Archive by Author: Ralph Seliger

This is my reflection on three recent (but not brand new) British books about antisemitism and the Left, which I was originally commissioned to review for Jewish Currents.  But I dawdled until the editorial regime suddenly changed at Jewish Currents, and the new editor was not receptive.  The following is drawn from the publishers’ blurbs: […]

Dr. Micah Goodman, a liberal Orthodox scholar of Jewish thought (i.e., a believer in religious pluralism), has ventured into Israeli politics and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with his latest book, Catch-’67: The Left, the Right, and the Legacy of the Six-Day War.  He is also a Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, under whose […]

Tel Aviv University emeritus professor of history, Shlomo Sand, mostly specializing in French and intellectual history.  He’s engaged in a virtual second career promoting the notion that Jews are not a historic people and that the current crop of Jews are not substantially descended from the ancient Hebrews of the Biblical era or the Judeans […]

The initial Oslo agreement was famously signed on the White House Lawn 25 years ago, on Sept. 13, 1993.  Originally, I was intending to write about a conference I attended at New York University on March 25th (“Oslo: 25 Years Later“), but was waiting until this September’s anniversary (forgive my tardiness). An alternative title for this post could be […]

This post would have been more timely if written last year in response to Stephen Shalom’s article, “Looking Back at the June 1967 Middle East War,” in the summer 2017 issue of New Politics; but it’s still appropriate a year later for the 51st anniversary of the Six Day War (June 5-10, 1967).  It reminds […]

This should be entirely a good news story for lovers of Israel; sadly, it cannot be.  Two days after Israel’s Netta Barzilai’s first-place finish in the Eurovision songfest, there’s the double whammy of the worst day of carnage at the Gaza-Israel border, as oblivious Israelis and Americans celebrate the official transfer of the US embassy […]

The detail in Peter Beinart’s analysis of how grim things are in Gaza, and how Israel could reasonably ease up to make some things better, is of great value (“American Jews Have Abandoned Gaza — And the Truth“).  Considering what Hamas is like and much Palestinian opinion and behavior, however, it’s hard for most Israelis […]