Thanksgiving was good for Jews * Yossi Klein Halevi on a BDS walkout * Hanukkah is not the Jewish Christmas! * On sexual abuse, fear and shame

[Times of Israel]( [The Blogs Weekly]( Thursday, November 25, 2021 [A series of unfortunate Thanksgiving events – and their upside for Jews]( By [Yael Buechler]( [Early on, exclusionary discourse on the holiday led to dustups, clarifications and even an epic apology that helped Jews carve out a piece of the American story]( [Yossi Klein Halevi]( [To the students who walked out on Palestinian-Israeli dialogue]( [How should an Israeli lecturer respond when confronted with a BDS walk-out on an American campus? Last month, I spoke, together with my friend Mohammed Darawshe, one of Israel’s leading activists for empowering and integrating Arab citizens into the mainstream, at the University of Illinois, in Champaign-Urbana. Mohammed and I were invited by the university’s administration, Chancellor Robert J. Jones and Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Sean Garrick, to model a respectful conversation about the future of Israeli society and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When the event began, several dozen...]( [Hey American businesses: Hanukkah is not the Jewish Christmas]( By [Chavi Eisenberg]( [Hanukkah celebrates Jewish freedom from assimilation; it doesn’t need Jewish-Christmas decorations or Jewish-Christmas movies or Jewish elfs-on-the-shelf]( [Barry Newman]( [An alternative (but plausible) Jewish Thanksgiving Day]( [What if the Puritans had aimed elsewhere when they went out hunting and instead of bagging a wild fowl, brought to the table something really foul, a wild boar?]( [Elana Kaminka]( [The US gun algorithm is broken. Just ask the IDF]( [Unlike Kyle Rittenhouse, my son completed months of weapons training in the Israeli army – and he still doesn’t have access to his gun if he’s not on duty]( [Rosh Hanikra to Tel Aviv: A solo hike along Israel’s coast]( By [Larry Luxner]( [A hundred miles of some of the most interesting archeology and people and beautiful vistas and random adventures in the world? Cross that off the bucket list!]( [CRM]( [Shayna Goldberg]( [Private parts are not all that is off-limits]( [If we want our kids to grow up to be healthy, autonomous, independent, self-reliant adults, we cannot teach them through fear, guilt, self-doubt, or shame]( [Mordechai Soskil]( [Grateful for Thanksgiving]( [When we ask our family what everyone is thankful for, no one says anything interesting. They’re glad to be together, and blah, blah, boring. My list is better]( [Nathan Lewin]( [Maine law discriminates against private schools for religious minorities]( [The federal government usually stays out of cases in which private parties claim that states or local governments are violating their constitutional rights. Yet Donald Trump’s Department of Justice actively supported Catholics, Jews, and other religious minorities who are fighting for equal treatment in funding their children’s education. The Biden administration has totally reversed field and is not just standing on the sidelines. Regrettably, it has gone beyond the neutral stance taken under President Obama. Biden’s Justice Department is aggressively opposing the fight for religious liberty. On December 8, the...]( [Hate Israel’s high cost of living? Don’t blame supermarket chains.]( By [Michael Humphries]( [Like Hawaii and post-Brexit Britain, Israel is expensive because it’s an island economy, located far from its trading partners. That’s not going to change any time soon.]( more choice voices [Francis Nataf]( [Hanukkah marks a triumph over cultural colonialism]( [Was the Maccabees’ provincial fundamentalism better than the Hellenists’ progress and enlightenment? That’s beside the point.]( [Asher Lovy]( [Is the Orthodox reaction to sexual abuse allegations changing?]( [The Orthodox Jewish community rose up against accused abuser Chaim Walder, despite his prominence in that world. This kind of response needs to become the norm]( [Aron Heller]( [Who is the outlier, Trump or Biden?]( [With the world trending authoritarian, will Trump turn out to be the first of his kind while the moderate Biden turns out to be the last of his?]( [Paul Ben Ishai]( [The 5G dilemma for Tamar Zandberg]( [The planned new broadband cellular standard is one of the least green technologies around and amounts to a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist]( [Unsubscribe from this List]( Email not displaying correctly? [View in browser]( © 2021 The Times Of Israel, All Rights Reserved