I was in college when the last social order went out, the WASP establishment, labelled “the Episcopacy” by one of my Harvard classmates. The bluebloods had screwed up bigtime with Vietnam, and had a series of scandals, from the assassinations…
Yesterday I talked to Sue Dravis, a former Democratic Party official in Iowa, who 11 months ago elicited the frankest, and most damaging, statement that Obama has made about Israel/Palestine, when he said that “nobody is suffering more than the…
“We need to end the mindset that got us into war,” Obama said last night in Wisconsin–a clear indication that, as Malcolm Hoenlein warned yesterday in Jerusalem, American politics are about to change with respect to Israel. The signs are…
The greatest newspaper in the world, Haaretz, reports that Malcolm Hoenlein, the head of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, said in Jerusalem that he is concerned by all the calls for “change” in the U.S. presidential campaign….
Breaking the Silence’s exhibit of soldiers’ photos from the occupation is at Penn this week, going to Harvard next week. I gather the great Yehuda Shaul was on C-Span last night. Haven’t watched this myself yet, but here’s the link….
Walt and Mearsheimer’s book is embroiled in a power struggle. They were trying to be scholars. But their work is being dismissed because it has political consequences; it empowers Israel’s critics here. In an interview published in Haaretz today, macher…
Andrew Zitcer is the cultural assets manager at the University of Pennsylvania. A big job. He is responsible for the Rotunda, a beautiful historic facility at the school. Having founded a progressive synagogue with his wife, Zitcer has now hosted…
This past weekend I spent some time with my brother-in-law, a music lover who lives in Philadelphia. He told me of the pleasure he gets from concerts at the new Kimmel Center and, for chamber music, the Perelman Theater. I…
It it indisputable that Walt and Mearsheimer and Jimmy Carter have had a great effect: it is impossible to have a discussion about Israel/Palestine in respectable intellectual circles without being conscious that at any moment someone is likely to start…