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Flagship Biblical Studies Group Faces Bitter Divide Over Statements on Israel/Palestine

By Seth Sanders

…nt to keep.” Noam, the aforementioned Talmudist, was harsher, drawing a parallel between SBL members and deadly terror groups: “what concerns you is that those people will be ‘intimidated’? Are you also concerned lest ISIS supporters be intimidated?” These responses fit the mood in Israel, where it is illegal to protest the war and people have been jailed for anti-war social media comments. And Brettler, an American scholar, disagreed with the que…

On The Kerry Apartheid Comment and the Cycle of Chutzpah

By Sarah Posner

…mission, spoke of the urgency of reaching a two-state solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians, because “a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second-class citizens—or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state.” Paul Waldman describes the resulting (and predictable) events: [T]his controversy played out according to a familiar script: 1) Official says something uncomfortabl…

American Jewish Leaders Get Gaza Wrong

By Sarah Posner

…er only Israeli projectiles fired into Gaza which cause casualties. The total number of Israeli projectiles fired into Gaza is bound to be significantly larger. In a post on the recent J Street poll on American Jewish opinion, Peter Beinart notes that while young Jews are still experiencing an “attachment” to Israel, “that connection is going hand in hand with substantial alienation from this Israeli government. And that alienation exists even tho…

Peter Beinart’s Controversial The Crisis of Zionism: Right Diagnosis, Wrong Treatment

By Shaul Magid

Not since 2007, when Stephen Walt and John Mearshimer’s The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy hit the shelves, has a Jewish book evoked so much ire and criticism from the American Jewish community as Peter Beinart’s The Crisis of Zionism. Sharp critiques were published even before the book was released. One could surmise some of these reviews could have been written well before the reviewers had even read the book, due largely to Beinart’s 201…

The Key to Understanding the Federalist Society Isn’t Originalism — It’s This 800-Year Old Tradition

By Peter Schwartz

…-wing justices on the Supreme Court—Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito—are adherents of natural law moral philosophy. During his Senate confirmation hearings in 1991, Clarence Thomas weathered critical questioning about how his natural law commitments to Declarationism—a contentious philosophy propounded by natural law theorists Harry Jaffa and Hadley Arkes which subordinates the Constitution to a higher moral law—would influence his…

Israel’s Immigration Debate: “Where is the Jewish Spirit?”

By Mati Wagner

…aw enforcement officers wider powers to question and arrest suspected illegal aliens was adopted by the state of Arizona. The law, nixed this week by a federal judge, has sparked lively debate. At least one Republican legislator has recommended a change in the 14th Amendment granting US citizenship to anyone born in America, including children of illegal aliens. In states like Texas and California, a Hispanic majority is expected by 2025. Arguably…

Promise Keepers Launches Effort to Support Messianic Jews in Israel

By Sarah Posner

…tice, a lawyer who represents many Messianic Jews; Rick Ridings of Succat Hallel, a house of prayer modeled on the International House of Prayer in Kansas City; and Tom Hess, who operates the Jerusalem House of Prayer for All Nations on the Mount of Olives. “We have a list that keeps growing,” said Jesse. He said that Dan Juster, the director of Tikkun Ministries International who also oversees the activities of the Messianic Jewish Bible Institut…

Using the “A” Word: Israel and Apartheid

By Shalom Goldman

…on the political Right, and earn you points on the international Left. Israel allied with South Africa The Unspoken Alliance is not directly concerned with the Israel-South Africa comparison, but it cannot, of course, avoid it. Rather, writer Sasha Polakow-Suransky, a senior editor at Foreign Affairs, seeks to “document the development and demise of an extensive and lucrative military alliance” between Israel and South Africa. As he describes it,…

Because God Tells Me So; Do Jews Have a “Historic Right” to Israel?

By Shaul Magid

…it became the most visible American synagogue to break ranks with the pro-Israel lobby protesting the UN vote. A few days later the Reform Movement issued a statement criticizing the Israeli government’s decision to revive settlement construction in the E1 area of the West Bank. This has long been considered a “red line” by the U.S. and other states friendly to Israel in that it would geographically make a two-state solution (with East Jerusalem…

Is Zionism No Longer Able to Offer Solutions to the Present Reality?

By Shaul Magid

…iberal Zionist that I’ve read. And yet, I think it misses a number of crucial elements—not so much in its diagnostics but in its framing of liberalism and its realistic suggestions for a new liberal Zionist paradigm. Full disclosure: I’ve known Donniel Hartman for a long time. We always seemed to have affinity and respect for one another’s ideas, even as our differences remain significant. I never quite understood why. After reading “Liberal Zioni…