The Israeli government makes life unsafe for Jews

  A man named Mohamed Soliman is charged with multiple crimes relating to a brutal Molotov cocktail attack on people in Boulder, Colorado, who were demonstrating in favor of Israeli hostages in Gaza. Some of the victims suffered second- and third-degree burns, but all of them are expected to survive. Soliman yelled “Free Palestine” as he lobbed his firebombs into the crowd.

  It goes without saying that Soliman is being accused of antisemitism. But the discomforting fact is that the Israeli government bears responsibility for much of the antisemitism here in the United States and the rest of the world.

How Hanukkah came to America

  Hanukkah may be the best known Jewish holiday in the United States. But despite its popularity in the U.S., Hanukkah is ranked one of Judaism’s minor festivals, and nowhere else does it garner such attention. The holiday is mostly a domestic celebration, although special holiday prayers also expand synagogue worship.

  So how did Hanukkah attain its special place in America?

The roots of the Easter story: Where did Christian beliefs about Jesus’ resurrection come from?

  As Easter approaches, Christians around the world begin to focus on two of the central tenets of their faith: the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

  Other charismatic Jewish teachers or miracle workers were active in Judea around the same time, approximately 2,000 years ago. What set Jesus apart was his followers’ belief in his resurrection. For believers, this was not only a miracle, but a sign that Jesus was the long-awaited Jewish messiah, sent to save the people of Israel from their oppressors.

  But was the idea of a resurrection itself a unique belief in first-century Israel?

On its 75th birthday, Israel still can’t agree on what it means to be a Jewish state and a democracy

  As Israel celebrates the 75th anniversary of its founding, and nearly a century and a half after the first Zionists came to Palestine from Europe, the core tension behind the country’s establishment – whether a Jewish state could be a democratic state, whether Zionism could accommodate pluralism – is more obvious than ever.

  Israel today is a military powerhouse and one of 38 members of the influential Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, formed in 1961 to promote cooperation among democratic, free-market-oriented governments.

What Hanukkah’s portrayal in pop culture means to American Jews

  When I was growing up in suburban New York, Hanukkah was not grounded in religious observance. Having no clue that there are traditional Hebrew blessings that accompany the kindling of the Hanukkah candles, we invented our own wishes, awkwardly voiced out loud, for happiness and peace.

  Then again, the festival of Hanukkah demands the performance of fewer religious rituals than most other Jewish observances. Even the most pious Jews do not take off from work during the eight-day festival. After all, the holiday is never mentioned in the Bible since the events that it commemorates occurred hundreds of years after the Bible was written.

How antisemitic conspiracy theories contributed to the recent hostage-taking at the Texas synagogue

  The man who took a rabbi and three congregants hostage in Colleyville, Texas on Jan. 15, 2022 believed that Jews control the United States of America. He told his hostages, as one revealed in a media interview, that Jews “control the world” and that they could use their perceived power to free Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani convicted in 2010 for trying to kill American soldiers and plotting to blow up the Statue of Liberty. The hostage-taker also demanded to speak to New York’s Central Synagogue rabbi, Angela Buchdahl, so that she would use her “influence” to help get Siddiqui released.

  By invoking Jewish “power,” the gunman, later identified as Malik Faisal Akram, a 44-year-old British national, seemed to echo Siddiqui’s antisemitic views that Jews were responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks and had infiltrated American political and nongovernmental organizations. During her 2010 trial in New York, Siddiqui demanded Jews be excluded from serving on her jury.

Hanukkah’s true meaning is about Jewish survival

  Every December, Jews celebrate the eight-day festival of Hanukkah, perhaps the best-known and certainly the most visible Jewish holiday.

  While critics sometimes identify Christmas as promoting the prevalence in America today of what one might refer to as Hanukkah kitsch, this assessment misses the social and theological significance of Hanukkah within Judaism itself.

How Hanukkah came to America

  Hanukkah may be the best known Jewish holiday in the United States. But despite its popularity in the U.S., Hanukkah is ranked one of Judaism’s minor festivals, and nowhere else does it garner such attention. The holiday is mostly a domestic celebration, although special holiday prayers also expand synagogue worship.

  So how did Hanukkah attain its special place in America?