Israel Matters!

The New York Times — Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism The New York Times editorial board said in an editorial that the newspaper’s recent pub-lication of “an appalling political cartoon” [right] is “evidence of a profound danger — not only of anti-Semitism but of numbness to its creep.” The newspaper also acknowledged its own historical contributions to the rise of anti-Semitism. “In the 1930s and the 1940s, The Times was largely silent as anti-Semitism rose up and bathed the world in blood,” it wrote. “That failure still haunts this newspaper.” click Israel Matters! 134 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal  

Unit 9900 - The Israeli Army Unit That Recruits Teens With Autism For eight hours a day, E., 21, sits in front of multiple computer screens, scanning high-resolution satellite images for suspicious objects or movements. As a decoder of Israel’s complex and often heavily civilian battlegrounds, he’s been critical in preventing the loss of life of soldiers on the ground in several different situations, his officers say. For many people, combing through each millimeter of the same location from various angles would be tedious work—but E., who is on the autism spectrum, describes the job as relaxing, “like a hobby.” click Israel Matters! 133 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal  

Prominent Democrats Form Pro-Israel Group to Counter Skepticism on the Left Several prominent veteran Democrats, alarmed by the party’s drift from its longstanding alignment with Israel, are starting a new political group that will try to counter the rising skepticism on the left toward the Jewish state by sup-porting lawmakers and candidates in 2020 who stand unwaveringly with the country. click Israel Matters! 132 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal  

Not Strictly Kosher T.V. I travel to Israel twice a year, each time for a few weeks. I see Israel through several perspectives; that of a Jewish American, a former resident, and as a sociologist. As a sociologist I am interested in the daily lives of people; how they relate to each other on a face to face basis, what they eat, how they work and how they play. Being in Israel now I chose to write about what they watch on T.V. and how some of the locally produced T.V. series reflect what is going on in Israeli society. click Israel Matters! 130 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal  

Israeli Snapshots-End of the Year Operation Northern Shield The Israel Defense Force (IDF) has launched Operation Northern Shield. What’s it about and what does it mean? Northern Shield is a military operation on the Israel side of the Israel-Lebanon border for the purpose of exposing and destroying Hezbollah’s cross-border attack tunnels dug from Lebanon into Israel. Reports of Hezbollah tunneling activity near Metula, the northernmost town in the Galilee, has been going on for a number of years. Until recently, that was all there was- reports and supposition. However, thanks to recent intelligence efforts plus the introduction of new advances in engineering and detection technologies countering Hamas tunnels from Gaza, Hezbollah tunnels can now be found… and they are. click Israel Matters! 129 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal  

While you may have been busy elsewhere For most of us, there is a reflexive tendency to think about anti-Semitism as something propagated by the Alt-right – white supremacy, the KKK, and neo-Nazi groups. That version of anti-Semitism was seen in its most ugly form most recently with the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue. For many of us, the horror in Pittsburgh just as with the violent protests that rocked Charlottesville last year was like muscle memory. We’ve seen it before and we know exactly what it means. click Israel Matters! 128 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal.

Summer Musings – Israel, Iran, BDS At a public event early in Hassan Rouhani’s tenure as the Iranian president, he was widely reported to say, “Israel is an old wound that needed to be removed.” The AP sought to temper those remarks by reporting “they should be seen in the context of internal Iranian politics where softening the establishment’s anti-Israeli stand is not an option.” click Israel Matters! 127 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal.

Beaches Somehow our Jewish People have become associated with ‘beaches’. Many retire to Miami Beach, or have childhood memories of Coney Island and Brighton Beach in Brooklyn. Further down the coast is the Jersey Shore. Those who grew up locally in the New Haven area may recall Bagel Beach or Silver Sands. The beach tradition has carried over from the Diaspora to the modern Jewish State. click Israel Matters! 126 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal.