On Nov. 21, Israel Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit announced the filing of criminal charges against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for fraud, breach of trust and bribery in three government corruption cases. Never has a sitting Israeli prime minister been indicted. If he is convicted …

From my first visit to Israel as a teenager, one of the things that amazed me most was that a Jewish state had been created in which Hebrew was revived as a spoken language after more than 2,000 years. Even though I have now lived in Israel for more than 20 years, the revival of Hebrew is st…

The hosts of a morning news show on Israeli public radio recently discussed a matter of terminology that over the past 10 years would have been almost unthinkable. It had to do with what to call Benjamin Netanyahu.

It’s going to be awhile before Israel has a new government, but in the meantime, there is a lot of political drama on the Israeli political scene. Last month’s election produced a parliament with 10 party factions. It reflects the full diversity of the country, including seven seats held by …

September’s Israeli Knesset election left me with mixed feelings, but overall I think it is a sign, thankfully, that the era of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister is nearing an end. In April, Israel held an election that was inconclusive, with neither Likud – led by Netanyahu nor his main …

My wife and I were in Vienna for a weekend this month. I had never been there. It’s not that I had been conscientiously avoiding the Austrian capital, but I may have been avoiding it subconsciously – due to its Nazi past.

Last week, Cleveland Jewish News Columnist Marcy Oster wrote eloquently about the natural springs in her area of the West Bank and about the terrorist attack at a spring elsewhere in the West Bank in late August that killed a 17-year-old Israeli girl, Rina Shnerb. Oster concluded with the ho…

An event at a large municipal park in the northern Israeli town of Afula this month could provide the grist for debate for years over the clash between freedom from gender discrimination, freedom of religion and what it means to be a Jewish state.

One of the surprising things about the Israeli education system is the prevalence of second-chance tests, for students who either failed the first time around or who simply want to improve their grade averages. On Sept. 17, Israel is headed for a second-chance test – the second election this…

July 30 marks 20 years since my wife, two daughters and I moved to Israel from Cleveland. The children were 5 and 6 years old at the time. Now they are in their 20s. I’ve never regretted the move.

What attracted me in part to moving to Israel as a secular Jew was the secular Jewish aspect of the country’s character. Zionism in many respects was a secular response to the religious idea that the Jewish people would be redeemed from persecution when the Messiah comes. Zionism as a moveme…