When Moshe Feiglin spoke with the Jewish Star the day after the charedi enlistment bill reading, he appeared tired but sharp and determined, clearly and unequivocally stating his views with conviction. Feiglin is against releasing terrorists and against freezing construction in Israel. “It starts from the fact that the leadership doesn’t believe that the land belongs to the Jews,” he said. “The handshake between the leaders of Israel and the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), the organization that wants to liberate the Land of Israel from the Jews, means we accept the rationale that the land belongs to them not us.” By releasing terrorists, deep inside, they see them as POWs, freedom fighters, not terrorists, he said. more

This week’s essay will focus upon some timely observations and precious words to learn and study for the remainder of the month of Elul. Rabbi Avi Shafran is perhaps one of the most perceptive observers of the Jewish scene today and the following observation by him deserves your attention: “For those who take this time of the Jewish year seriously — and all of us should — Elul’s days can be daunting...." more

To the editor: I very much appreciated your article on the recent Nefesh B’Nefesh flight [July 26]. Not only did you cover all of the facts, but the piece made me feel as if I actually knew the people that you mentioned in the story. more

Not for the first time, events elsewhere in the Middle East — the renewed bloodshed in Egypt and Israel’s decision to release 104 Palestinian terrorists because of American pressure — have pushed the Syrian civil war out of the limelight. But in the limelight is where it belongs. more

On May 8, 2001, Koby Mandell and his friend, Yosef Ishran, skipped school. When the children didn’t return, their parents began to worry. The boys’ bodies had been found brutally mangled in a cave outside their community of Tekoa, Israel. At that point, I had been working on a piece of legislation to take the issue of Americans killed abroad away from the State Department and put it in the Justice Department. State’s mission is diplomacy. If “justice” were the name on the door, I reasoned, there would be more of a chance of getting a crack at justice, uncontaminated by diplomatic factors. more

After the Muslim Brotherhood did not overturn Egypt’s 1979 peace deal with Israel during its term in power, the liberal group that began the push to remove the party from power has begun collecting signatures in efforts to rescind the agreement. more

The world of Polish-Jewish relations is confronting a crisis over kosher slaughter of animals. Both kosher and Muslim halal slaughtering rules forbid stunning the animal beforehand. Under Polish law, however, such stunning is mandatory. The Polish Constitutional Court recently struck down an exemption from that law for kosher and halal slaughter on a legal technicality. more

As the final minutes of Rosh Hashana ticked away, 13-year-old Leo Goldberger was hiding, along with his parents and three brothers, in the thick brush along the shore of Dragor, a small fishing village south of Copenhagen. The year was 1943, and the Goldbergers, like thousands of other Danish Jews, were desperately trying to escape an imminent Nazi roundup. more

Hailed as a pioneer humorist and inspiration for today’s Jewish comedians, Allan Sherman, the product of a broken home whose oft-married mother was determined to break the links to her Jewish past, broke the taboo against emphasizing Jewish identity. On the 50th anniversary of Sherman’s Grammy Award-winning “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh,” Queens native Mark Cohen has published “Overweight Sensation: The Life and Comedy of Allan Sherman.” more

As usual, when the third week in August rolls in, I think back to the days when my kids returned from camp. After the initial nausea of opening the trunk wore off, we’d decide what special trip the family would take. more