Jews are called “the people of the book” for a reason. Over thousands of years, despite endless persecution, adversity and exile, we have remained a people, linked to one another and our history by our sacred texts, ideologies and teachings. The words in these texts—interpreted anew with each generation—are what binds us together, nourish our Jewish identity, and inspire provocative, mind-expanding (occasionally maddening) discussions in our communities and at our dinner tables.

As it is said: ask two Jews, you’ll get three opinions.

We use music in a variety of ways – to teach, to learn, to inspire, to heal. We can use it to help get through life’s troubles or to delve deeply into them.

Sandy Tolan’s Children of the Stone: The Power of Music in a Hard Land explores many of these dynamics through the story of Ramzi Aburedwan, a West Bank Palestinian who uses his rare musical talent to bring the healing power of music to his community in the West Bank. Tolan, the author of the bestselling book The Lemon Tree, powerfully documents Ramzi’s experiences, from his childhood under Israeli occupation to becoming a master viola player in the concert halls of Europe to his return to Ramallah in order to teach and perform.

Very few Palestinians have written political memoirs documenting their people’s struggle for statehood and liberty. Sari Nusseibeh’s Once Upon a Country is a rarity and therefore a must-read for anyone seeking to see the conflict through the eyes of a brilliant Palestinian, to comprehend and to empathize.

Yossi Sarid battled against populism and surrendering to public opinion
by Yariv Oppenheimer, Secretary General of Peace Now

Yossi Sarid (1940 - 2015)

Rare are the leaders who, instead of swimming with the flow, choose the most difficult task of all and work to change its trajectory. Such was Yossi Sarid, a leader who made breakthroughs, who told the truth, who shaped public opinion and did not serve it. A role model, a loud piercing voice, which in times of confusion and dilemmas showed the way for many and served as an ideological compass for many thousands.

We are living in the first era of Jewish independence since the time of the Maccabees. It was over 2000 years ago that Jews last controlled their own destiny before the creation of the modern State of Israel. The independence the Maccabees gained lasted about 80 years. Modern day Israel is 67 years old.

It was internal divisions and rival factions amongst ourselves that led to the loss of sovereignty then and we may well be heading in the same direction today.

Americans for Peace Now (APN) applauds Secretary of State John Kerry for his courageous speech Saturday in which he urged the leaders of Israel and the Palestinians to act now to prevent the collapse of the two-state option and to prevent the emergence of a bi-national state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.

Rabbi Michael Bernstein is the spiritual leader of Congregation Gesher L’Torah in Alpharetta, Ga. Michael received his ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1999 and is an alumni of the Rabbis Without Borders second cohort.

This week on the Jewish calendar both great darkness and great light intersect as we read in the Torah the story of Joseph being subjected by his brothers to the bottom of a pit, and prepare to once more kindle the lights of Chanukah.  In the Talmud, there are two different teachings by Rabbi Tanhum that are presented one after the other, even though they seem to have little to do with each other.  The first is the law that the Chanukah candles must not be placed so high that a passerby's eyes would not naturally be able to see them.  The second deals with Joseph and the fact that the pit into which he is tossed is described as being "empty and having no water."  It had no water, but, according to this teaching, the pit did have snakes and scorpions!   

Secretary of State John Kerry on December 5, 2015 delivered a courageous speech at the Brookings Institute's Saban Forum, cautioning against the emergence of a bi-national state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, as a result of the current impasse in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking efforts. 

Following is the Israeli-Palestinian portion of the Secretary's speech. For the full text click here

The current Israeli-Palestinian violence demonstrates how damaging national-religious incitement can be. But it’s not just Palestinian incitement. The extremist rabbis of the ideological West Bank settlers are as responsible for Jewish violence as Muslim clerics are for Palestinian violence.

The most blatant case of incitement-inspired Jewish political violence since the establishment of the state of Israel was the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.

Dan Ephron’s Killing a King is a must-read book that follows both Rabin and his assassin, Yigal Amir, through the year or two that preceded the murder. It invites the reader to continue following these two lines – the progressive, peace-seeking Israel that Rabin led and came to represent, and the extremist, reactionary Israel – beyond the disastrous point of their intersection on November 4, 1995.