By Dr. Joseph Chuman, Leader of The Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County For our platform on Sunday, January 4th I am pleased to announce that Mike Kelly, longstanding columnist for The Record, will be our guest. I will be interviewing Mike on his new and widely acclaimed book, The Bus on Jaffa Road. The […]
Israel
My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel
Author: Ari Shavit (Spiegel and Grau/Random House, New York, 2013) Reviewed by Doris Friedensohn Ari Shavit, the left-wing Israeli journalist, is an uncommonly brave writer. In My Promised Land (2013), he celebrates the remarkable achievements of Israelis – – in turning a Middle Eastern desert into both a refuge for the world’s persecuted Jews and […]
The Fertile Crescent: Gender, Art, and Society
Authors: Judith K. Brodsky and Ferris Olin (2012, Rutgers University Institute for Women and Art) Reviewed by Doris Friedensohn Timing, as we know, is (almost) everything. This is the case in national elections, peace overtures, Academy Awards, and what we choose to read. In 2007, when Judith K. Brodsky and Ferris Olin, co-directors of the […]
Psychological Context of the Arab-Israeli Conflict
While the Security Council concentrates on Iraq, the agencies continue their daily work. The psychological context of the Middle East conflict is a major concern. Question–does the sight of fresh-faced Israeli and Palestinian teenagers embracing each other in a video project inspire hope or rage? The video “Seeds of Peace” introduced an unusual event – […]
The Israel-Palestinian Conflict: Each Side’s Contrasting Narratives
Each side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has its own narrative. What is important for understanding of both sides is to know what they leave out.
Israel at 60: Prospects and Hopes for Peace
The media were flummoxed and the symbolism ran deep. LastThursday President George Bush went before the Israeli Knesset to warn theIsraelis not to think about appeasing terrorists in the search for peace. In hisspeech, Bush elicited the specter of the Holocaust and invoked those who calledfor negotiating with Hitler. The primary audiences for Bush’s speech […]
