Dovid Lamed

For months, Prime Minister Binyomin Netanyahu has been under siege by political enemies and the media establishment, trying to destroy him politically for more...

Prime Minister Netanyahu met with Jared Kushner in Yerushalayim last week to try and lay the groundwork for peace negotiations which broke down three...

Indiana was supposed to be the pragmatic Midwestern state that would deny Donald Trump the delegates he needs to secure the Republican presidential nomination....

A year before the IRS tax exempt unit in Cincinnati began targeting applications from conservative political action groups for tax exempt status to extended delays and overly invasive scrutiny, it was using the same tactics against American Jewish groups, with the explicit intention of withholding tax exempt status from those supporting Israel in general, and any Jewish presence in the West Bank and Yerushalayim in particular. When the lawyer for a Pennsylvania-based pro-Israel group known as Z Street asked Diane Gentry, the IRS agent in charge of the case, what happened to Z Street’s application for tax-exempt status, she told him that it had “been at least delayed, and may be denied because of a special IRS policy in place regarding organizations in any way connected with Israel, and further that the applications of many such Israel-related organizations have been assigned to ‘a special unit in the D.C. office.’” He was also told that the criteria used by the IRS “special unit” to determine whether tax exempt status should be granted was whether the group’s activities “contradict the Administration’s public policies,” meaning opposition to any Jewish presence in the West Bank and Yerushalayim.

It is hard to believe that an unapologetic black racist would be given a real chance to win one of New York’s congressional seats, let alone one which represents Jewish communities such as Seagate, Manhattan Beach and Mill Basin. Yet that has become a real possibility as New York State Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries takes on City Councilman Charles Barron, who has become notorious in New York City politics for his outrageously anti-Semitic and anti-Israel comments. Barron was an early partner of Al Sharpton’s divisive rabble rousing activities against the Jewish community, even before the deadly Crown Heights riots in 1991, which Barron blamed on the Chassidic Jews living there.

Snow in October? In New York City? Have the global warming people heard about this? Yes, it is true, and this was not your typical pre-season decorative snow storm, that leaves a thin, decorative white coating on your lawn or the s’chach of your sukkah which, just a week after Yom Tov, you haven’t gotten around to taking down yet. This was a full blown nor’easter, complete with gale force winds and below-freezing temperatures, which dropped up more than two feet of heavy, wet snow in the higher elevations over Shabbos, and left a thick layer of icy slush on big city streets. Fallen branches and trees everwhere blocked both local streets and major highways, and damaged numerous homes and vehicles. Live power lines brought down with the tree limbs made walking through the streets in many areas dangerous.

Was Richard Nixon the best friend that Israel ever had in the Oval Office, or the bitterest anti-Semite ever to become president? This is controversy which has been going on for decades, and it is renewed again every time more transcripts are released from the tape recordings of Nixon’s conversations in the White House Oval Office. The discovery of the existence of these tapes, led to evidence of Nixon’s complicity in the attempted coverup of the politically motivated burglary of the Watergate carried out by White House agents during the 1972 presidential campaign. This evidence ultimately led to Nixon’s decision to resign as president in 1974 rather than face certain impeachment. But in addition to revealing the illegal actions which led to Nixon’s downfall, the Oval Office conversations preserved on these tapes also paint an ugly picture of a president obsessed with raw prejudices and fears, and his utter ruthlessness in attacking his perceived enemies.