Author Archives: rabbiphilcohen

I’m long past feeling any surprise at NY Times reports and columns about Israel that find truth to be a flexible commodity. Still, on the eve of Martin Luther King Day, Times columnist Michelle Alexander gives us a pot of … Continue reading →

By Phil Cohen My first reaction to Jonathan Weisman’s “American Jews and Israeli Jews are Headed for a Messy Breakup,” (Jan. 4, 2019) was, if this were handed to me as a paper in an undergraduate college class it would … Continue reading →

by Phil Cohen I’m in Israel for a kind of classical tourist visit. My daughter Talia and I will truck around, visiting Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Tsfat, the Golan and Haifa. We’ve identified a couple of sites we haven’t seen before, … Continue reading →

I’m writing this post in response to a piece written by a Swarthmore student that appeared in yesterday’s Algemeiner regarding the arrival on the Swarthmore campus of a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine that launched a BDS campaign. … Continue reading →

You’ve probably heard that some 200 Airbnb spaces that lie west of the Green Line can no longer be part of the wildly successful international lodging company. The good folks at Arbnb Central have excluded the West Bank. This doesn’t … Continue reading →

I confess to a cavernous bewilderment at the events in and around the Gaza Strip. The Great March of Return has succeeded in shining a light on Gaza and bringing opprobrium on Israel. It’s also resulted in 200 dead Gazans … Continue reading →

You might be interested in a recent podcast found on Rabbi Richard Address’s Jewish Sacred Aging website where Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin and I have a go at the Nation-State law and a few other related issues from the perspective of … Continue reading →

So let’s begin with the fact that Netanyahu’s not everyone’s favorite Israeli PM, that he’s done things that many liberal Israelis and liberal American Jews disapprove of. But let’s also note he’s been democratically elected and, with all the corruption … Continue reading →

In today’s Times, a UMASS Amherst philosophy professor, Joseph Levine, an academic advisor to Jewish Voice for Peace, published an article arguing in favor of BDS.  You might wish to read the article: Below is the response that I sent … Continue reading →

On Thursday, August 2, 2018, Tablet Magazine published an article by Amy Stein. Entitled “Losing Hope in Israel, Looking to Jordan,” it makes the outrageous claim (among others) that shimmers of democracy in Jordan compares favorably to Israel’s, whose government, … Continue reading →