Weekly Highlights: Hanukkah, Christmas and Messiah * Kahane invades my ‘Jewish Home’ * Women can’t light menorah? * My go-to Israeli writers in 2019

[The Blogs]( [The Marketplace of Ideas]( Weekly Highlights Thursday, December 26, 2019 From the blogs [Israel’s appalling inaction on climate change]( By [Tammy Gannot Rosenstreich]( [Governments worldwide are ignoring this dire threat. If Israeli leaders think they can too, they should step outdoors and look up]( [Benjamin Lau]( [Not my Jewish Home]( [There is no room in the religious Zionism I know for any party that accepts Meir Kahane’s racist doctrine]( [Meyer Labin]( [Now, after Jersey City, can we Hasidic Jews be taken seriously?]( [The murderous attack didn’t happen in a void — it came after years when other Jews ignored hate and mockery aimed at my community]( [Sally Abrams]( [My go-to Israeli writers in 2019]( [These authors have been invaluable to me as I work to tell Israel’s story to Americans]( [Richard Block]( [100 inspiring Israel headlines in 2019]( [The world’s first 3-D printed heart, the Beresheet moon launch, aid to Samoan measle victims, and 97 other reasons to smile]( [Light the lights of Hanukkah and change the world]( By [Akiva Gersh]( [It’s a reminder that despite the darkness we see around us, the original intention of Creation, of all reality, was light]( [Yuval Krausz]( [Hanukkah, 1973]( [When we returned to our bunker in Syria the next day, we would have sweet memories of real showers, real food and the lighting of candles]( [Joe Baur]( [At 33, I’m finally celebrating my first Hanukkah]( [My lifelong apathy about my Jewish heritage ended when I took a DNA test, dove in deeper and learned the value of embracing tradition]( [Yael Leibowitz]( [The Books of Maccabees: A tale of two stories]( [Imagine if Antiochus had written the story of Hanukkah… or if Judah Maccabee’s mother had. Every account reflects its author’s background, including the ones we have]( [4 ways not to celebrate Christmas]( By [Masha Kisel]( [Help your kids experience the joy and the festivity of the season while you keep them away from Santa Claus]( [Yochi Rappeport]( [Women can’t light the menorah in public?]( [Chief Rabbi Yosef’s ruling, which derides the practice as imitating Reform and Conservative Jews, negates most historic rabbinic opinions]( [Jessica Levine Kupferberg]( [The day I discovered the talmudic cliffhanger]( [Until last month, I was pretty sure the 2,711 folios of Talmud were not for the likes of me]( [The meek shall inherit the earth but they won’t catch their bus]( By [Tehilla Katz]( [These days, I size up my opponents in the line. The seminary girls are always an easy target. They’re new and on a spiritual high]( more Choice voices [Sarah Ansbacher]( [‘Why does everyone hate your people?’]( [It’s not every day that a German tourist comes out and asks such a taboo question, but he did, and I answered, and they listened]( [Malynnda Littky]( [Trump impeachment lost Democrats a Michigan voter]( [The US Congress should be doing its job of helping govern the country; instead it has spent months on something with a foregone conclusion]( [Sheldon Paul Stone]( [Time is brain]( [He was a stroke specialist, so he knew he was having a stroke, but the ambulance wasn’t going to get there in time]( [Bonnie Boxer]( [The dagger held above Jerusalem’s heart]( [How can anyone who claims to love this holy city accept this violation of the sanctity and integrity of the protected landscape surrounding the Old City?]( [Alon Goshen-Gottstein]( [Hanukkah, Christmas and the light of the Messiah]( [A Hasidic teaching offers a way to see the two holidays as sharing more than winter timing and crass commercialization]( [Alon Tal]( [Best Hanukkah present ever: Save the planet]( [In this season of miraculous renewable energy, there are real steps you can take, including buying an acre of wildlife-rich habitat]( [Steven Bayar]( [Looking forward to Christmas]( [Will today’s leadership take the chance of becoming relevant to a new generation of families who have all but walked away?]( [Todd Aarons]( [Cuts and burns: Welcome to my damn food blog]( [Is there a latke recipe? Sure. But also Carp Roe Mayo, Quick & Easy Salmon Tartare, and a drink that hooks grapefruit up with arak]( [Unsubscribe from this List]( © 2019 THE TIMES OF ISRAEL, All Rights Reserved