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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

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Bearing Witness: Sagui Dekel-Chen’s Remarkable Concert at Kibbutz Nir Oz and the Story I Didn’t Expect to Hear

Bearing Witness: Sagui Dekel-Chen’s Remarkable Concert at Kibbutz Nir Oz and the Story I Didn’t Expect to Hear

Last week, I made a journey to Kibbutz Nir Oz to hear the story of an extraordinary young man. Sagui Dekel-Chen returned to his kibbutz to perform a...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Rich Kirschen

Can We Reclaim the Jewish Story?

Can We Reclaim the Jewish Story?

As we enter Elul and mark the yahrzeit of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, I find myself thinking about resilience. A recent Jerusalem Post...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Jeffrey Levine

Israel Is Losing America — and Netanyahu Is Part of the Reason

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to accept responsibility for Oct. 7. Now he wants us to believe he has no responsibility for the...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Mitchell Bard

The Mecca Pact and India’s Third Front

The Mecca Pact and India’s Third Front

A new defense compact linking Pakistan, Türkiye, and Saudi Arabia may never place another army on India’s border. Its real power lies in the...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Ankit Gawande

The Tenth Man

The Tenth Man

The helicopter comes in low over the pad, and before it’s fully down the doors are open and they’re running. Two soldiers. One has lost both legs...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Tuvia Joffe

Unique Characteristics of Exemplary Jewish Day School/Yeshiva Leadership

In my former capacity as head of school, principal and now executive coach and day school consultant, I am often asked to describe the characteristics...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Chaim y. Botwinick

Quantum Security Is About More Than Encryption

When organizations begin preparing for the Quantum Era, the conversation usually starts in the same place: encryption. And for good reason, much of...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Nir Ben-David

Another School Year: On the Same Side of the Table

As another school year begins, I find myself thinking about something that I believe is essential to a child’s success in school and yet often...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Jane Taubenfeld Cohen

The Only Man Not in the Room

The Only Man Not in the Room

When a casualty notification officer knocks on a door in Israel and tells parents that their son has been killed, she now tells them one thing more:...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Sagit Alkobi Fishman

A Place To Call Home

Bevan Lee’s Australian television series, A Place To Call Home, definitely strikes a chord. A vibrant family drama consisting of 67 episodes, it is...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Sheldon Kirshner

What Makes a Great Leader?

Among the greatest challenges confronting the United States and Israel this year are our respective populations’ efforts to clarify the values of...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

John L. Rosove

The Bennett Precedent: When Breaking Faith Becomes a Method of Government

To portray the Naftali Bennett episode as a mere exercise in political opportunism is to underestimate its significance. This was not simply a...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Eitan Chikli

Investment, Financing, and Diaspora Opportunities in Somaliland

Israel–Africa Technology Partnerships: Investment, Financing, and Diaspora Opportunities in Somaliland Israel-Africa Business Connect (IABC) is a...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Mohamed Osman

Featured Post

Featured Post

New York Magazine’s recent Grub Street article, “When Eating Out Is Political,” tells a compelling story about the changing identity of Middle...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Vered Guttman

What Successful Olim Do Differently in Year One

What Successful Olim Do Differently in Year One

Two people can make Aliyah the same week, to the same city, in similar circumstances, and have completely different experiences of the first year. One...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Lara Itzhaki

Justice Begins in the Character of God

Divine holiness is sometimes imagined primarily as separation from personal impurity. Scripture certainly commands moral distinctiveness, but holiness...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Ed Gaskin

Why Does Israel Still Have to Justify Its Existence?

VENI, VIDI… DID I UNDERSTAND? There is a question about Israel that seems to be asked more and more often, especially by younger people: Why should...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Nestor Daniel Scherman

‘Free Palestine’? Let’s Talk About Freedom

‘Free Palestine’? Let’s Talk About Freedom

A lone protester outside my embassy raised an obvious question: How would replacing the Middle East’s only free country with yet another...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Emmanuel Navon

Rafael Nadal and Inner Stability

Rafael Nadal and Inner Stability

Ritual, Rhythm, and the Mind: Nadal, the Five Prayers, and the Architecture of Inner Stability There is a moment before every Rafael Nadal serve that...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Ibrahim Mukherjee

The Happiness Paradox

The Happiness Paradox

If you only knew Israel from headlines and social media, you would probably expect it to rank among the least happy countries in the world.  The data...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Deborah Geller

INTO THE FRAY: The Arab vote in Israel—Legality, Morality, and Security

The Israeli High Court has a long record of flouting the law when it comes to Arab parties’ participation in Knesset elections.  As the October...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Martin Sherman

Asking For A King

During the period when the Prophet Samuel was the leader of the Jewish people, he was very upset when the people asked for a king to reign over...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Kenneth Cohen

Iran War Could Strengthen the U.S.-Israel Alliance

The Iran War Could Strengthen the U.S.-Israel Alliance, If Washington and Jerusalem Don’t Waste It Battlefield coordination is real, but unless it...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Ofer Israeli

Cave Art, from Symbolic Image to Language

Cave Art, from Symbolic Image to Language

One striking characteristic of cave paintings is their sensation of movement. Around the head of the painted horse, flames and shadows danced as a...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Yigal Bin-Nun

India-Somaliland Strategic Partnership

From Centuries of Indian Ocean Trade to Maritime Security and Economic Cooperation The relationship between India and Somaliland should not be viewed...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Abdi Ali Barkhad

Israel Is Expected to Win Wars Without Defeating Its Enemies

Israel Is Expected to Win Wars Without Defeating Its Enemies

The world appears perfectly comfortable with Israel defending itself, provided that its defense never becomes effective enough to defeat the people...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Sabine Sterk

The Reluctant Fundamentalist and American Divide

Few novels offer insight not only into how America sees itself, but also into how it may be perceived by parts of the Muslim world. Mohsin Hamid’s...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Ofer Chen

Resolution 1701 Prescribed the Right Order, Israel Is Paying for Hesitating to Enforce It

Twenty years after the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, UN Security Council Resolution 1701 still sets the right end state for Lebanon: one state, one...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Shay Gal

Bread, Foraging, Matzah, & Toxicity Avoidance

Aromatic herbs & pungent spices (Today – sold in bulk -and- used in quantity As Ingredients) were traditional Medicinals – taken modestly...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Chaim Meyer Scheff

The Universe Is a Neural Network

There is a disquieting idea circulating at the boundary of physics and machine learning, one that most physicists prefer to dismiss and most computer...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Vincent James Hooper

Promote, Retire, Weaponize

Promote, Retire, Weaponize

Lithuania’s problem is no longer merely what its historians conclude. It is what the state does to evidence that produces the wrong conclusion....

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Grant Arthur Gochin

Fear Is Loud. Joy Is Louder. And Now It Has a QR Code

Rabbi Yaniv Meirov’s new book pairs a two-minute video with every Torah portion — and quietly builds one of the smartest Jewish engagement models...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Aaron Herman

A Nation of One

We are not just a united nation. We are a nation of one, so interconnected that we are like a single person. Wait. Is that not discriminatory? Are we...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Lazer Gurkow

Luiz Sayão: The aesthetics of terror and the light of the Lord

Luiz Sayão: The aesthetics of terror and the light of the Lord

Luiz Sayão — one of Brazil’s foremost theologians, Hebraists, and linguists — leads us into a profound reflection on how evil ideologies...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Silas Anastacio

The General’s Dangerous Question

Perhaps the General Has Begun Asking the Right Question Gadi Eisenkot has spent most of his adult life inside Israel’s security apparatus. He...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Yochanan Schimmelpfennig

When a Debate at Oxford About Islam Requires a Security Detail

When a Debate at Oxford About Islam Requires a Security Detail

Perhaps the greatest irony of the Oxford Union debate about the motion “This House Believes the West Is Right to Be Suspicious of Islam” was too...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Tim Orr

Israel Needs a Drone Army—Before the Next War

Israel Needs a Drone Army—Before the Next War

At the Combined Resolve exercise in Germany this spring, Ukrainian drone operators faced US forces and reportedly detected and simulated strikes...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Andy Blumenthal

Ali Al-Taher: Where Is the Escalation Heading?

Ali Al-Taher: Where Is the Escalation Heading?

The battle over Ali Al-Taher Hill is no longer simply a confrontation over a strategic position in southern Lebanon. What is happening around it...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Husein Mahmoud Saleh

From Nairobi to Bab-El-Mandeb: Somaliland and the Emerging Counter-Alignment.

President Irro’s diplomatic outreach now intersects with a widening maritime-security network connecting Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Greece...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Nassir Hussein Kahin

#AccessibleTogether: A Mountain Reveals Humanity

Running base camp for two very different teams climbing Mount Kilimanjaro gave me a rare vantage point. From there, I watched a small version of the...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Jamie Lassner

Don’t Fall Off

Don’t Fall Off

Nearly forty years ago at summer camp, I learned a song about a bridge. This year, I learned the significance of the bridge. The song was “Gesher...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Jonathan Weinkle

Shakla ve-Tarya – We Talk and Negotiate

The street is almost absurdly small. A few steps lead from the Syriac monastery toward Rehov Chabad. Yet those few steps contain a geography that...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Alexander A. Winogradsky Frenkel

Death, Burial and Afterlife

DEATH: Torah; Do Not Murder Exodus 20:13, Deuteronomy 5:7 : “Do Not Kill” in Christian translations in accordance with Jesus’ ‘turn the other...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Allen S. Maller

Yes, James Fishback is Probably Going to Lose. Make Sure It’s Humiliating.

Yes, James Fishback is Probably Going to Lose. Make Sure It’s Humiliating.

A close loss is a proof of concept. A blowout is a dead end. Tuesday decides which one this was. Since I wrote about James Fishback a few days ago,...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Jaclyn S. Clark

“Eye for an eye?” A 2026 Shabbat Shof’tim Sermon Against the Death Penalty

“Eye for an eye?” A 2026 Shabbat Shof’tim Sermon Against the Death Penalty

The below text is a copy of the sermon that this writer delivered for Shabbat Shof’tim at Or Shalom Synagogue in Vancouver, BC on August 15, 2026....

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Zoosman

How the death penalty creates more victims

When Anthony Hines was executed by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution August 13, Hines’s son was there, bearing witness to...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Stephen A. Cooper

A Name That Came Back From Exile, on Elul

A Name That Came Back From Exile, on Elul

Most of the time, saying a month’s name, we don’t think about what it carries inside it, we just say it and move on. This year, saying Elul, I...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Hande Gençünal

AI and Teaching Jewish Civilization: Is an Enemy Needed?

The Argument That Needs an Enemy: What happens when you forbid a machine to mention our enemies by Joe Nalven, with Claude Dara Horn reports that...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Joe Nalven

Israel and the Myth of One Lebanese State

Israel and the Myth of One Lebanese State

Behind the rhetoric of sovereignty lies an armed exception called Hezbollah What exactly is meant by Lebanese sovereignty? Is it a principle by which...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Ab Boskany

Arab Legitimacy Doesn’t Start and Stop in the Doorways of Medical Institutions

Arab Legitimacy Doesn’t Start and Stop in the Doorways of Medical Institutions

On August 11, Oded Ben-Ami, host of Channel 12’s “Six With Oded Ben-Ami” current affairs program, issued an apology to the medical staff of...

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The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Susie Becher