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Thursday, July 2, 2009

The Sounds of Silence on Iran

By Mona Eltahawy

Do you hear the silence from the Arab world over events in Iran?

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

The Education of Roger Cohen

By Rob Eshman

Some of the most moving and fearless reporting out of Iran this past week has flowed from the pen of New York Times columnist Roger Cohen. Cohen was with anti-Ahmadinejad protesters as riot police chased them with electric batons and tear gas into a small hiding place.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Man of Agnon

By David Suissa

Can sarcasm, irony, surrealism, irreverence and Joycean wordplay with Talmudic references help bring us closer to Torah and to God? Can you turn the rabbinic tradition upside down and still honor it?

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Inner Child, Meet New Baby, Please Don’t Smother It

By Teresa Strasser

Being pregnant for the first time I’m scared and I want my mommy. I just don’t want my mommy.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Iran: On the Precipice

by Arash Farin

In the same week that violent protests engulfed Iran following its hotly contested election, W Magazine ran a lengthy spread about the Iranian immigrant community in Los Angeles and the incredible name they have made for themselves.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Netanyahu’s Latest Speech — Obama’s Next Opportunity

By Judea Pearl

Now that Arab leaders and Western pundits have expressed their disapproval of Netanyahu’s policy speech of last Sunday, it is time for peace visionaries to point out the opportunities that the speech has opened to the international community, especially to President Obama.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Three Speeches

By Rob Eshman

OK, let’s tally up the historic Middle East speeches this month. First, there was President Barack Obama’s June 4 address at Cairo University, where he charted a new course for U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

One in a Million

By David Suissa

There are certain stories that are difficult for me to write about. I sit there on the phone, and I have no clue what to ask. I meet the person, and I small-talk nervously.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Has the Clock Struck Midnight?

by David N. Myers

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent speech endorsing a Palestinian state is a rather clear though not particularly far-reaching attempt to placate President Obama and his new get-tough attitude toward Israel’s settlement policy.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Don’t Fear ‘God,’ ‘Torah’ and ‘Judaism’

by Joel Alperson

“Fear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.” No, it’s not a typo. The Shema, which starts “Hear O Israel,” is the central credo of the Jewish people. It states that there is only one God — and as a result, only one set of divinely authored ethics and imperatives.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Eternal Symbol of The Jewish People

By Steve Greenberg

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Saul’s Children

By Rob Eshman

This is the week to honor a Jew whose influence extends from your neighborhood council, to the field where your grapes are picked, to city halls from Los Angeles to Newark, to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. This week, say a little Kaddish for Saul Alinsky.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Found Tribe

By David Suissa

There was nothing Jewish on the streets of the neighborhood where I spent Shabbat last week. There were no kosher markets or pizza joints, no Jewish bookstores, no Jewish tailors, and certainly none of the throngs of Jews filling the streets that I’m used to seeing here in Pico-Robertson.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Obama’s Hard Truths Can Help Bridge Gap

By Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater

If there is one thing that can be said for President Obama, it is that he doesn’t shy away from speaking hard truths. As I listened to the speech in Cairo, as I reread the transcript and as I studied the numerous commentaries and analyses of the speech, I was reminded of the timeless adage: Sometimes the truth hurts.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

‘Hard Truths’ Just Political Convenience

by Caroline B. Glick

President Obama claims to be a big fan of telling the truth. In media interviews ahead of his trip to Saudi Arabia and Egypt and during his big speech in Cairo last week, he claimed that the centerpiece of his Middle East policy is his willingness to tell people hard truths.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Reaching For the Stars

By Steve Greenberg

Monday, June 8, 2009

Health Care Scare

By Marty Kaplan

We’re about to find out whether Americans are as suspicious of the right’s anti-health care reform propaganda as Iraqis are dismissive of America’s lame hearts-and-minds campaign in Iraq.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Iran First

By Rob Eshman

I’ve had six different conversations over the past two weeks with the leaders of six different pro-Israel groups, few of whom get along particularly well and none of whom work closely together.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Dear President Obama

By David Suissa

Now that you have brought your can-do spirit and sense of optimism to that most intractable of conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians, I thought I’d share a few words of caution.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Ahmadinejad Willing to Act on Threats

by Nooredin Abedian

It is astonishing how world leaders and those in charge of shaping public opinion miss the point about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They totally ignore this man and his state of mind. Not that the criticism directed at him isn’t tough. It is. Following the Iranian leader’s hateful and inciting remarks at the U.N. racism conference in Geneva, where Ahmadinejad called Israel a “racist entity,” there was a firestorm of criticism.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Q&A with Karen Bass: Life in the Hot Seat

By Raphael J. Sonenshein

Political analyst and Jewish Journal columnist Raphael Sonenshein interviewed California Assembly Speaker Karen Bass at the Jewish Journal offices on May 29, 2009, as California faces a dire budget crisis. She talks about her background growing up among Los Angeles’ Jewish community, her background in community organizing and her rise in California politics.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Auto Esteem Deficiency

By Gina Nahai

I swear I didn’t plan it this way. I know it fits just a little too well into my recent string of rants about our upside-down values and meaningless priorities, like a too-tidy resolution to a too-scripted reality TV show, but everything I’m about to tell you actually happened to me over the last three weeks, so bear with me just one more time, and I promise I’ll move on from the subject into something even more drastic and depressing next time.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

New Israeli Settlements

By Steve Greenberg

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Miracle on Third Street

By David Suissa

This is the time of year, during the holiday of Shavuot, when Jews celebrate receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. But for a small tribe of Jews in West Hollywood, Shavuot will also be a time to pray for a last-minute miracle that will save their beloved 55-year-old shul, Mishkan Israel, from disappearing.