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Jeremy Kalmanofsky, the senior rabbi of Ansche Chesed, a Conservative congregation on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, made news on January 6th as the subject of Jody Rudoren’s weekly column as editor-in-chief of The Forward.  (Interestingly, both of Rudoren’s immediate predecessors, Jane Eisner and J.J. Goldberg, are or have been members of Anshe Chesed […]

The recent Israeli election produced a government giving the far right and religious sectors more power than ever before. Leftists, and most centrists, are understandably alarmed. But Bibi Netanyahu is an old hand; is there a real threat to Israeli democracy? Yes. Israel’s new Minister of Justice, Yariv Levin, has unveiled proposed legislation, representing the […]

Steven Richard Sheffey reviews TTN colleague Eric Alterman’s new book,  “We Are Not One: A History of America’s Fight Over Israel.”  The following is taken by permission from Sheffey’s weekly e-newsletter, Chicagoland Pro-Israel Political Update:    [This is] the perfect gift for someone who wants to understand the history of the U.S.-Israel relationship, attitudes of […]

TTN colleagues are anguished over Netanyahu’s proposed new governing coalition, as are many stalwart supporters of Israel.  One striking example is Abe Foxman, the retired head of the Anti-Defamation League, featured in a recent Jerusalem Post news article (and in a JTA article), declaring that he will not support a “non-democratic Israel”: “If they change the Law […]

In results analogous to how Donald Trump won in the U.S. Electoral College, despite a popular vote deficit of 2.8 million in 2016, Benjamin Netanyahu is returning to power due to an artifact of Israel’s electoral system — the 3.25% minimum threshold required of competing lists to be elected to the Knesset (raised from 2% in […]

As recorded on YouTube (see below), Rep. Andy Levin seems enormously appealing and upright.  I basically share his views on Israel and the Palestinians, which favor a negotiated two-state solution, a different perspective than Peter Beinart who interviewed him days prior to his primary loss.  AIPAC channeled money to help defeat him, while not spending […]

THE UNCONSCIONABLE EXCLUSION OF ZIONISTS FROM CAMPUS GROUPS This summer, two Jewish undergraduates at the State University of New York at New Paltz, Cassandra Blotner and Ofek Preis, charged in a complaint to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights that they were expelled from a student group devoted to helping sexual assault survivors […]