Daybreak: Attack Likelihood Down, People Feel
• The Israeli-attack-on-Iran barometer has fallen, reports James Risen. Expect it to rise again late next month when the Baghdad talks don’t produce as much as we’d hoped. [NYT] • Iran expressed...
View ArticleNetanyahu’s Influential Father Benzion Dies
Benzion Netanyahu, who died this morning at 102, was involved in so much of Jewish and Israeli history that if in your head you go through the top three or four facts about his life, you’re bound to...
View ArticleSpeak Easy, Eh?
Today in Tablet Magazine, David Sugarman tracks down Kosher wine bootlegging rings in Montreal and how the man (well, a woman) just won’t get off their case.
View ArticleEx-Israeli Officials in Uproar Over Iran Plans
Several former and even current Israeli military and intelligence men (plus former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert) have come forward to caution against and even denounce what some allege is Prime Minister...
View ArticleThe Inquisitor’s Inquisitor
Today in Tablet Magazine, Jason Epstein remembers his friend and rival, historian Benzion Netanyahu. Netanyahu died today at the age of 102 years young and begat a doctor, a Prime Minister and an...
View ArticleWhat Cafe? Cafe Wha?!
Each Monday, we choose the most interestingly Jewish announcement from that Sunday’s New York Times Weddings/Celebrations section. This week, it’s that of Lauren Held and Ofer Cohen, married Saturday....
View ArticleNow You’re Speaking My Language
Today in Tablet Magazine, senior writer Liel Leibovitz argues that is a Jewish imperative to become literate and independent in the lingua franca of the computer age. Cracking the Computer Code
View ArticleLand of Milk, Honey, and IVF
Not that we didn’t already know this, but there’s yet more evidence that Israel is lapping the rest of the world in in vitro fertilizations. A new report from the Health Ministry found that fully 4.1...
View ArticleEzekiel and Saraswati
Today in Tablet Magazine, Patricia Bailey Conway discusses the work of Nissim Ezekiel, India’s most famous Jewish poet. Even after the empire fell, Ezekiel still wrote in English but also, as he wrote...
View ArticlePoll Shows [Lower/Steady] Jews for Obama
A new American Jewish Committee poll found that 61 percent of Jews would vote for President Obama, 28 percent would vote for Mitt Romney, and 11 percent are undecided. This is [bad/good] news for...
View ArticleSundown: ‘Great Teacher’ Benzion Remembered
• Prime Minister Netanyahu eulogized his father. [Ynet] • Suzy Khimm has an incredible report on how Occupy Wall Street is working hard to change the regulatory system. (Among the wonks, you’ll find...
View ArticleLikud’s Late Grandfather
Prof. Benzion Netanyahu, who died Monday at his home in Jerusalem at age 102, was an outsider twice over in terms of Israeli political life and the tightly knit ideological cliques that shaped the...
View ArticleBibi’s Political Inheritance
Benzion Netanyahu, scholar of the Inquisition, secretary to Ze’ev Jabotinsky, and father of Bibi, was the last of the purist Revisionist Zionists. He carried Revisionism’s bitter battles against the...
View ArticleHow Not To Read Aloud to Kids
Parents, let me share a little secret. You needn’t read to your children at all. They have Angry Birds to play on your iPhone and New Super Mario Brothers to play on their DS. And studies show that by...
View ArticleOrthodox Art Photographer Spy
Twenty years ago, when photographer Anna Shteynshleyger emigrated with her family from Moscow to suburban Maryland, she spoke no English. But her father bought her a camera at a pawn shop and the...
View ArticleDaybreak: Abbas ‘Chooses’ Bibi for Peace
• President Abbas said, oddly enough, “I choose [Prime Minister] Netanyahu as my partner for peace. With whom else can I make peace?” He reiterated his call for a settlement freeze before returning to...
View ArticleOn the Ground in the Islamic Republic
Laura Secor, one of my favorite journalists (read this!) and in recent years one of the most important American journalists covering Iran (read this!), just published a dispatch from a recent trip to...
View ArticleHow To Raise a Book Burner
Today in Tablet Magazine, parenting columnist Marjorie Ingall understands every moment a child reads a book is a moment stolen from internet chat rooms and Jersey Shore. She has thoughtfully provided a...
View ArticleUltra-Right Backs Moderate Islamist in Egypt
The good news and bad news come with the same news: that over the weekend, Egypt’s Salafists, the most conservative Islamists, endorsed for president Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a comparatively moderate...
View ArticleMore Old Jews Telling More Jokes
Old Jews Telling Jokes, your favorite repository of old Jews telling jokes, is back with a new season, filmed in Boca (seriously). The Internet video series, which in its younger and more vulnerable...
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