Listen to the APN interview with Liat Schlesinger, who heads the Investigative Research Department at Molad, a progressive Israeli think tank, on a report she recently authored on the phenomenon known as Price Tag.

Rabbi Joshua Gutoff is Director of the MA in Jewish Education program at Gratz College. He has rabbinic ordination and an EdD from the Jewish Theological Seminary.

We turn to the Torah, many of us, for wisdom.   And this week when we turn to the parsha, this is what we find:  a command to the Israelites that, when encountering an enemy town, to enslave all the inhabitants.  Unless they put up a fight, in which case all the adult males are to be slaughtered, and the women and children enslaved.  And that’s outside the Promised Land.  When conquering the Land, none of the indigenous population is to be spared.  (Deut. 20:10-18)

Where we might have been hoping for something that would demonstrate a respect for all human life, even anticipate the Geneva Conventions, we find instead an invitation (or command!) to participate in forced enslavement or genocidal slaughter. 

This week, Alpher discusses the mixed messages we seem to be getting from Israel regarding the Iran deal with Netanyahu and even Herzog and Livni vociferously opposing it, and many in the security and academic establishments either equivocating or supporting it; the views of the Israeli majority on the Iran deal; why Israeli political opposition leaders Herzog and Livni seemingly support Netanyahu’s campaign in Congress; and how to explain Netanyahu’s appointment last week of a prominent right-wing Italian Jewess as Israel’s ambassador to that country.

There is an old truism that holds that the best defense is a good offense. Or, more colloquially, when you find yourself in hot water, flip the script and go on the attack. Allies of and apologists for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu are today doing just that. They are peddling a new narrative that President Obama and others, by speaking openly and critically about the extraordinary efforts of the Israeli government and some U.S. Jewish groups to kill the Iran deal, are guilty of feeding anti-Semitism or smearing American Jews, or are unmasking themselves as anti-Semites.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren declared her support for the Iran nuclear deal last week — and that should come as no surprise. A thoughtful, dispassionate consideration of the agreement leads to the clear conclusion that it’s good for both the United States and for Israel.

Regrettably, however, there is tremendous pressure on the American public and on Congress to reject the deal. Some of that pressure is simply partisan: Many Republicans came out in opposition before the details were even announced.