Say what you will about Ted Cruz. The senator does his homework. More than a few heads nodded approval at last Sunday night’s Zionist Organization of America dinner when Cruz noted that the Hebrew month of Kislev had just begun. “The month of Hanukkah, a month of miracles,” Cruz went on, recalling the Maccabees’ victory over an […]

Two of the hottest stars in the Republican firmament, Ted Cruz of Texas and Sheldon Adelson of Nevada, tore through the skies this week in what’s traditionally considered America’s most solid Democratic stronghold, the New York Jewish community. The resulting sound-and-light show probably doesn’t tell us a whole lot about the fates of the two […]

Jewish life in New York is dominated by ritual. Holidays. A pastrami reuben on a hero at Katz’s. The reading of holy books in cycles that take a year (the Torah) or seven and a half years (the Talmud). And just as reliably, there’s the ritual of presidential candidates sniffing around for dough right after […]

Republican Texas Sen. and likely 2016 White House competitor Ted Cruz will speak at next February’s Conservative Political Action Conference — but first he’ll be honored in Manhattan by the Zionist Organization of America. The ZOA, which calls itself the nation’s “oldest pro-Israel organization,” will give Cruz the Dr. Bob Shillman Award at its annual Justice Louis D. Brandeis […]

By Jacob Kamaras/JNS.org Published November 18, 2014 What message is the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) sending to the Jewish community through its recent selection of White House aide and social entrepreneur Jonathan Greenblatt to succeed longtime National Director Abraham Foxman?  While some are praising ADL for thinking outside the box with its hire and trying to appeal to […]

The Nov. 6 My Word column, “U.S. should back off support for Israel,” by Douglas Bevins, demonstrates, at best, a misunderstanding of the basics when it comes to the lack of peace between the Palestinian Arabs and Israel. Bevins misdirects an accusation of ethnic cleansing at Israel. The peril of ethnic persecution belongs to the […]

I would hesitate to write this column had I not served as a national Jewish leader who faced similar dilemmas to those confronting the American Jewish leadership today, many of whom I was engaged with in various battles against enemies of the Jewish people and Israel. Yet, with considerable regret and notwithstanding notable exceptions, I believe […]

  Monday night saw the North American premiere of a new film, Body & Soul: The State of the Jewish Nation, by Gloria Greenfield, the director of 2011’s Unmasked Judeophobia. Body & Soul is meant to be an answer to all those in the media who have recently been heard denying that the Jewish people […]

Next Monday, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument again in Zivotofsky v. Kerry, on the constitutionality of the law allowing Jerusalem-born Americans to have “Israel” as their place of birth in their passports, if they so request. The administration argues the Constitution’s “Reception Clause” (which provides the president “shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers”) gives […]

White House Distances Itself From ‘Chickenshit’ Insult Leveled at Netanyahu, Stops Short of Apology The White House has issued a cautious criticism of the anonymous Obama administration official who called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “chickenshit” in an interview with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, but stopped well short of an outright apology. “Certainly, that’s not the administration’s […]