From the Washington Post Jimmy Carter’s Jewish ProblemBy Deborah Lipstadt It is hard to criticize an icon. Jimmy Carter’s humanitarian work has saved countless lives. Yet his life has also been shaped by the Bible, where the Hebrew prophets taught us to speak truth to power. So I write. Carter’s book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,”…
From JTA.orgFourteen Jewish members of the Carter Center in Atlanta resigned to protest the former president’s book blaming Israel for the failure of Middle East peace efforts. In a letter to Carter obtained by JTA, the group wrote Thursday that he had abandoned his role as peace broker in favor of malicious partisan advocacy, portraying…
In a NY Times article, former Ambassador Dennis Ross raises some serious criticism of Jimmy Carter’s use of maps in his new book “Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.” Of course, Ross is not the first to criticize Carter for the way he uses the maps (or where he got them) to make his argument. Prof. Alan…
I’ve met a few big city mayors in my life (Detroit’s Dennis Archer, Ed Koch of NYC, and Michael Coleman of Columbus), but no one will ever surpass Jerusalem’s Mayor Teddy Kollek, may his memory be for a blessing) in popularity, sincerity, or menschlichkeit. In July 1996, I was walking in front of Jerusalem’s King…
It would appear that the North American Jewish community should support the Indigo Bookstore Company, a pro-Israel company in Toronto with an online bookstore. Here is the news brief from the JTA.org. Toronto bookstore picketed for Israel donation Protesters picketed a Toronto bookstore because its owners made a donation to an Israeli cause. A group…
I just read in the Detroit Jewish News that two congregants of Adat Shalom Synagogue (the suburban Detroit shul where I grew up) have launched Am Yisrael Tie Company. They are selling neckties in three styles that all include an Israeli flag together with an American flag. Mickey Levin and Steven Zinderman came up with…
I’ve been following the story about Miriam Shear, the Orthodox woman who was spit on and beaten by several Haredi men on a public bus heading for the Kotel in Jerusalem last week. There are those who claim that she is the “Israeli Rosa Parks” for refusing to give up her seat to the Haredi…
On December 10, I blogged about how Prof. Ken Stein (right) resigned as a fellow at Emory’s Carter Center because of the anti-Israel rhetoric (including referring to Israel as an Apartheid state) in Jimmy Carter’s new book. Well, it appears that in an effort to sell more copies of his new book, on December 15…
Before leaving Michigan for Columbus, Ohio, I took part in TEAM — a one-year program for Jewish educators through the Jewish Federation of Metro Detroit and the Alliance for Jewish Education. In June, the program concluded with a three-day conference on best practices for teaching about Israel and Zionism in the classroom. The conference was…
When I attended Michigan State University from 1994-98, I certainly would not have believed that the university would soon hire an Israel Studies chair and a Jewish Studies professor who specialized in Jewish studies. In addition to concentrating in International Relations at James Madison College, a liberal arts residential college at MSU, I also specialized…