OP-ED: The high cost of Yom Hazikaron

April 21, 2026

Today is Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day, a day dedicated to the memory of some 30,000 soldiers, fighters and civilians killed by terrorism.

The largest group being remembered are the more than 24,000 deaths of members of the Israel Defense...

OP-ED: Holocaust education gets a bad rap. But it’s not falling short — we are.

April 15, 2026

By DANIEL GREENE

(JTA) — This Holocaust Remembrance Day marks nearly 81 years since the end of World War II. Few living witnesses remain, whether Holocaust survivors or military veterans.

As we move further in time from the events of...

OP-ED: A month after our synagogue was attacked, the hardest part has been everything that came after

April 10, 2026

By JASON PLOTKIN

(JTA) — It has been a month since March 12 and there is a story unfolding at Temple Israel that most people would not be aware of.

It’s not the headlines or the immediate aftermath — it’s...

OP-ED: Why does this Passover seem different from all other Passovers?

March 22, 2026

By JAMIE GELLER

Every Passover, we ask the same question: Why is this night different from all other nights? This year, for the first time since Oct. 7, the answer is freedom. Real, hard-won and finally ours.

Every living hostage...

OP-ED: What more do they have to do before we realize it is too late?

March 16, 2026

By ALAN SMASON

The terrible last two years of rising antisemitism has become ever more problematic for the Jewish people. Please note, I did not say for the Reform Jewish people, the Conservative Jewish people or the Orthodox Jewish people. 

OP-ED: Gavin Newsom advocates regime change for Israel, not Iran

March 06, 2026

By BEN COHEN

(JNS.org) – There is a great deal of anger swirling around California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s description of Israel “as sort of an apartheid state.”

That anger is entirely justified. The smear that Israel has duplicated the cruel...

OP-ED: Projecting the Purim story onto this war is appealing. It’s also a dangerous mistake.

March 03, 2026

By CLAIRE E. SUFRIN

(JTA) — Around me, I see many Jews using the timing in the Jewish calendar to understand the current U.S.-Israel war against Iran in biblical terms. We are Esther, we are Mordecai, we have defeated Haman,...

On Purim, Jewish tradition tells us to give to anyone who asks — no questions required

March 01, 2026

By RABBI JOSHUA LADON

(JTA) — On the morning of Purim after I pray and hear the Scroll of Esther read aloud, I put a wad of $20 bills in my pocket and get on my bike. Not singles. Not...

OP-ED: I was called a ‘kapo’ for backing the Iran deal Donald Trump ripped up. Here we are again, with so much lost.

February 27, 2026

By STEVE RABINOWITZ

(JTA) — In 2015, when my consulting firm organized the No Nukes for Iran Project to support the JCPOA — the Iran nuclear deal — we didn’t do so because we trusted Tehran. We did it because...

OP-ED: The Chutzpah of Shelton Lee Jackson

February 20, 2026

By RABBI REUVEN H. TAFF

(JNS,org) –As Leo Rosten famously illustrated in The Joys of Yiddish, chutzpah is the case of a man who kills his parents and then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he...