It is an astonishing, difficult-to-explain phenomenon that societies and states that succumbed to anti-Semitism and persecuted their Jews soon suffered decline, while others that knew how to manage their Jewish minority prospered. Historians place the expulsion of the Hebrews from Egypt in the time of Pharaoh Ramses
Ahmad Mansour, an Islam expert and psychologist living in Germany, explains on Facebook that in Tel Aviv, where he is currently on vacation, he has “never seen so many French-speaking people as I do now. On every corner. While shopping. At the hotel. On the street.” He said he
I just received the following email from a German reader, Ms. C.H., which I find aptly worded, and would therefore like to share it with you: Yesterday there were reports of radical, misanthropic statements by Ben Gvir. But Ben Gvir is not representative of all of Israel! Yes, even
The last days of August, hot and lazy. In Rome we used to call the 15th of August "ferragosto", it was the turning point when everyone who was able to do so left the city to go to the sea. We could easily go to the beach in
The Bedouin say autumn begins around mid-August. And indeed, today, August 14th, is the first day in weeks with cloudy skies. It's still warm, like summer, but there's already a hint of autumn in the air. Oh goodness, where has the time gone? I hardly
On August 13, 1961, the Berlin Wall was erected. I was just seven years old and had to live in its toxic shadow for the next 22 years—until, as my Stasi file states, we were expelled from the “socialist German state” to West Berlin as “hostile persons.” Even in
Many men of all cultures and skin colors struggle to accept that they, in their perception the stronger, taller, and undoubtedly more intelligent, in every respect superior examples of human creation, owe their very existence to a woman. The Quran resolves this issue by portraying women as inferior to men
Yesterday in town, I struggled to find my way among new high-rises I’d never seen before. I talked to people. Most Israelis no longer care what Europe thinks of us. The younger generation, at least. In their eyes, Europe is a kind of tourist park with museums and
Yesterday, 7.8., the publisher (Edition Achgut in Berlin) and the editors (Simone Schermann in Bavaria and I in the Negev desert) completed the book about the aftermath of October 7, 2023, which will be published in Berlin on October 7, 2026. Eighteen Jewish authors (from Germany, Israel, U.S.
The following appeared yesterday in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Acheronot: “Cristiano Ronaldo’s partner and the mother of his children shared a striking video from the Spanish island of Mallorca during their family vacation, but it was the caption she added that caught everyone’s attention: ‘Healthy,’ written in Hebrew.
Literary Transformations of a Landscape Besides the Earth’s natural deserts, there are those created by humans, and this process of fertile land becoming desertified, usually referred to by the English term desertification, is documented early in literature. Even in ancient Babylonian cuneiform texts, the ambivalence of arid regions with
In my 2020 book, "The Desert," I addressed the problem of "desertification," the process by which formerly fertile land becomes barren. At the time, this didn't fit into the one-sided, ideology-driven concept of the left-wing Greens, who believed that "climate
Last Shabbat afternoon, 30-year-old Bar Asraf shot himself at the gravestone of his girlfriend, who was killed by Hamas terrorists at the Nova Festival on October 7, 2023. Even three years later, he had not yet gotten over her loss. The wounds run deeper than we thought. We
What the German-Persian writer Navid Kermani demonstrated in his speech at the swearing-in ceremony for recruits at the Bendlerblock in Berlin—repeating the old mantra of pacifism and thereby demotivating and discouraging young German recruits even before they had to fight at all, telling them that refusing to
Surprising information in newspaper Jerusalem Post, 1st of August, 2026 : "Despite fierce rabbinic opposition, haredi (ultra-Orth0d0x) enlistment (in Israeli Army IDF) is rising. The numbers suggest changing incentives may be altering the draft calculus. According to a Yediot Aharonot report on Wednesday, at least 4,000 haredim enlisted
In the Journal du Dimanche, Dr. Gudrun Eussner, a blogger living in Perpignan and a reader of these notes, found, after some searching, information about the arsonists of the forest fires in southern France "that goes beyond the one Tunisian from CNews (...) Laurent Nuñez reported on Friday about 308
The young Berliner Abdul B., who deliberately drove a rented van into the crowd at Christopher Street Day on the evening of July 25th, injuring 29 people and killing one woman, is presented to readers of the German magazine Stern as a young man "with the heart of a
When I posted my short notice about "Queers for Israel" in the morning, I hadn’t yet looked at the German newspapers and knew nothing about the Islamic attack on participants in Berlin’s Christopher Street Day. What was intended as a showcase of tolerant, "colorful"
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(In the following text I presented my thesis on the "flexible ego of Israelis". It was written for an American Jewish magazine, below you will find a German version, published in print magazine Opus (Nr. 101, Nov. 2024). An extended German version was published on Achgut.com on
"Queers for Israel" appeared in my Facebook feed, which is why I googled them last night. It's predominantly Anglo-Saxon community, Americans, Australians, Brits. The idea of creating a pro-Israel counter to the "Queers for Palestine" movement (founded by potential suicides), seemed sensible
After a week packed with work and exciting affairs, I stumble into Shabbat half-conscious and confused. I couldn’t even recite the Kaddish properly in synagogue, although I’d said it a hundred times before. Now, on Saturday evening, after the Torah reading, lunch with my wife, and a
Today is Tisha B'Av, the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av, our day of mourning. It commemorates the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.—an event that took place over two and a half millennia ago. According
Anti-Semitism is, from the very beginning, a destructive attitude. Its essence is rooted in rejection and aversion. Throughout history, anti-Semitism has often been the starting point for broader attitudes of contempt and rejection; in most cases, it did not stop at the Jews, but began with them only
It's reasonable that we fight anti-Semitism. And try to get rid of it. But I don't truly believe in a world without hatred against Jews. For the extraordinary achievements of the Jewish people in the past, in the present, and—hopefully—in the future will