Weekly Highlights: Annexation now? * Black Jewish Lives matter too * Dancing in the coronavirus ward * Bring your own shovel * Lag BaOmer in my private cave

[The Blogs]( [The Marketplace of Ideas]( Weekly Highlights Thursday, May 14, 2020 [Elhanan Miller]( [How I’m using a Saudi Ramadan TV series to give Jews a human face]( [The groundbreaking TV drama ’Umm Haroun’ is full of anti-Semitic stereotypes, but it’s still a giant leap forward — and a helpful teaching tool]( [Annexation now?]( By [Donniel Hartman]( [Making this fateful political move during the Corona crisis is an act of opportunism that would subvert the moral credibility of our leadership]( [Yedidia Z. Stern]( [Sanity prevails: 11 to 0]( [Many among the extreme right and extreme left were bitterly disappointed by the High Court’s unequivocal decision not to disqualify Netanyahu from serving as prime minister. The ruling pulled the rug out from under the fairy tale of the deep state, which the extreme right has been trying to sell. When the most liberal and activist justices decide that Netanyahu can serve as prime minister, despite the serious criminal charges hanging over his head, the conspiracy balloon — is burst. The extreme left, too, is furious, with its chorus...]( [Joseph J. Feit]( [Black Jewish Lives matter too: COVID-19 and Ethiopian Jewry]( [14,000 Beta Israel await aliyah in a poverty-stricken country where millions are expected to contract the virus. Israel’s silence is deafening]( [I know why the coronavirus ward dances]( By [Ruth Ebenstein]( [Hospital staff spurred each other on to create videos of the isolation wards that sparked joy, raised morale, and show how they became more than a medical team]( [Naomi Chazan]( [As the coronavirus crisis eases, Israel should restructure]( [The solidarity and goodwill that developed during the crisis are central to strategic redesign of the old divisive structures and norms]( [Yuval Cherlow]( [Read your lips? It’s not possible when you wear a mask]( [Adaptations such as Zoom conferencing for coping with coronavirus often leave out those with disabilities. As a society, we must do better]( [Ariel Jerozolimski]( [PHOTO ESSAY – Mahane Yehuda opens]( [After the COVID-19 quarantine, the open market is a cleaner, less crowded human mosaic, where contrasts of light, colors, and faces can still stop a photographer in his tracks]( [Shira Koch Epstein]( [Bring your own shovel]( [We need our exhausted religious leadership to inspire transformations of our precious, but outmoded community structures that are suddenly unsustainable]( [Hershel Billet]( [When communal prayer is a dangerous violation of Jewish law]( [Is relaxing our standards of caution worth the risk of the loss of even one life? Judaism is very clear that it is forbidden to take a chance]( [Zaftig: (of a woman) having a full, rounded figure; plump]( By [Ilana Spitz Epstein]( [Gabriela Cohen]( [Please exit the water]( [The loudspeaker’s announcement warning swimmers out of the winter sea gives me pause: the recording is in 5 languages, yet they are seemingly out of order]( [Celebrating Lag BaOmer in my private cave]( By [Rachel Sharansky Danziger]( [I worry about leaving the safety of home, but I know the real growth happens in the shared spaces where we clash – and learn to live together]( [Ben Zion Ferziger]( [The experimental spirit of Hatikvah and The New ColossusÂ]( [These two iconic texts offer contrasting blueprints for Jewish life, but the twists and turns of their authors’ lives prove nothing is set in stone]( Choice voices [David Harris]( [Dishonoring World War II memory]( [Americans should be able to express themselves eloquently and forcefully, without resorting to wildly absurd Holocaust references]( [Kathy Jacobi]( [COVID-19: What have we learned from Phase One?]( [5 issues I’ve been thinking about, as a psychologist and person who likes to plan for the future]( [Frank Domurad]( [America’s fateful 100 days]( [I predict that Donald Trump will delay the election or contest its results — call me a false prophet, but I’d rather sound the alarm in error than wake up to a new Weimar Republic]( [Jack Schwartz]( [The path to victory: Remembering V-E Day]( [FDR’s prescience, including over the objections of some of his top generals, included maintaining a policy of Germany first, and his foresight made all the difference]( [Dov Lipman]( [A message from slain IDF soldier Amit Ben Ygal]( [Amit, you wrote of how you think about Israel’s fallen – now you are among them, and we will think of you, and remember a hero who died for his people and his country]( [Stephen Horenstein]( [Early morning’s minyan]( [The birds sing relentlessly, as I stand motionless, breathing in their beauty, calm, and unpredictability – the lone witness of a seemingly random prayer that surely is not]( [Unsubscribe from this List]( © 2020 THE TIMES OF ISRAEL, All Rights Reserved