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On this date in 1950, Israel’s Knesset (pictured at its temporary location) declared Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel — defying the UN’s partition resolution of November 29, 1947, which had envisioned the city as a “corpus separatum [separated body] under a special international regime [to] be administered by the United Nations.” The Israeli declaration […]
Read Moreby Ron Skolnik I WISH Israeli and Palestinian leaders, and the Israeli and Palestinian people they represent, would live more in the present, and less in the past. I wish they focused more on problem-solving for the human beings inhaling and exhaling today, and less on proving to the world the righteousness or aboriginality […]
Read Moreby Zachary Gallant TWO WEEKS BACK, I had a large group of friends over to my home in Germany to celebrate Khanike. I’m the only Jew in my village, but as the cofounder of a refugee integration NGO, I have a friends group that is incredibly diverse. On holidays and birthdays, I celebrate with German Christians, Iranians, Arabs […]
Read Moreby Dan Brook GIDEON ARONOFF, the leader of Ameinu, was wise in saying that truth is not always wisdom. Of course Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, as is universally known. What other city would be its capital? But East Jerusalem is also the future capital of Israeli-occupied Palestine, as is perhaps less universally known. […]
Read MoreTHE JEWISH-UNIVERSALIST DILEMMA by Adam Chalom from the Autumn 2017 issue of Jewish Currents ONE HUNDRED and thirty years ago, a new language was born. It had regular rules and simple grammar, and could be learned in one tenth the time it takes to learn English. The inventor of Esperanto was a Polish Jewish doctor […]
Read MoreWHILE THREATENING PEACE AND UNDERMINING ZIONISM by Ralph Seliger THE PRESIDENT’S DECISION to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem is a typical Trump move, pleasing his strongest supporters while doing nothing concretely positive. He’s winning kudos from Evangelical Christians and hard-right Zionists, including, most importantly, Sheldon Adelson, who backed his presidential campaign to the tune […]
Read Moreby Ron Skolnik THE TWO-STATE SOLUTION, on life support for years now, might just have been put to death by one Donald J. Trump. The situation is critical and what a host of international actors do in the upcoming weeks could determine its continued viability. Trump’s weapon of attempted execution was the speech on […]
Read MoreThe United Nations General Assembly approved the partition of Palestine into a new Jewish state and a new Arab state on this date in 1947, by a vote of 33-13, with 10 abstentions and one absence (Thailand). The thirteen nations voting no on Resolution 181 were Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi […]
Read Moreby Maya Haber WITH THE ARRIVAL of Tisha B’Av, we ponder the destruction of the ancient Temples and this year give thanks that Armageddon was recently averted — though just barely. On July 14, three terrorists, Arab citizens of Israel, launched an attack at the Temple Mount/Noble Sanctuary complex in East Jerusalem, killing two Israeli […]
Read Moreby Mitchell Abidor Discussed in this essay: Till We Have Built Jerusalem, by Adina Hoffman. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016, 352 pages. A CITY’S ARCHITECTURE is often an excellent guide to its history, politics, and vision of itself. The Haussmanian Paris we know today still speaks of the need for clean, airy streets, as well as […]
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