In the sky rumors are circulating; fighter jets are on the move again. There are early signs of a new ground offensive in Gaza, where Hamas remains in power in the as-yet unoccupied territory (within the "yellow line") and stubbornly refuses to disarm. Yet disarmament is a
Today the Jewish New Year festival Rosh Hashana starts with its evening service in synagoge and a joyous dinner and family gathering in most Israeli homes. But its also September 11th, a very sad day in Western memory. I have just republished (in the archive section of this blog) my
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In our small village in the Negev Desert, September 11, 2001, was a brilliantly beautiful day. The air was clear and dry; one could see far across the landscape—all the way to Jordan and the reddish hills of biblical Moab. Since we had neither a television nor a radio
My old friend Pavel Hoffmann, a survivor of the Theresienstadt concentration camp (where he was imprisoned as a five-year-old boy), called from Berlin to discuss the triumphant election victory of the German right-wing party AfD in Saxony-Anhalt. Although he has certain reservations about the party, he
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Few groups of people are as unpopular in Europe as the "Israeli settlers." This term refers to the Jewish inhabitants of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, now almost 800,000 people, living in 156 settlements (144 in the West Bank, 12 in East Jerusalem) and 196 smaller
The loser of yesterday's election in German land Saxonia-Anhalt is the so called "firewall", symbol of the insanity of German politicians of the traditional parties. Here, what I wrote about it on April 8th, 2025, in the German internet paper Achse des Guten: The policies
Yesterday, I read with some horror the Facebook comments on my article about the founding of the Arab States in last Monday's Neue Zürcher Zeitung. There were more than 600, well over half of them open hatred and curses against the State of Israel. I was called a
On Shabbat evening, we talked about our growing aversion to travel. She hasn't left Israel in over thirty years. I told her that the thought of her, always "at home," comforted me when I had to go on speaking tours in Europe, and that I had
Today I received this letter from a retired teacher in Berlin: "For over 35 years, I taught history in Berlin schools. In 9th grade, the topic was 'National Socialism and the Holocaust.' During this long period, I observed how students' attitudes toward the Shoah, a crime
Every year on September 1st, an interesting figure is released: the number of students starting school. This year, it's over 2.6 million. This figure includes all young Israelis between the ages of 6 and 18. If we add half that number—assuming a constant birth rate—that
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Wie das Königreich Jordanien aus der Konkursmasse des Osmanischen Reiches zustande kam Veröffentlicht in der Neuen Zürcher Zeitung am 31.8.2026 Das letzte der islamischen Großreiche, das türkisch-osmanische Reich, begann im achtzehnten und neunzehnten Jahrhundert rapide zu zerfallen. Zugleich gelang es den Engländern, sich in Ägypten festzusetzen, vor
Decades ago, the leading German news magazine Der Spiegel (The Mirror) was a publication that took pride in its intellectual ambitions. Nowadays, it’s nothing more than a magazine for fools. Yesterday’s online edition (around noon) carried the headline: “Merz redet vom Wetter, aber tut nichts dagegen.” In English: