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 ...

So there we are, sitting at the Shabbat lunch table, guests of friends we hadn’t seen in far too long. We were three couples, all of us immigrants, each with kids, ranging from 22 (with a boyfriend) to 4 (without a boyfriend). And another couple, parents of our hosts, visiting from the States, both of them well known and highly regarded academics. Sometime in the middle of lunch, the mother of the hostess, whose academic interest is “identity,” asks us all, without even a hint of irony or condescension, “Can you please explain to me why you would choose to live here? What got you to leave what you had and come here?”

No one, it was clear, had asked any of us that ...