In spite of my muted sympathy for Women of the Wall and the non-Orthodox religious movements in Israel who seek to bring egalitarian prayer to the Kotel, their current campaign to generate sympathy among Israelis is wildly inappropriate. They've begun a promotional blitz to raise awareness of the issue via a billboard along a major Israeli highway. It … [Read more...]
Western Wall: Nexus for Gender and Religious-Nationalist Conflict
This week, Israel's far-right government acceded to its ultra-Orthodox coalition partners and torpedoed a compromise years in the making, which had been intended to offer Israeli women a means of worshipping at the Western Wall in an egalitarian manner. Women of the Wall have long protested the segregation and second-class status of women who choose to pray … [Read more...]
Hillel International: Who’s Afraid of Breaking the Silence?
At one time, campus Hillels were home to college students exploring their Jewish identity in all its diversity. There were Orthodox Jews, atheists, socialist, Bundists, Zionists--and everything in between. Hillel was a welcoming place, a big tent for Jewish inquiry. They were intellectually engaging, full of spiritual inquiry, and encouraging passion in … [Read more...]
J Street Blackwashes Israeli Apartheid, Supports West Bank Investment
These are hard times for the liberal Zionist group, J Street. It had bet all its money on a horse named Hillary to win the election. It expected for the next eight years it would serve the same role as it did during the Obama presidency (i.e. "Jews for Obama"). Her ignominious loss upended J Street's best laid plans. As it never took to Bernie Sanders … [Read more...]