In the seaside suburb of Tel Aviv where I grew up, there were few insults more devastating to a young man’s pride than being called a fan of Hapoel. My friends and family all rooted for Maccabi Tel Aviv, Hapoel’s chief rival. Maccabi is the soccer team of champions: With gold-and-azure jerseys, a Star of ...

Our youthful selves, it sometimes seems, exist in our minds primarily to mortify us. We inhabit the present, dignified and mature, when all of a sudden a wraith emerges from the bowels of the past and disturbs our subtle sophistication with an icy whisper of youthful folly.
A while back, to name but one terrifying example, ...

Last summer, addressing a seminar attended by Israel’s political elite, one of the country’s most celebrated ideologues shared his vision for the future of the Jewish state. “The worst solution is probably the right one,” he said. “A bi-national state, full annexation, full citizenship.”
The idea itself—a heterogeneous and democratic nation of Israelis and Palestinians, Christians, ...

Earlier this week, news outlets around the world circulated candid snapshots of a young Israeli soldier sitting next to a number of bound and blindfolded Palestinian men and looking at the camera with a coy grin. The soldier, Eden Abergil, had posted the photos to Facebook, in a personal album titled “The Army: The most ...

Sylvester Stallone’s new movie, The Expendables, opens today. Under other circumstances, Tablet Magazine would have happily let this unremarkable display of aging meat puppets (we have heard it called “Valentine’s Day for dudes”) go by unnoticed. But Stallone challenged us, naming his character—the movie’s lead, naturally—Barney Ross. You know, like the famous Jewish boxer and ...

New Yorkers with access to a computer and a kid in one of the state’s public schools are likely going to spend some time next week logging on to the state Department of Education’s website and checking their child’s grades in the recent math and language arts exams, the all-important tests that serve as a ...

These last few years have been good to Israelis trying to make it in the States, from the first Israeli player in the NBA to the first Israeli model on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Today, we can most likely add another to this list of firsts: The first Israeli serial killer to do his ...

Israel’s controversial conversion bill may be languishing in parliamentary purgatory, but its advocates—those who support endowing the nation’s chief rabbinate with the power to decide who is a Jew—are far from mollified. In a letter sent earlier today to Israel’s rabbis on the occasion of the upcoming new year, Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar attacked ...

Kylie is a smiley child. She is enjoying her summer vacation, but can’t wait to start school in the fall. Israela is 5 years old, and likes ice cream more than anything. Her neighbor, Eustace, is nearly 6. She speaks Hebrew with that clipped cadence typical of sabras, or native-born Israelis. All three were born ...

This week’s haftorah should come with a disclaimer: If you want good news, don’t hire a prophet.
Isaiah is case in point. Even as he embarks on what is known as a haftorah of consolation, the old man is adamant not to allow the gleaming glories of the future to blind us to the dark vagaries ...