Gershom Gorenberg
The divide between the ultra-Orthodox and other Jews over who is Jewish continues to widen. In the latest developments, ultra-Orthodox rabbis in both Israel and the U.S. have asserted that conversion is reversible — that a convert can cease to be Jewish if she or he does not live according to halakhah, Jewish law, [...]

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Haim Watzman
Motti works out with me at the gym at the Jerusalem Pool. A cab driver by profession, he’s a bit younger than me and shares my exercise addiction; like me he has a teenage son who also works out at the gym. We work hard to stay healthy, and we both want our kids [...]

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Gershom Gorenberg
One of the bizarre ironies of Israeli politics is revealed once more in a response by NGO Monitor* to Nicholas Kristof’s recent column on Hebron and the price of occupation.
Kristof wrote of the particular burden imposed on Palestinians - and on Israel itself - by maintaining Jewish settlers inside Hebron:
The security system that Israel [...]

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“Ancient Jerusalem Safari” said the sign on the side of the open-sided bus. It was parked this morning in the lot at the end of the promenade that stretches from UN Hill almost to Hebron Road. The promenade is an arc of stone walkways and stairs, of lawns and landscaping with a [...]

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Readers’ notes in the last few days include these tidbits:

Moshe Feiglin, head of the Manhigut Yehudit (”Jewish Leadership”) faction in the Likud, has been touring the U.S., speaking at synagogues such as Congregation B’nai Yeshurun in Teaneck. Manhigut Yehudit’s website includes a draft constitution in Hebrew with such features as a rabbinical council that could [...]

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Finance Minister Roni Bar-On is preparing a plan to rid Israel of all illegal immigrants within five years, Ha’aretz reports. The story did not state that Bar-On will then escape Israel in a flying saucer piloted by three-eyed green men, but it could have. Bar-On has about as much chance of ending illegal economic immigration [...]

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Gershom Gorenberg
If you want to understand why Rev. Jeremiah Wright said the US government invented Aids, or what Barack Obama sought to accomplish in his Philadelphia speech on race, the best commentary is political scientist Marc Howard Ross’s book “Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict” - even if it never mentions Obama or Wright.
I described Ross’s [...]

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OK, I also had to click on a picture of a boxer with the word “Talmud” in the headline underneath. But when I read the NY Times story about Yuri Foreman, Orthodox rabbinic student and light middleweight pro boxer, what jumped out at me - for its fine surrealistic madness - was the explanation a [...]

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Kudos to Rabbi Eric Yoffie, head of the Union for Reform Judaism, who has publicly spoken out against Jewish political cooperation with Christian Zionists, their most prominent organization - Christians United for Israel - and its leader, John Hagee:
The heart of Pastor Hagee’s message is to be found in these words: “Stop giving the land [...]

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Poor kids get worse educations and graduate from high school at lower rates than rich kids. That’s bad. What could be worse? The Bank of Israel’s annual report (not yet available on line, but here’s a report in today’s Ha’aretz) says that the education gap has remained virtually the same since 1992. We’ve made no [...]

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The Government Press Office was kind enough to send me a notice from the Municipality of Ariel:
Some 600 American Christian Zionists, led by well-known Evangelical leader, Pastor John Hagee, will arrive in Israel this week to express their support for Israel on the Jewish Homeland’s 60th year of Independence. One of the highlights of their [...]

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The problem with calculating a nation’s well-being via per-capita GDP:
…you and your friend are the only people sitting at a bar. Then Bill Gates walks in, and your friend states (correctly) that “The average person in this bar is a billionaire!”
That’s from The G-Spot, where Blogger Kathy G. (didn’t Dylan write a song by [...]

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