That botched circumcision article * Georgia’s jailed ex-president: ‘Save our democracy’ * One Arab judge isn’t enough * My driving instructor and his Ethiopian pumpkins

[Times of Israel]( [The Blogs Weekly]( Thursday, October 7, 2021 [The New Yorker’s botched circumcision article]( By [Hayim Leiter]( [Gary Shteyngart’s story, no matter how sad and painful, cannot undermine the data attesting to the safety of this ritual for baby boys]( From the blogs [From my prison cell, I appeal for help to save Georgian democracy]( By [Mikheil Saakashvili]( [The former president of the Republic of Georgia writes: I’m here in solitary confinement on a hunger strike in a country that everyone knows is fully controlled by an oligarch]( [Efraim Inbar]( [Israel must actively oppose US return to the JCPOA]( [Even if Bennett’s government is staying quiet for appearance’s sake, its silence on the nuclear deal poses numerous threats to Israel’s security]( From the blogs [Think regionally: A US role for deepening the Abraham Accords]( By [David Makovsky]( [Aiming beyond merely expanding bilateral ties, America should champion a transformative vision of peaceful economic interconnection in the Middle East]( [Idit Codish]( [My driving instructor Yossi and his Ethiopian pumpkins]( [He says, ’Look at how tall that tree was!’ I think this is part of the test and say, ’No, I can’t look at a phone, I’m driving!’ He says, ’Nu, I’ll take the wheel…’]( [Steven Greenberg]( [I’m triple-vaxxed. The Green Pass system is bankrupt.]( [The system marginalizes and publicly humiliates the unvaccinated, punishing rather than reforming, and creating even greater rifts in Israeli society]( [The new Europe-Asia crude oil pipeline deal is terrible for Israel]( By [Alon Tal]( [The agreement, shrouded in secrecy and misinformation, will reportedly increase tanker traffic 10-fold, multiplying the risk of yet more catastrophic spills]( [One Arab justice isn’t enough]( By [Guy Lurie]( [The bench is supposed to reflect the diversity that is Israeli society, and a token Arab seat can’t accomplish that]( [Paul Gross]( [In these polarized times, moderates are the heroes]( [Much of today’s extreme-right agrees with the extreme-left that Zionism equals racism — it’s just that the right sees that as a positive]( [CRM]( [Ayalon Eliach]( [Rabbi David Eliach: A life of education]( [My grandfather saw the world as one large classroom in which we are all forever learning or teaching. Here are 5 of the lessons he taught me]( [Sarah Sackman]( [Thousands came together to save London’s Bevis Marks]( [Built in 1701, the synagogue is not a museum or a monument, but home to a living community, and a symbol of Jewish rebirth, survival, and hope for Britain’s Jews]( [Giving my children the Jewish education I never had]( By [Alice Gomstyn]( [As a child of Soviet Jews, I want my children to experience Jewish community – and I hope they’ll help provide strength in numbers to a population under siege]( more choice voices [Shuki Friedman]( [Environmental protection: A matter of life and death]( [When Israel accepts that the disasters of climate change can kill people, it will establish better policies that uphold the Jewish value of the primacy of life]( [Edith Shaked Perlman]( [Israel offers no justice for Moroccan Holocaust victims]( [A Supreme Court ruling against compensation for victims of Vichy France’s Nazi-collaborating government shows flagrant misunderstanding of history]( [Dan Perry]( [Israel is worth saving]( [Many states are hard to justify and would not be missed, but a world in which Israel was destroyed or replaced by a theocracy would be a lesser place – and here’s why]( [Frances Prince]( [The lockdown gift of time]( [During COVID restrictions, my nonagenarian father and I read together, his interjections of commentary and memory introducing me to a man I hadn’t fully known]( [Unsubscribe from this List]( Email not displaying correctly? [View in browser]( © 2021 The Times Of Israel, All Rights Reserved