Latest Articles

Asia is Becoming Israel's New Frontier
Here's Why

May 14, 2013  •  Forbes

When we think of Israel, we usually think of the Middle East (its neighborhood), North America (its close ally the United States) and Europe (the long history of Ashkenazi Jews). Rarely do we think about Israel and Asia, even less about Asia as Israel's new frontier. We don't think of Asia as playing any significant role in Israel's evolution given the tiny Asian Jewish population, the lack of significant Jewish history in Asia, and minimal relations between Israel and most Asian countries for the first 40 years (1948-1988) of Israel's existence.

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Specter of Islamist terror

May 5, 2013  •  YNet News

In the immediate hours and days after September 11, 2001 it became clear to most Americans that the values of tolerance and democracy - cornerstones of the "American dream " - for which countless immigrants have journeyed to this land are at risk. In the 12 years since 9/11, and in the wake of combat fatigue from Afghanistan and the Iraq wars, many have become complacent - arguing that there is no longer a threat to our values or our lives.

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review of Menachem Begin: A New Life

May 3, 2013  •  Jewish Ideas Daily

In Menachem Begin: A Life, a new biography of one of Israel's more multifaceted leaders, Avi Shilon succeeds in portraying a fervent and uncompromising Zionist whose political brilliance usually compensated for his lack of military experience. Shilon shows that for Begin, anti-Semitism was at the root of everything. It was Begin's realization of the threat that posed by anti-Semitism that motivated his actions and led to his political career. When the Holocaust destroyed the Polish-Jewish world from which he had emerged, the need for Jewish independence became clearer to him than ever before. Ensuring that another Holocaust would never take place was his paramount concern, even when he was Prime Minister of Israel, pursuing Yasir Arafat in the PLO leader's Beirut bunker. While many of Begin's critics have deplored the ways in which this frame of mind led him to take what they consider politically inappropriate actions, Shilon's biography focuses not on criticizing the man in this respect but in showing the reader where Begin "came from."

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Blaming the victim for anti-Semitism

April 21, 2013  •  The Jerusalem Post

Of late we have witnessed a new methodology used to suppress those who speak out against anti- Semitism in academia. Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a Hebrew lecturer at UC Santa Cruz, and Ronnie Fraser, a lecturer in mathematics in London, have respectively taken on their schools and unions with regard to how anti-Semitism has infected their organizations and caused an uncomfortable, even hostile, environment based on the politics of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

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'Book robbery' hijacks history

April 7, 2013  •  YNet News

'The Great Book Robbery' (watch here), a documentary that recently screened on a number of US college campuses, is the latest attempt by anti-Israel groups to rewrite and recast the historical events of 1948.

In the film, Israeli-Dutch director Benny Brunner purports to reconstruct how 70,000 Palestinian books were systematically taken by the new-born state of Israel during the 1948 war as part of a calculated attempt to erase any shred of Arab-Palestinian culture. Seeking to explain the process by which the books came under Israeli control, Brunner interviewed former and current employees of the National Library (NL) at the Hebrew University, where the books are housed.

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