Archive by Author: Ralph Seliger

This is the second of two posts.  Click here for the first.   Late in the afternoon, I received a second shock which pulled me in the other direction, to feel protective of Israel.  I often participate in a “meetup” to discuss history, current events and political philosophies.  A session that I attended that day discussed […]

On Saturday, July 27th, my lifelong Zionist convictions were emotionally whipsawed in opposite ways.  First, a lengthy article in the Haaretz weekend magazine (“When Arabs Were Invited to Live the Zionist Dream“)  opened a hole in my heart by illuminating Israel’s historic failure to integrate its pre-1967 Arab minority as equal citizens.  Later that day, […]

Assaf Adiv, executive director of the independent Israeli labor union, WAC-MAAN (the Workers Advice Center), spoke on July 2nd at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies.  WAC-MAAN is linked to the Da’am Workers Party, founded in 1995 by some veterans of the anti-Zionist socialist Matzpen group.  Da’am is characterized by Wikipedia as “a revolutionary socialist Jewish-Arab political […]

Susie Linfield (as she is known professionally as well as personally) is a professor of journalism at New York University and a leftwinger who’s on the board of Dissent magazine.  Her past writings on this subject include being the affirmative voice in a 2015 debate published in Dissent entitled “Is a Left Zionism Possible?” and […]

This is being posted on the eve of Israel’s Independence Day.  Most of the following was in a piece rejected by Jewish Currents, for which I had been a frequent contributor until the new anti-Zionist editorial direction began last year.  Please forgive some overlap with an earlier piece posted here, but also rejected by Jewish […]

The only surprise regarding Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)—a group that fully supports BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) against Israel—finally “coming out” as anti-Zionist, on January 14th, is that it took so long. As a longtime left-Zionist who views the Trumpification of Israel with trepidation and horror, I can understand the JVP up to a point, […]

NY Times opinion editor and writer, Bari Weiss, has a heart of gold who hits the right notes for most liberal defenders of Israel and Jews — but not necessarily with the right emphasis.  Speaking from the stage of the ornate sanctuary of New York’s Temple Emanu-El, in an event organized by the Streicker Center, its […]