At Columbia U. the other night the Israeli scholar Idith Zertal sought to explain Palestinian violence. Zertal was speaking on the heels of Rashid Khalidi, a professor at Columbia who in faulting all parties to the Gaza crisis faulted Palestinians…
At least a half dozen times in recent months, the suggestion has come from serious people that Jews predominate in the American media–that if we are not dominant, we are a major bloc. In a Yivo event on Jews in…
As a Jew who is concerned with issues of identity construction, I went to the Arab Students Association event the other night at Columbia for selfish reasons, to see Idith Zertal, the Israeli co-author of Lords of the Land. I…
On Thursday night, the Arab Students Association of Columbia U. held a discussion of Gaza, describing it as a prison. 150 people jammed into a classroom to hear the panel, with another 60 or so turned away. Panelist Andrew Whitley,…
Last night I went to a jammed event at Columbia on the human-rights crisis in Gaza and later over bad hummus heard the following theory from a friend: In ’92 George H.W. Bush ran against the Israel lobby and lost…
The Jewish Chronicle covered the latest, international demonstrations outside Lev Leviev’s diamond boutiques in New York and London. London demonstrators included members of Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine, Stop the Wall, and Jews for Justice for Palestinians… A…
Washington Jewish Week covered a Jews-for-Obama rally in D.C. Saturday night. At this event, a young progressive named Shira Robinson said better than I have that Obama’s efforts to shore up his standing in the traditional Jewish community are alienating…
Have you followed the controversy over SWF’s–sovereign wealth funds–investing in the U.S.? They might change our foreign policy! Globalism bites back. And Lawrence Summers–who once held the line against divestment efforts at Harvard–justifies “xenophobia” toward the SWF’s because we don’t…
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…