Guests and Blogs

Column: Vegas-style Reporting Out of Israel

What is not fit to print is printed. What is fit to print is not printed. These are two glaring examples of what passes for coverage of Israel in two major daily newspapers. One publishes a distorted article, the other ignores significant news. A Jewish weekly even discards news that is important to its ethnic readership.

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Letter: More on Rep. Summer Lee

It seems Summer Lee is enthralled by the “woke” dictum that Israel and Israelis are irredeemably evil and to be ostracized by all “good” people. Thus, she refused to attend the talk given by Israel’s President Herzog.

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Column: The Potential Fall of Rep. Summer Lee, the Squad Member from Pittsburgh

After seven months on the job, U.S. Rep. Summer Lee set herself up for the winter of Summer, to borrow from “The summer of George” title of a Seinfeld segment. Earlier this month, she traded barbs with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which criticized her decision to boycott Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s address before Congress.

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Letter: The Antisemitic “Academic Freedom” at Princeton

Recently Princeton Assistant Professor Satyel Larson's included as required reading Jasbir Puar's book "The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability." MAIM is the operative word. Puar's premise is that every shot fired by every IDF soldier since May 1948 is solely aimed to maim Arabs and Palestinians notwithstanding that 28,400 Jews have have been murdered by the Arabs -- murdered being the terminology of Arab leader the Grand Mufti Amin al Husseini -- since May 1948.

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Column: Jews in (Rudy Giuliani’s) Space

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“This is an affront to American democracy and does permanent, irrevocable harm to our justice system,” says America’s Mayor. Rudy Giuliani was not referring to charges that he conspired to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results.

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Column: Rabbi Black: “It Lessens Our Own Humanity When We Take the Life of Another Person”

When the perpetrator of this act of racist and antisemitic violence was found guilty on all counts this past June, I felt a palpable sense of relief. Justice had been done and this evil human would be punished for his horrific crime. Upon hearing the news that he would be given the death penalty, however, I felt a sense of unease and trauma – similar to what I felt when I learned about his murderous act in the first place.

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Letter: Jayapal’s Recent Comments

I’m writing to provide some background for the situation in which Rep. Jamila Jayapal characterized Israel as a “racist state.” And to comment on media misrepresentation of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

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Column: A ‘Racist State’? Or Do We Mean a Racist Congresswoman?

We all know what brought this on. The resolution targeted Jayapal for labeling Israel a “racist state” when she addressed the liberal Netroots Nation in Chicago on the previous Saturday night. On Sunday, her fellow Democrats protested, prompting Jayapal to revise her original remarks.

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Letter: Background on Refugee Issue

I thought BJN readers might be interested in the history surrounding the “refugee” situation that Richard Sherman discussed in his letter ("Letter: The Antisemitic Perversion of “Palestinian Refugee”", BJN 7/14/23).

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Column: Child Abuse, ‘Palestine’-Style

Of 12 Palestinians killed in Israel’s in Jenin the other week, at least four were under 18, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, according to The New York Times. Terrorist groups claimed that at least five of those killed were fighters, including a 16-year-old boy. Israel said that all Palestinian fatalities were combatants.

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Column: Adam Schiff’s Censure Amounts to Antisemitism

Almost immediately I shuddered when I switched on the television Wednesday night last week and learned that U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff was censured by the House of Representatives. I felt as if I was watching a replay of the trials of Alfred Dreyfus and Leo Frank.

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Letter: CUNY Law School Speech Audience Not Versed in History

Perhaps the saddest point about a CUNY law student using her invitation to address her fellow graduates (Column: New York Times Compounds Harm Of ‘Fiery Speech’ That Bashes Israel Boulder Jewish News June 22, 2023) was that many in the audience probably didn’t know enough about the history of the modern State of Israel to challenge the speaker, even if there had been an opportunity for them to do so.

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Letter: Biden’s Feckless Strategy to Fight Antisemitism

Notwithstanding the praise that some Jewish organizations have heaped on the Biden White House's recent plan to fight antisemitism ("U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism"), the facts -- for at least two reasons -- demonstrate that this plan is toothless. 

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Column: Must Pittsburgh Jews Endure Another Trial?

Pittsburgh’s Jewish community is currently forced to relive the murders of 11 members of three congregations who gathered to worship at Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018, and  the experience is obviously most traumatic for surviving victims who testified at the alleged gunman’s trial.

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