Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s father, Benzion, died Monday, leaving an interesting legacy in the United States
By RAFAEL MEDOFF
NEW YORK (JTA) — Benzion Netanyahu — historian, one-time political activist and father of Israel’s prime minister — died Monday in Jerusalem at 102. An accomplished scholar and the patriarch of one of Israel’s most important political families, [...]

Remembering Yaakov Just on Israel’s Memorial Day
By MOSHE GIT
From the inception of the State of Israel, the custom has been to dedicate the day prior to Israel’s Independence Day (Yom Ha’atzmaut) to the memory of the fallen soldiers, without whose sacrifice the state would not exist or endure. That day is known as [...]

The binding of Isaac, seen as part of the core of Judaism, may not be the best example of what is good or right
By MOSHE GIT
Rabbi Shimon Hurwitz of Aish Hatorah yeshiva asserts that “Torah teaches morality.” Thus, according to him, the study of Torah is vital to education; it would save those [...]

Minneapolis native spends a month in an African village, providing services to orphans from the 1994 genocide
By ELANA ORBUCH
Shabbat Shalom from Rwanda.
To bring in Shabbat recently, I sat under the mango tree with the 20 other Jewish people here at the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village (ASYV). Yes, even in Rwanda we find time [...]

By DIETER GRAUMANN
(JTA) — It has taken decades for the international community to deal with the Holocaust in a really serious way. Perhaps a new generation first had to emerge with sufficient courage to ask about the causes of the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe” and to look into the abyss of [...]

Would Israel have handed the Sinai to Egypt had it known that, 30 years later, peace would be hanging on by a thread?
By MOSHE GIT
The Sinai Peninsula is more than twice the area of Israel, and it was virtually unpopulated, making it a prime spot for Israeli expansion. Add to that its strategic [...]

Jews today are challenged to apply their experience and beliefs in defense of those suffering bullying, violence and legalized prejudice based on their sexual and gender identity
(Editor’s note: The following article is an abridged version of Rabbi Stock Spilker’s Kol Nidre sermon.)
By RABBI ADAM STOCK SPILKER
Kol Nidre is the sanctuary of the soul [...]

Following the release of Gilad Shalit, Israel should begin negotiations with Hamas

By Moshe Git

Regarding the exchange of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for Gilad Shalit, Israel may just as well go ahead and free all of its Palestinian prisoners. Incarceration no longer constitutes deterrence; and setting incarcerated Palestinians free in exchange for kidnapped [...]

All Our Worldly Goods, by Irène Némirovsky, translated by Sandra Smith, Vintage, paperback, 272 pages, $14.95.
Reviewed by NEAL GENDLER
Irène Némirovsky’s slender novel is a model of economy, capturing an enormous range of emotion and relationships in spare, simple language.
All Our Worldly Goods follows a prosperous small-town French family from happy times at the [...]

During the High Holy Days, a time when we are supposed to feel closer to God than at any other point in the Jewish calendar, many Jews feel abandoned by God

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By RABBI HAROLD S. KUSHNER / JointMedia News Service
Is it a sin to be angry at God?
I have been a rabbi for 50 years. [...]