human-rights

The Washington Post just ran this thought-provoking piece on the Arab Spring by former Soviet dissident refusenik and Israeli Parliamentarian Natan Sharansky. As I wrote last spring, Recent upheavals across the mideast from Egypt to...

Last Sunday the Arab League imposed a battery of sanctions against the Syrian regime. Two weeks ago, the Arab League suspended Syria from its ranks—the first such suspension of a member nation since the League suspended Egypt after Anwar...

Last Friday was a sad day for freedom of assembly and freedom of speech in America.

The pepper-spraying of a group of nonviolent student demonstrators at UC Davis on Friday appears to have been an example of excessive and unimaginative police...

This intelligent column in the New York Times by David Brooks on the Sandusky/ Paterno controversy makes the point that people love to judge others, but few stand up to evil.

To that I would add, people also love to demonize those...

Amanda Knox (pictured above), the University of Washington undergraduate who has spent four years in an Italian prison for the murder of her roommate–a crime it would seem she did not commit–is on her way home to Seattle. As much as...

The Sudan Tribune recently reported that Salva Kiir Mayardit, the president of the newly formed nation of South Sudan, told visiting Knesset member Danny Danon that the future South Sudanese embassy in Israel will built in Jerusalem. He also...

Mithal al-Alusi, human rights leader and former Iraqi Parliamentarian, contacted me last weekend to convey his thoughts about the dire situation for proponents of human rights and liberal values in Iraq. He also urged President...

Yitzhak Zahavy is competing this Sunday in a grueling sports event because he can. He can, he says, because three of his comrades gave their lives to save his. He is competing to honor them.

Zahavy, who was born in Rhode Island, moved to...

I’m off to Israel for a week as part of  JNFuture’s first Jewish Leadership Institute mission. While I can’t wait to meet with members of the Knesset, enjoy the beach in Tel Aviv, and pray at the wall Friday night...

Judaism has always insisted on “safety first.” Starting with such Torah-based commands to build a parapet around one’s home to prevent objects from falling off roofs and to cover holes on roadways and fields, Jewish law requires that...