Archive by Author: Ralph Seliger

As a perk for signing up for at least one session of this year’s PPI Digital Israel Symposium, I watched “The Tinderbox“ by an English-Jewish filmmaker named Gillian Mosely.  She tried to show “both sides” of the conflict, but what she really did was to mostly present hardline Israeli views alongside understandable grievances from a number of […]

I always wince at Israel’s response to attacks from Gaza, but it’s important to note that the hostilities were initiated by Hamas [photo of dueling rockets and missiles — Anas Baba/AFP].  Israel did make some effort to limit civilian casualties (calling people to get out of targeted buildings), yet I wish that Israel would have […]

On March 23rd, Israel will hold its fourth national election in two years.  The multi-party contending field is even more chaotic than usual, but one dramatic change has occurred almost instantaneously with the Jan. 24th primary election of MK Merav Michaeli (pictured) to lead the Labor Party (Avodah).  Of the merely three Laborites elected to […]

Superstar leftwing Member of Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, backed out of speaking at an online memorial for Prime Minister Yizhak Rabin, sponsored by Americans for Peace Now.  To start the ball rolling backwards, an anti-Israel comment on Twitter apparently shook her up, questioning why she’d participate in a memorial for an Israeli leader who, as Defense […]

The following is an adaptation of my talk on Sept. 1 at a Zoom session of the NYC Political Forum, a “Meetup” group.  Some of what I’ve learned came from Dr. Nimrod Novik in an Israel Policy Forum webinar.  I began by thanking the organizer for providing some helpful news links: . . . The link […]

Religiously, Peter Beinart is what one may call “conservadox,” an observant Jew who attends a liberal-ish modern Orthodox synagogue but does not routinely cover his head and doesn’t consider himself Orthodox.  Some years back, we were both guests at the home of a mutual acquaintance for a Shabbat dinner.  And I’ve written a few articles […]

This top photo of a 1950s-era MAPAM socialist-Zionist celebration of May Day (distributed by Creative Commons.org CC by 2.5) accompanied my History News Network review article, “The Decline and Fall of Socialist Zionism.”  Tal Elmaliach, a young Israeli historian, has written a book (cover below) with a double focus: 1) the leftwing MAPAM political party and […]