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Daybreak
• In its last act before the new term begins, the House of Representatives passed a deal that avoids sharp tax increases on many Americans, prevents drastic spending cuts, and ensures that unemployment...
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Jewish Conversion: The Billy Joel Experiment
Just a few weeks ago, I faced a truth I wasn’t ready to handle. It turns out that my Tablet colleague Liel Leibovitz HATES Billy Joel. Despite the fact that Liel is a man with whom I share a steadfast...
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Today on Tablet
Today on Tablet, Rabbi David Wolpe reports on the Women of the Wall, whose quest to pray at the Western Wall has ignited a controversy that is more familiar than it first seems. For the modernists,...
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The International Response to Settlements: The Overblown Rhetoric on...
With the recent chatter about Israeli settlements at a high since the announcement of the E-1 Plan, this offering by the Washington Post editorial board today is a useful resource to combat some of the...
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Beate Gordon (1923-2012)
If you’d like to be humbled as you move into the new year, I highly suggest checking out the Times obit of Beate Sirota Gordon, who passed away on Sunday at 89. Born to Russian Jewish parents, Gordon...
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The Jewish Jordan Assists the IDF
Was Michael Jordan a mere mortal without his Nike kicks? Would he have been a last-minute scratch in the pivotal fifth game of the 1997 NBA Finals had he not his Gatorade nectar to help him battle the...
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'I'm With Eric Cantor': House Majority Leader Plays A Large Role In...
If you weren’t closely watching the inane goings on of yesterday’s fiscal cliff dance, you might have missed the part when House Majority Leader Eric Cantor led a minyan of Republicans to vote against...
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Sundown
• Explosions rocked a number of sites around the suburbs of Damascus today, a grim backdrop for the United Nations announcement that the death toll in Syria was higher than expected. During the...
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Will Putin's Adoption Ban Wake Up the White House?
Maybe Mitt Romney was right. The failed Republican presidential candidate got ripped during the campaign when he called Russia our “No. 1 geopolitical foe,” but he seems to have had a clearer picture...
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If Putin Had His Way, My Kids Would Still Be Orphans in Russia
Our son Victor was born thousands of miles from us, near the Finnish-Russian border, and placed in a baby home immediately after birth. His mother signed away all her rights, claiming she did not have...
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Sierra Leone’s Israeli-Built Parliament Building and the Jewish State’s...
Sierra Leone’s parliament is a cubic citadel with a panoramic view of the Freetown harbor. Situated on a hilltop called Tower Hill, the complex has an assembly hall, ministers lounge, library,...
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Daybreak
• A new poll–which should perhaps be taken with a few chunks of Dead Sea salt–shows that the right-wing Jewish Home party now looks to be tied for the second-largest party in the upcoming elections....
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West Bank Clashes On The Rise
Shortly before the new year, a number of newspapers reported that Hamas–in the wake of its victory or “victory” against Israel in Operation Pillar of Defense–was now plotting to take over the West...
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Today on Tablet
Today on Tablet, Rama Musa takes a look at the Israeli-built parliament building in Freetown, Sierra Leone. A symbol of Sierra Leone’s survival after a bloody civil war that ended in 2002 at a cost of...
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Jewish Conversion: The Billy Joel Experiment; Part II: 'Los Angelenos'
In case you missed yesterday’s dispatch, one of my resolutions for 2013 is to convince my stiff-necked colleague Liel into reconsidering Billy Joel, a musician he loathes without relent. He was not as...
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Israel Reaches Six Million Jewish Residents
The Guardian of all good places published a story earlier this week (h/t Natalie Schachar) announcing that Israel’s Jewish population had passed six million. For obvious symbolic reasons, this was...
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To Russia With Loathing:
Writing about Russia today, Lee Smith gets it exactly right: “What survived World War II, Stalin’s purges, the Cold War, and the dissolution of the Soviet empire was the brutal moral and political...
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Sundown
• The 113th Congress officially convened for the first time on Thursday. John Boehner won re-elected to his post as house speaker, despite some discord within the ranks of the GOP. [NYT] • Division...
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The Neo-Hasid Tour Guide of Hulu and Richard Linklater's Travel Series 'Up to...
Up to Speed, an original show produced by the online video service Hulu, is a series of half-hour American travelogues directed by the indie superstar Richard Linklater and featuring Timothy “Speed”...
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Dov Yosef, Israel’s Forgotten Founding Father
Last week, a private dealer of historical documents put up a bundle of notebooks for sale online. They contain precious and previously unseen fragments of Israel’s early history: notes from the 1964...
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