Haggadot have historically evolved to reflect the needs and aspirations of their respective communities. Eli Valley envisions an American Jewish Haggadah for presidential primary season. Eli Valley is a writer and artist whose work has appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, The Daily Beast, Gawker and elsewhere. A collection of his comics will be released later this year by OR Books. His website is www.elivalley.com and he tweets @elivalley.

LGBTQ organizations in Israel are threatening to cancel Tel Aviv's yearly Pride Parade unless the government allocates more money to their groups and causes at home — and not just use the parade to promote Israel as a bastion of progressive liberalism overseas. The government's response? Pull the international promotional budget. By Yael Marom The LGTBQ community in Israel is threatening to hold a huge demonstration instead of the internationally lauded annual Tel Aviv Pride Parade this year. The bold threat is the result of an announcement that the Tourism Ministry was budgeting NIS 11 million ($2.9 million) to promote…

With war raging over Israel's border with Syria, it's easy to forget that the Golan Heights — a buffer between the two countries — is occupied territory. But occupied it is, and the landscape bears witness to a history of violence and expulsion. "The sky fell to earth, the stars turned to stones..." — Elias Khoury, Gate of the Sun I’m standing at the top of a crumbling minaret, looking into Syria. The tower belongs to a mosque in the destroyed Circassian village of Sur’aman, whose ruins are gradually being consumed by the woods around them. In the distance lies…

A mass rally in support of Sgt. Elor Azaria, who was filmed shooting a wounded Palestinian, has stirred a heated debate on social media about the future of the rule of law and the status of the IDF. But nobody wondered how the Palestinians should be factored in. By Orly Noy The Israeli soldier who was caught on camera shooting a wounded Palestinian knifeman has been indicted for manslaughter, the military prosecution said on Monday. Meanwhile, a mini brouhaha erupted over a solidarity concert for the soldier, who following the indictment can be named as Sergeant Elor Azaria, that is…

Throughout much of my life, I have been engaged in attempts to improve Jewish-Arab relations in Israel. But a recent trip to Morocco, where Jews and Muslims lived in harmony for centuries, filled me with hope for my country. Life after the conflict: Act One.  By Ron Gerlitz Yes we can. We can imagine good relations between Jews and Arabs here, in the State of Israel, and generally in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. This is the main insight with which I returned from a very meaningful trip together with members of the Shaharit "120"…

Poet and activist Dareen Tatour has been charged with incitement to violence based on a poem she posted on Facebook. Its translation by a policeman whose sole competence as a translator is his 'love for the Arabic language,' was enough to convince the court to extend her remand and keep her under house arrest. By Yoav Haifawi At 3 a.m., just before dawn on October 10, 2015, patrol cars from the Nazareth Police, escorted by a unit of Israel’s Border Police, surrounded a quiet house in the nearby village of Al-Reineh. They broke in and woke up the terrified inhabitants,…

More than 7,000 Palestinians, including hundreds of minors, are currently in Israeli prisons. Honoring prisoners and 'freedom fighters' isn't just a Palestinian tradition, however. Israelis do it, too. By Noam Rotem Palestinians across the West Bank and Gaza marked “Prisoners Day” Sunday, commemorating and highlighting the plight of thousands of Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons, and the hundreds of thousands of former prisoners. [tmwinpost] For many Israelis Palestinian prisoners are “terrorists,” whose imprisonment is the natural order of things. But for Palestinians they are freedom fighters who sacrificed their liberty for the good of the Palestinian struggle for liberation…

He may be serving five consecutive life sentences in an Israeli prison but Marwan Barghouti is the only leader who has a chance to succeed Mahmoud Abbas and unite the Palestinian people. This is how he plans on doing it. By Menachem Klein Until recently Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was considered only a lame duck. Long ago he had promised not to run for president in the next elections. Not a single politician threatened him, he did not appoint a vice president, and elections never took place. But over the past two weeks Abbas has gone from lame duck to…

While anti-Semitism is considered a serious moral failing in Western society today, anti-Palestinianism is not even recognized as a phenomenon worthy of being studied.  By Jeremiah Haber By “anti-Palestinianism” I understand prejudice against Palestinian Arabs based on perceived negative qualities of Palestinian cultural or natural identity. Views such as “Palestinian Arab culture is a culture of death and martyrdom,” “Palestinian Arabs hate Jews because of incitement,” “Palestinian labor is inferior” are examples of this prejudice. Attempts to justify these prejudices are inevitably based on selective data, generalization, and bias. [tmwinpost] By “anti-Semitism,” I understand prejudice against Jews based on perceived…

The Tahhan brothers refuse to give up on their neighborhood, or their city. By Laura Selz Opening a café is a risky endeavor anywhere. Doing so in East Jerusalem is even riskier. Just as Café Sarwa opened its doors for the first time in October 2015 the current wave of violence was starting on the streets of East Jerusalem, not that there was a shortage of political and economic challenges development in the occupied part of the city before that. The story of Café Sarwa is the story of a couple of young entrepreneurs fighting the cultural and economic abandonment…

The candor and critical tone with which the Democratic presidential candidate discusses Israel and the occupation points to the start of a new era. Can the Palestinian struggle for justice find an ally in the American people? By Jamal Zahalka Bernie Sanders remarks on the last Israel attack on Gaza raised controversy and led to a series of angry responses by both the Zionist lobby in the United States and the Israeli public. His opponents took advantage of the fact that he mistakenly told the New York Daily News that 10,000 innocent Palestinian civilians were killed in the attack (despite…

Simone Zimmerman's appointment is great news for mainstream American Jews who are desperate for a real conversation on Israel/Palestine. Over the past few days, it has been difficult to watch the American Jewish establishment's attacks on my friend, Simone Zimmerman. Just three days ago Simone was appointed the Jewish outreach coordinator for Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign. Within hours of the announcement came a torrent of vicious attacks, both against her as well as the Sanders campaign for having the gall to appoint a critic of Israeli settlements and policies in the occupied territories. (Update: Just hours after publishing this post,…

The ruling Likud party welcomed to Israel members of the far-right Austrian Freedom Party, whose founders were high-ranking officials in the Third Reich. But the Israeli Right's ties to fascist movements stretch back as far as the 1920s. By Noam Rotem The heads of the Freedom Party of Austria, an extremist, far-right political party, are currently visiting Israel following a formal invitation from the ruling Likud party. [tmwinpost] This isn't the first time top right-wing Israeli politicians have supported the Freedom Party of Austria, which was established by high-ranking members of the Nazi regime and SS officers. They themselves are…