May 19, 2023

A Volunteer in Israel

In May and early June 1967, the reborn State of Israel, then nineteen years old, was threatened with destruction by a coalition of Arab states. Israel stood alone. It seemed that a disaster akin to the Shoah [Holocaust] of just a generation...

March 3, 2019

The Hebrew Bible and the West

When I was an undergraduate student at MIT quite a while ago, I took a four-semester humanities program called Foundations of Western Civilization. It absorbed and fascinated me. However, I noticed that the course material jumped from ancient Greek a...

November 18, 2016

Arab 'towns' or 'camps'?

When Israeli military forces proactively engaged Arab terrorists in Judea and Samaria a few weeks ago, it was commonplace to read in the media, even Jewish-oriented media, references to “Arab refugee camps,” like “the Balata refugee...

October 3, 2016

A Jewish New Year reflection

Rosh HaShanah is a good time to reflect on the macro movement and condition of Jewish health in the world.  We had in the 1940s, through 1945, the worst disaster since the Roman conquests and expulsions of Jews from Judea nearly two millenni...

June 28, 2015

A Forgotten Geo-Political Name Game: Palestine-Israel-Jordan

During the 1920s, ‘30s, ‘40s, most people who followed the politics and events dealing with Palestine and the Jewish Homeland or Israel well understood that the land across the Jordan River (south of Syria) was the eastern portion of the ...

October 21, 2014

The Two or Three (or Four) State Solution

The United Kingdom's parliamentary vote recently to recognize Palestine along with Israel calls to mind an important – if little-recognized – point of history. The Mandate for Palestine authorized by the League of Nations in 1922 i...

December 16, 2012

Minorities in the Mideast

How might the power and political structure in Syria evolve? One scenario that crops up is that the country devolves into several pieces, based on identity groupings. This might be termed its "balkanization," or "the recent Yugoslav model." Recall t...

December 5, 2010

Hanuka For Jews and Christians

Hanuka celebrates a spiritual and military victory in Israel nearly 2,200 years ago that has inspired generations of Jews and many Gentiles. A few faithful Jews were victorious over their assimiliationist brethren and the Hellenist Syrians of the Gre...

November 25, 2005

Language in conflict

Different language about the same geography can reflect the various sides of a conflict or war. Consider use of Eretz Yisrael, Land of Israel, as compared to 'Palestine.' Another pair from the Middle East: 'Persian Gulf' versus 'Arabian Gulf'; use of...