delegitimizing

From a strategic perspective, freeing Gilad Shalit in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians makes no sense. The hundreds of prisoners now in Israeli prison were captured in dangerous operations, many of them at a cost of other Israeli casualties.

Despite security considerations, it’s almost ...

Dear Jay, We don’t know each other, though I’ve known of you and your work for some time.  Like many others, I recently read your “How I’m Losing My Love For Israel” in the Forward.  Because you write so articulately, and because your column has attracted such widespread attention, I’m taking the liberty of responding. The truth is, you and I agree about a lot.  We’re both worried about some of what’s happening to Israeli society.  We’re both tired of all the equivocating (though probably for different reasons).  We’d both love some real leadership around here.  We’d both like peace.  And we’re both exhausted. That exhaustion is the first reason you give for that fact that your “love [for Israel] is starting to wane.”  But frankly, ...

There's a certain look to a widow who's in her mid-twenties, whose husband was killed in Gaza in January.  Eyes swollen with tears, yet with steely determination at the same time.  A certain vulnerability on her still very young face, and a face that seems too old for her age, all at the same time.  An image of pain and of unspeakable sadness, but not asking for pity.  Was it just me, or was it clear that even in the midst of her unbearable burden, she knew full well that she - like the young husband who was taken from her far too early - is part of something much larger than she is?  Is that why, looking at her, I had a sense ...

An Academy Award nominee, and the winner of numerous Israeli and international prizes, this is a mostly animated film that had Israel in its grip for some time.  It addresses the long term memory of soldiers who fought in the first Lebanon War and are still dealing with the pain of the Sabra and Shatila massacres, for which Israel felt at least partially responsible.  A masterful work of art.  Watch it, and you'll understand why many Israelis wondered whether it wasn't actually fortunate that it didn't win.  Is this a movie that we have to receive even more international attention, Israelis wondered.  See what you think.

This is the movie that brought the first Lebanon war to Israeli screens.  There is simply no film that does a better job of explaining why Israelis have become war-weary, cynical about the utility of additional military expeditions.  It's not a terribly gory movie.  But it's tense, and sad.  And a feeling of futility pervades.  Watch this film, and you'll never see the work of young Israeli soldiers in quite the same way.

Many movies had dealt with the Israel Defense Forces. But this is the first, to my knowledge, to address the trials and tribulations of a gay couple serving in the IDF. It's a haunting, beautiful and sad movie, and raises harrowing questions about the real costs of the "macho" environment of the IDF. A classic in Israel, and a wonderful window on yet another dimension of Israeli life that is not often part of our discourse about Israel and its challenges.

For many of us, the image of Rose Pizem's fragile smile refuses to fade. Her tragedy, like the case of the Bat Yam mother who drowned her son, have aroused painful conversations as to whether we're doing enough to give our children the lives they deserve. We suspect we're not. We're right that we're not, but for the wrong reasons. Even the most decent societies occasionally produce pathologically sick parents. Sadly, horrific stories like these, no matter how vigilant we may become, are to an extent inevitable and unpreventable. Not so, however, with a much more basic injustice that we're doing to the young people of this country. That injustice has nothing to do with child abuse or worse, murder. It has to do with ...

For some strange reason, I remember the scene with clarity.  I was in the kitchen, early on a Friday afternoon about a month ago, cooking Shabbat dinner.  Micha, our youngest, now 15, was hanging out in the living room.  The radio was on in the background, and on the hour, the news came on.  It was over in minutes, and then the music returned. I hadn't really paid attention to the news, but Micha apparently had.  "Do you think we're ever going to get Gilad Shalit back?" he asked.  Without even looking at him, I said, without even thinking, "Of course we are.  Definitely." "You don't know that," a different voice piped in.  Now, I looked up.  Avi, his older ...

Shortly after the media began carrying the story of former IDF chief of General Staff Moshe Ya'alon's comment that sometimes prisoners of war must be sacrificed if the demands for their return are too high, I found myself at home with two of my kids. My son, headed for the army in just a matter of weeks, had just finished reading the story on the Web. "Sounds like Ya'alon stirred up a hornet's nest," he said. "Pretty painful stuff," I replied, as I'd been trying to imagine what it must feel like to be the parents of Gilad Schalit, Eldad Regev or Ehud Goldwasser, and to have as respected a person as Ya'alon say that, especially this week. "True," my son said, "but he might be ...