Eloquent, moving, brilliant: the best words for Tony Karon’s reminiscence/analysis of the ’67 war in Israel/Palestine, and its lasting effects… Three excerpts follow: 1, Karon’s unflinching description of ethnic cleansing in ’48 (dispensing with the “They were told to flee”…
I see it as part of my function to document instances of dual loyalty–in which American Jews are called upon to show loyalty to Israel. These appeals are problematic: 1, they define Jewish identity in a narrow and dubious way,…
A few weeks back, I landed on Michael Walzer for his parochialism in a speech about Jewish identity at the Center for Jewish History. The speech was complacent: it celebrated the American Jewish religious revival and American Jews’ connection to…
Last night the Center for Jewish History had its Hannah Arendt event. The big surprise about the evening for me was the extent to which the panel, which consisted of two Arendt-adorers in Jerome Kohn and Richard Bernstein, ennobled Arendt’s…
I keep saying that leftwing Jewish criticism of Zionism is a movement. Exhibit A is Australian author Antony Loewenstein, who has lately published a book, My Israel Question that is forthright and searing. His travels through Israel and the West…
A month back I went to a highly emotional talk at Columbia University Hillel that Iâve been meaning to blog about because it shows how much the discourse on Israel/Palestine is changing. Mine is a report from a liberal university,…
I wrote about U.N. Ambassador-to-be Zalmay Khalilzad’s ideological peregrinations before. From radical to neocon. Well, turns out there was a stop in Realism. Ten years ago, Khalilzad deplored the Israel lobby’s role in our foreign policy. In a 1997 paper…
Last night in an Iraq panel at Barnard arranged by the Working Families Party, Rep. Jerrold Nadler said that WMD was merely an “excuse” for the Bush Administration to invade Iraq. The real reason was “simple” and “psychological.” I could…
I’m surprised that I’ve seen no coverage of political theorist Michael Walzerâs lecture at Yivo Institute last month on the issue of Jewish identity: “Are We a People?” Surprised because it was such a strong lecture, and such a disturbing…