Purim is this coming week. It’s a story that can be read as being about an ineffectual, drunken leader, a disaster just waiting to happen. Here is a king manipulated by his advisors into making disastrous decisions. Weakness always allows either dangerous, proactive demagogues to emerge or self-interested vipers to step into the vacuum. This is a lesson the USA…
General Topics
Gett
I have just seen a film called Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem, an Israeli-French production. It is a most offensive film depicting a cartoon of Judaism. An unhappy wife, mother of four children, is desperate to escape a loveless marriage in which her Moroccan-Israeli husband adamantly refuses either to understand her unhappiness or to grant her a Get. He…
Chaos
According to the Bible, before the world was created there was chaos, Tohu VaVohu. However, it was out of chaos that something positive emerged. I am a fan of chaos. The alternative to chaos is order. But too often order is worse. Human life constantly shuttles between these two, on a personal and on a national level. Jewish life, in…
Brawl in Ponevezh
“A brawl erupted at the Ponevezh Yeshiva, where a prominent rabbi, Shmuel Markovitz, was physically assaulted by a student of a rival faction, sparking the violent confrontation between Rav Markovitz’s students, who refer to themselves as ‘the Mehablim’, a Hebrew word meaning terrorists or saboteurs, then stormed the yeshiva dormitories of their long-time rivals, ‘the Sonim’, or ‘the haters’. The…
Salonica
Wondering about Jews living in Europe under difficult conditions reminded me of the Jews of Salonica. Once it was one of the most bustling and creative of Jewish communities. Now it is gone. Most of them were carted off to Auschwitz. Several years ago I reviewed Mark Mazower’s excellent Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews 1430-1950, which covers…
Edward Luttwak Interview
Edward Luttwak is an old schoolmate of mine, and he has gone on to establish a notable career as an academic and a consultant to governments. He has published on matters of strategy, security, and international affairs. Often controversial, always outspoken, one of his consistent messages has been that the interference of powers and outside interests in the Israel-Palestine situation…