Yakov M. Rabkin

“This past year has proven how fragile and precious life can be.” Rabbi Moshe Taragin, educator and author, begins his recent article with these words. It is written during the Hebrew month of Elul, which, this year, began in September. He mourns…

There is something strange about the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, which occurs a few days after Yom Kippur. One is required to leave one’s usual home and move to temporary, flimsy huts exposed to the vagaries of the weather. The…

Modern Israel attracts much attention from analysts and the public but our ability to understand it is hindered by ideology, prejudice, and myth. Many tread carefully when discussing Israel lest they be accused of antisemitism. In an earlier article, I…

Every year, Jews recite the entire Pentateuch aloud in synagogues. It is divided in weekly portions. Last week’s one (Vaet’hanan, Deuteronomy 3 :23 – 7 :11) contains passages that are central to Jewish liturgy, including the Shema, a declaration of…

On a warm sunny day last week in Pavlovsk, the former Russian imperial residence, an orchestra was playing Strauss waltzes in front of the former imperial palace. The event commemorated the inauguration of a concert hall, the vokzal, in 1838.…

There has been ample coverage of a marathon press conference held by Vladimir Putin for heads of foreign and Russian press agencies earlier this month. Predictably, most attention was drawn to his answer to a British journalist as to possible…

Anti-Semitism is making the headlines. The Israeli Prime Minister describes as anti-Semitic the accusation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and even American students who are calling for a ceasefire. What Israel is doing does in fact provoke anti-Semitic…

The Jewish holiday of Purim, related in the Book of Esther, celebrates deliverance from a genocide. How to celebrate it when death and starvation kill thousands in Gaza, and the holiday’s rhetoric, namely the memory of the archenemy Amalek, is…

Eighty years ago, on January 27, 1944, people in the street were hugging each other and weeping with joy. They were celebrating the end of a nearly 900 days brutal siege. Soviet forces lifted the siege of Leningrad after ferocious…

Palestinians in Gaza are being decimated. Over 20 000 have been killed, mostly women and children. Three times more have been wounded. Some experts qualify it as genocide, others as massacre. Two million people have been displaced, many more than…