“…the great divides are about how or whether American Jews feel essentially safe and at home or eternally vulnerable and vigilant…”
The basic political theory behind organized Jewish communal (read: establishment) politics in America since...
Category Archives: Jews in America
“Every Passover, we read the haggadah at the seder and we are reminded of the obligation to imagine ourselves being redeemed from Egypt…to a proud American Jew, living with equality and freedom, it seems impossible”
Every Passover, we read the haggadah at the seder and we are reminded of...
“Our criminal justice system punishes only the clearly guilty, and our media absolves only the clearly innocent — but that does not tell us whom our schools, synagogues and other institutions should employ”
We have to think long and hard as a community as to how we...
“Are there assumptions – correct or incorrect – in Jewish communal life that ‘the community’ is supposed to be the principal fiduciary in the financial needs of Jewish households?”
I’ve been thinking about the implied economy in educational institutions, especially as it is...
“How does our community, committed to Israel as well as a host of other social justice commitments, navigate collaboration with other faith and political leaders who not only oppose one critical piece of our community’s agenda but often even militate against it?”
How does our community, committed to Israel as well as a host of other...
“American Jewry and Israeli Jewry can both be success stories, even as the standards for thickness, moral integrity, spiritual health, political vitality, and continuity must be measured by different gauges”
By extension, it is time to take each of these communities seriously on their...
“The gap is real between American and Israeli Jews, with the exception of small pockets of like-minded communities…”
The gap is real between American and Israeli Jews, with the exception of small...
“In our time, the Jewish community’s “functional consensus”, forged in the mid-twentieth century, has nearly unraveled…”
Historians of American Jews are accustomed to a different conceptualization of the past, one...
“It is time to start treating the gap between Israeli and American Jews as spectral in color rather than monochromatic
It is time to start treating the gap between Israeli and American Jews as...
“There are a lot of vigorously debated hypotheses about why American Jews appear to be distancing themselves from Israel”
There are a lot of vigorously debated hypotheses about why American Jews appear to...