Free Republic

Defending his participation in the latest flotilla operation in an attempt to break Israel’s naval blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza, Gabriel Matthew Schivone, an American university student, stressed in a late June Ha’aretz opinion piece that he is one of a growing number of young American Jews seeking to disassociate himself from Israel. There is, however, a rather large factual wrinkle with Schivone’s account – he appears to have falsified his Jewish identity. RELATED: Opinion: What do ‘Flotilla Folk’ do and why? Law students take public diplomacy into the legal arena Writing in an August letter to the editor in Ha’aretz,Valerie...

The Israeli government has launched a television and internet advertising campaign urging Israelis to inform on Jewish friends and relatives abroad who may be in danger of marrying non-Jews. The advertisements, employing what the Israeli media described as “scare tactics”, are designed to stop assimilation through intermarriage among young diaspora Jews by encouraging them to move to Israel. The campaign, which cost US$800,000 (Dh2.9 million), was created in response to reports that half of all Jews outside Israel marry non-Jews. It is just one of several initiatives by the

Few men are able to shape the world in death as they did in life. To do so is to so subsume your existence to a lofty ideal, with such complete thoroughness, that your life comes to symbolize the values for which you toiled. In the latter half of the 20th century perhaps only two men can be said to have so completely revitalized their communities that they achieved immortality by becoming the symbol of their nations. They are Martin Luther King, Jr., who offered dignity and self-worth to a persecuted people, and the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, who...

As we begin a new year, I believe that what the world Jewish community is most lacking is size, and the foremost challenge confronting it is the need for greater numbers. The number of Jews in the world has fallen below a critical mass, and the paucity of our number leads to its own tragic consequences. Foremost among them is our inability to defend ourselves. Does Israel really have a long-term future with so few Jews in the world? Who will influence and exert pressure on their own governments to support Israel, the Middle East’s only democracy, when the Jewish...

Since we have just finished celebrating Pesach and our exodus from Egypt over 3,300 years ago, I thought it might be interesting to look at our impact on the world through the eyes of those who we have impacted! Here are some thoughts for your consideration: "Some people like the Jews, and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny the fact that they are, beyond any question, the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has appeared in the world." -- Winston Churchill-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The Jew is that sacred being who has brought down from heaven the everlasting...

Some Europeans are beginning to see the light. EUROPE -- THY NAME IS COWARDICE Matthias Döpfner, Chief Executive of German publisher Axel Springer AG, has written a blistering attack in the daily WELT against the cowardice of Europe in the face of the Islamic threat. A few days ago Henryk M. Broder wrote in Welt am Sonntag, "Europe -- your family name is appeasement." It's a phrase you can't get out of your head because it's so terribly true. Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives as England and France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated too...

1. Why Have We Failed as a Role Model for the World?The Torah states, "Is it to Hashem that you do this, O vile and unwise people? Is He not your Father, your Master? Has He not created you and firmed you?" The Targum Onkeles explains that the wisdom of the Jewish people is the Torah because it is Hashem's Wisdom and the only prescription for their spiritual development. Yet they are not wise because they do not appreciate nor adhere to it. The Midrash refers to the Torah itself as a "Chemda Ganuza - a Hidden Treasure," that preceded...