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Once we are through Thanksgiving -- one of the two truly unique American holidays –  I take out my considerable collection of Christmas music and devote my listening almost exclusively to this genre.  While recently listening, I spent some time thinking about what a great country I am blessed to live in -- particularly as a Jew.Many long-time readers know I wrote (during three Christmas seasons) The Jewish Joy of Christmas Music, The Jewish Joy of Christmas Lights and the Jewish Joy of Christmas Services.  I highly suggest you reflect back on these columns because they will give you a...

Every year, from Thanksgiving Eve until New Years Day, there is a feeling in the air of Christmas…and Hanukkah, multiple Shabbatot, many simchas and professional parties. Christmas is basically a traditional Jewish way of life. We know Jesus was Jewish, and that for centuries our people have been the targets of anti-Semitism because of it. However, this practicing Jew looks at Christmas and all the joy it brings as a sign of Jewish values and many, many successes. Look at the time spent on family gatherings. Waiting on crowded highways, sitting in airport lounges and spending hundreds of dollars to...

When I came to faith in Jesus in 1971 as a heroin-shooting, LSD-using, 16-year-old, Jewish, hippie rock drummer, I had no idea I was part of a worldwide spiritual happening known as the Jesus People Movement or Jesus Revolution. It even merited a cover story on Time Magazine, June 21, 1971. Interestingly, Jewish young people made up a conspicuously high number of these newly born-again hippies and rebels and radicals in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Today, a new poll commissioned by Jews for Jesus makes me wonder if we could be on the verge of a similar spiritual movement today,...

Jane Fonda has weighed in again about the Harvey Weinstein scandal. The iconic actress, who currently stars on Netflix‘s Grace & Frankie, attended MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes where she acted as a spokesperson the Women’s Media Center. Gloria Steinem was also in attendance. Once there, according to Vulture, the actress spoke of the scandal that continues to rock Hollywood. “It feels like something has shifted,” the actress said. “It’s too bad that it’s probably because so many of the women that were assaulted by Harvey Weinstein are famous and white and everybody knows them. This has been going on a long...

CNN senior correspondent Clarissa Ward said on Thursday that Mark Halperin’s alleged sexual harassment was an “open secret” at ABC News “for years.” Ward — who was an international correspondent for ABC News from 2007 to 2010 — took to Twitter to respond to the CNN report that spoke with five women who accused the now NBC News analyst of sexual harassment while he was at the news network: This was an open secret when I was at @ABC for years- brave of these women to speak up. https://t.co/xQgu2xZMUk — Clarissa Ward (@clarissaward) October 26, 2017

A student columnist at an Ivy League university claims that the school is suffering an epidemic of “lukewarm” sex from men who are “bad at listening to women.”

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish member of Israel's parliament has resigned after prominent rabbis criticised him for attending his gay nephew's wedding. Yigal Guetta revealed in a radio interview on Sunday that he had gone to the ceremony two years ago. He said that although same-sex marriage was against his religious beliefs he had wanted to make his nephew happy. But five rabbis accused Mr Guetta of desecrating God's name and demanded that the religious Shas party fire him. Same-sex weddings held in Israel are not sanctioned by the state. However, couples who wed abroad can register officially as married couples. In...

In nothing short of a travesty and insult to the pro-Palestinian mindset of a new generation, three gay Jews marched in last weekend’s Dyke March carrying a pride flag emblazoned with the Star of David. A glaring mistake as Israel is frowned upon in modern-day American culture. As is in today’s new “anything goes but being a pro-Israel Jew” atmosphere, the miscreants were kicked to the curb by the event organizers because the Star of David “made people feel unsafe.” Surely one would think this gay pride group thought in advance to stock and supply the necessary items to alleviate...

This weekend, at a lesbian march in Chicago, three women carrying Jewish pride flags — rainbow flags embossed with a Star of David — were kicked out of the celebration on the grounds that their flags were a “trigger.” An organizer of the Dyke March told the Windy City Times that the fabric “made people feel unsafe” and that she and the other members of the Dyke March collective didn’t want anything “that can inadvertently or advertently express Zionism” at the event. Laurel Grauer, one of the women who was ejected, said she’d been carrying that Jewish pride flag...

The seven wealthy New Jersey couples, including a rabbi and his wife, who allegedly gamed the system to collect about $2 million in unmerited welfare benefits may just be the tip of the iceberg. “There will be more individuals served charges. We will not be speaking to the timing of those arrests at this time,” a spokesperson for the Ocean County, New Jersey Prosecutor’s Office told FOX Business Thursday.

Are Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria an obstacle to peace? Are the millions of Arabs living inside Israel obstacles to peace? Prime Minister Netanyahu makes it clear that ethnic cleansing and judenrein are terms that will no longer be a part of the future of the Land of Israel. Ethnic cleansing for peace – what the Arab side proposes – is nothing more than blatant hatred of Jews and Israel.

Kosher ice cream lovers have a lot to celebrate this Pride month, specifically in the form of a pint of Big Gay Ice Cream. That’s because when the ice cream truck-turned-brick-and-mortar shop decided to package its popular soft serve to be sold nationally, it sought and received kosher certification. The pints of soft-serve deliciousness, which debuted in March and are sold in grocery stores and online, are officially under the auspices of the kashrut division of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. Or, as it is colloquially known, the OU. While it’s understandable that an up-and-coming brand would...

Holocaust survivor Margot Herschenbaum was brought to tears at Yad Vashem on Tuesday, after a replica of her late sister’s personal album was gifted to US President Donald Trump during his visit to the memorial. “This place and this entire nation are testimony to the unbreakable spirit of the Jewish people and the hope that light can shine the path beyond the darkness,” Trump said, donning a kippa as he delivered a short speech outside the Hall of Remembrance where he had laid a wreath together with first lady Melania and rekindled the eternal flame. Ivanka Trump and Jared...

Joining her father President Donald Trump on his trip through the Middle East, Ivanka Trump has dressed more modestly than usual, and that streak has continued during their visit to Israel. The first daughter was photographed wearing a rarely seen accessory (at least on her): a hat. She wore the small navy hat perched on one side on her head, with a headband securing the velvet topper. Her hair was styled in a soft chignon at the nape of her neck. Hats are worn by Orthodox Jewish women following the concept of Tzniut, which is Hebrew for modesty or humility...

The gentiles—the goyim—the Infidel; they think they know about the Jews. It’s all about the International Jew Conspiracy; the Rothschilds; the Rockefellers and the Roosevelts and others (who are all really, actually Jews). But they really don’t know the Jew at all. I am not a religious Jew. I am an inculcated cultural Jew. I’m a propagandized Jew—educated in my distant youth, by some minor Talmudic and rabbinical purveyors of Jewry. And yet, here I am, a right wing, deplorable, conservative Trumper. To me, Limbaugh, Coulter, Levin, and Hannity are commies. Well…not really. But almost. I am not a religion...

Is The Holocaust Over?By Joel Leyden Israel News AgencyJerusalem, Israel — April 24, 2017 … Is the Holocaust really over? We know that Adolph Hitler committed suicide with a bullet to the head. We know that US and Russian troops liberated concentration camps including Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Sobibor, Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau. That Jews were hung, shot and gassed to death. That their bodies were disposed in mass graves and in ovens. We know that war crime trials were held in Nuremberg, Germany during 1945 and 1946. Judges from the Allied powers—Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States—presided...

It appears that Russia is leading the way towards a much-needed rejection of "religious freedom" in the West: Source from NRO: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/446966/russia-jehovahs-witnesses-ban-continues-putin-religious-persecution Russia’s crackdown on religious activity took a major step forward this week as the Justice Ministry banned Jehovah’s Witnesses. Russia has steadily curtailed rights to evangelize in recent years, but this move signals their commitment to aggressively policing private religious activity. The Russian supreme court ruled that Jehovah’s Witnesses amount to an “extremist group,” and therefore the government is shutting down their headquarters and local chapters, seizing their property, and banning them from meeting. Vladimir Putin’s campaign...

flight from Kiev to Israel was delayed for more than an hour on Thursday night after an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man insisted the overhead television screens were retracted or turned off. In keeping with traditional religious teachings and practices, the passenger argued that he did not want his children to watch any TV or films during the flight with budget Israeli airline UP. Despite his verbal protest, flight attendants were unable to adhere to the man's request and they issued eye masks instead.

The case of a British Jewish child forced to leave his Berlin school after being subjected to anti-Semitic violence has provoked outrage and soul-searching in Germany. The 14-year-old, who cannot be named under child protection laws, was beaten, kicked and threatened with a replica gun after he revealed to fellow pupils that he was Jewish. *snip* His British mother, who asked not to be named to protect the identity of her son, told the The Daily Telegraph the school had done little to stop the bullying. “They told us this is normal for adolescents from this background, that they’re just...

Reecently at March For Life, an annual rally held in Washington, D.C., I hoped to meet and write about other pro-life Jewish marchers. The record-setting crowd was thick and palpably upbeat after the election of Donald Trump and his nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. With Donald Trump’s latest threats to defund the largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, unless it ceases performing the procedure, and Gorsuch’s confirmation, those who were present at the March are undoubtedly more energized now. But ultimately I could not find any other Jewish participants. In fact, after the March I joked to my...