Here are my top four reasons American Jews should care deeply and passionately about Israel: 1) Security. Rabbi Yitz Greenberg argues that absolute powerlessness corrupts as completely as absolute power because it invites persecution. Jewish history is a catalogue of such powerlessness: expulsions, pogroms, blood libels… The early Zionists understood that a sovereign Jewish state…

What does American Jewry offer Israel and what can Israel learn from America? As my teacher Rabbi David Hartman has suggested, specifically regarding spiritual matters, both populations have a great deal to offer each other. Since its inception Israel has stressed a God of history. The early Zionists privileged the God of the Bible over…

When I was studying in Yeshiva, I heard the following sad but telling story about one of the great American rabbis of the twentieth century: The rabbi took a plane trip across the country with his extended family. After boarding his flight and getting himself settled into his seat, he turned to the person sitting…

Let me start by saying that I think that evolutionary science provides the best description we have of how life came to exist in its present form, that intelligent design is junk science (at best), and that Judge Jones made exactly the right decision in the Dover School Board case. I.D., which is just creationism…

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