jews

Washington DC: A Review

כ״ב במרחשון ה׳תשע״א (Saturday 30 October 2010)

I’ve been to Washington DC a few times in the past, and I never exactly enjoyed it, but I always felt that it had some charm. On this trip, I saw none of that charm. The nicest people in DC are apparently the bums who reside in the public parks. They attempted to engage me [...]

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The Annexation Endgame

י״ז באלול ה׳תש״ע (Friday 27 August 2010)

IHTG asked what I thought about this article. He wrote: My feeling is that the settlers with their sense of community and extremely high birthrates find it easier to imagine surviving in a multi-ethnic society along with Arabs, in a sort of mini-Austro-Hungary, with themselves as the Austrians. For the rest of us, it could [...]

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What is a Jew?

י״ד באב ה׳תש״ע (Sunday 25 July 2010)

In response to my post on 9 Av, Will S. asked why non-religious Jews choose to remain Jewish by choice: Is it just shared experience, and/or sense of high degree of persecution by outsiders, that inculcates the sense of “we’re a people” in secularist Jews, making them want to live amongst their own rather than [...]

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Israel is a Police State

י׳ באב ה׳תש״ע (Wednesday 21 July 2010)

Israeli propaganda would have you believe that Israel is a liberal western democracy. Though it’s true that Israel is a democracy – much to our detriment – this society is not western, and there is very little about life here that’s liberal. Israeli citizens are required to carry identification and explain who they are and [...]

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9 Av

ח׳ באב ה׳תש״ע (Monday 19 July 2010)

Today is a calamitous day in Jewish history, when we observe the destruction of both Temples, by the Babylonians and Romans respectively. It’s not a holiday the observance of which is mandated in the Torah, so I consider it entirely optional to participate in the public mourning. Nevertheless, I am always surprised and disappointed how [...]

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Helen Thomas

כ״ז בסיון ה׳תש״ע (Wednesday 9 June 2010)

I’m a Jew and a Zionist (in some sense of the term), but that doesn’t mean I can’t get along with people who dislike Jews and Zionists. In my experience, a person’s feelings and opinions about Jews and Israel don’t correlate strongly to any positive or negative character traits, and they don’t tend to indicate [...]

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