Brave + mensch = ?

By Rob Eshman
Published on December 27, 2007

Three years ago, we were sitting around our offices dreaming up an end-of-the-year issue, inundated with examples from other magazines: The Ten Best Movies, The Ten Richest Angelenos, The Ten Most Powerful Hollywood Players, The Ten Top Restaurants, The Ten Hottest Bars and et cetera.

Since these lists are both celebration and statement, we decided we wanted to promote something a little different. What if a list championed a Jewish value, not people, things or bars (not that there's anything wrong with them....)?

The Fate of Arafat

By David Landau
Published on January 31, 2002

The future of Yasser Arafat -- or of the Middle East without him -- is shaping up as the key agenda item when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon meets President George W. Bush in Washington next week.

Invasion Pros   and Cons

By David Landau
Published on November 1, 2001

Israel this week is weighing the interim results of the largest military operation it has mounted during the past 13 months of violence. The balance is complex, informed observers say, with both pros and cons. Israel Defense Force (IDF) troops and tanks pulled back from Bethlehem and neighboring Beit Jalla, just south of Jerusalem, overnight Sunday, after a day in which Palestinians desisted from shooting at the nearby Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo.

Empathy in Tragedy

By David Landau
Published on September 13, 2001

Israel's civilian and military authorities swung into full alert after the magnitude of the terror attacks against the United States became apparent.

Taking off the Gloves

By David Landau
Published on April 5, 2001

Six months into the Palestinian uprising, Israeli doves and hawks are displaying a rare unity in the face of repeated Palestinian onslaughts.

Is This Really a New Bibi?

By David Landau
Published on December 14, 2000

Just 18 months after Benjamin Netanyahu was voted out of office, public opinion polls show that he would decimate Prime Minister Ehud Barak in a head-to-head contest -- if Netanyahu can only get around the legal obstacles to his candidacy.

Balancing Acts

By David Landau
Published on October 26, 2000

Prime Minister Ehud Barak and opposition leader Ariel Sharon are trying to get their respective parties to join a national unity government before the Knesset begins its winter session Monday.

Negotiating Jerusalem

By David Landau
Published on July 13, 2000

As Prime Minister Ehud Barak engages this week in Middle East summitry, there is one issue on which he can afford to make the fewest concessions: Jerusalem.

Crumbling Coalition

By David Landau
Published on June 15, 2000

The coincidence could hardly have been lost on Ehud Barak: As President Hafez Assad was laid to rest in Syria, Israel's Shas Party appeared to lay the premier's "peace coalition" to rest.The fervently Orthodox party's Council of Sages, headed by spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, sounded what could be the first notes of the prime minister's coalition's death knell Tuesday. The council ordered Shas ministers to hand in their resignations at Sunday's Cabinet meeting.

Endpaper

By David Landau
Published on March 23, 2000

I never expected I'd write a first-hand account of my journey into interfaith marriage. As a child I attended the West Coast Talmudic Seminary (WCTS) and then Rambam Torah Institute for high school. As a teenager, my social life centered around my involvement in B'nai Akiva, an Orthodox Zionist youth organization. My parents, Holocaust survivors, never forced me to attend these yeshivas.

Credibility Gap

By David Landau
Published on February 3, 2000

Prime Minister Ehud Barak and his closest political allies have been scrambling to limit the damage to their government following a scathing report on the financing behind Barak's election campaign last year.

Forging Ahead

By David Landau
Published on September 23, 1999

Prime Minister Ehud Barak's cozy late-night dinner with Yasser Arafat and some of the Palestinian leaders' top aides at a private home near Tel Aviv came as a pleasant surprise to Middle East peace watchers.

Israel’s Great Divide

By David Landau
Published on May 27, 1999

As the election dust settles and coalition-building tensions grow, religion is emerging as the single most dominant factor in Israel's current political cataclysm.

Seismic Shift

By David Landau
Published on May 20, 1999

Pundits everywhere are calling Israel's election results a "political earthquake." In fact, though, two distinct tremors have overturned the rules and realities that have governed the Jewish state and its policy-making these past three years.