable, and not true. I made...

"I hope you die and never come back!" the woman screamed at her husband as he left for work. Although the couple loved each other, it didn't stop them from having the occasional quarrel. That morning's quarrel, however, was worse than usual.

As fate would have it, the man never...

For those of you who live in the real world and not in professional Jewish circles, consider yourselves blessed that you don't have to attend one of those all-day conferences on "The Future of Judaism." I've attended my fair share, and what I remember most is constantly being on the...

During this latest episode of the long-running Israel-America reality show -- which began Thursday with President Obama's infamous "1967 lines" speech, followed by Prime Minister Netanyahu's defiant response at the White House the next day, and, finally, Obama's more conciliatory address at the AIPAC convention on Sunday -- I vacillated...

While the world media was buzzing on May 15 about the Arab demonstrations marking the "Nakba" (catastrophe) of 1948, I was listening to a commencement address by Secretary of Energy Steven Chu at Pomona College in which he lamented, among other things, America's inability to reduce its addiction to oil....

"You must promise me that you will tell this story, what happened here," the rabbi said to the bar mitzvah boy, Joachim "Yoya" Joseph. They had just finished the ceremony in a small barrack in Bergen-Belsen, where they covered the windows so the Nazi guards would not see them. The...

One of the most ironic obstacles to peace in the Middle East is what I call the Jewish disease of "ifonlyitis." This is the school of thought that says "if only" Israel would do this, or "if only" Israel would do that, then we finally might resolve the conflict. I...

A big fashion of recent times has been to rewrite or repackage the Passover haggadah to fit our individual tastes. If you're vegetarian, there is the Haggadah for the Liberated Lamb; if you're interested in Buddhism, there is the JewBu Haggadah; if your thing is spiritual traditions, there is The...

A couple of years ago, I wrote an open letter to President Obama applauding his commitment to peace in the Middle East, but warning that he should be prepared to fail. My reasoning was that he was following Albert Einstein's definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over...

I was watching the J Street convention on their website the other day, and it reminded me a little of those underground meetings among religious settlers in the West Bank. That is, a constant flow of red meat served to the fervent and the like-minded.

In the case...

If I were advising the president or prime minister of Israel, I would suggest he go on Al Jazeera this week and deliver this message to the people of the Middle East:

Dear Neighbors:

What is happening right now in our region is historic. You, the great people of the...

Has the world ever witnessed such a radical and overnight transformation of one country? Have we ever seen a nation, in 18 short days, go from a place that represents darkness to one that represents hope, renewal and liberation?

I'm not talking about Egypt; I'm talking about Israel.

In the...

They warned us. The geniuses at Peace Now warned us. The brilliant diplomats warned us. The think tanks warned us. Even the Arab dictators warned us. For decades now, they have been warning us that if you want "peace in the Middle East," just fix the Palestinian problem. A recent...

Every aspiring actor in Hollywood should have a mother like Tamar Youssefian Josephson.

Typically, if you meet a Hollywood agent at a cocktail party who wants to flack a client's work, he'll give you the elevator pitch ("Schindler's List" meets "Star Wars!"), do a little schmooze and then slip you...

Why is Israel hiding while its Palestinian "peace partners" are accusing the Jewish state of engaging in an illegal enterprise? In case you missed it, the Palestinian Authority is planning to introduce a resolution to the United Nations Security Council this week declaring all Jewish settlements "illegal." It's not enough...