Author: David Rutman

Late last week, Vice President JD Vance expressed frustration with Israel, accusing Israeli cabinet ministers of “very personally attacking” President Trump instead of simply criticizing the memorandum of understanding he negotiated with Iran. Around the same time, President Trump asserted that without America there would be no Israel. Within hours, Ambassador Mike Huckabee offered a […]

It feels like an awkward time for Jews to celebrate America’s birthday, when antisemitism is at record levels and we’re witnessing a bipartisan betrayal of Israel with the signing of an MOU with the genocidal tyrants of Tehran. But we don’t choose birthdays. They choose us. And on July Fourth, we will be taking a […]

In a sermon prior to his retirement, Rabbi David Wolpe shared an anecdote that resonated deeply with me. He said: I know that this will sound very strange to you…the part of the service that I both enjoy most and fear most is carrying the Torah around – because I know I will not look […]

I’ve been marveling from afar at how New York City has come together to celebrate the Knicks winning the NBA championship. Here is a great city that has been struggling for years, divided and broken in many ways, and yet, one amazing victory has brought a kaleidoscope of humanity together. Unity, that impossible and elusive […]

Talking to Rabbi Richard Camras, and Rabbi Stewart Vogel of HaMakom synagogue in West Hills, is like talking to identical twins. The two native Angelenos, longtime friends and professional colleagues, have strikingly similar career paths, present convictions and future intentions. They are so much in tune with each other, they practically finish each other’s sentences. […]

Here in Israel, a country still reeling from the trauma of Oct. 7 and the wars that followed, it’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t think the ceasefire deal with Iran is a disaster. Times of Israel editor-in-chief David Horovitz, known for his balanced, centrist views, calls the deal a “catastrophic capitulation to Iran’s aggressors,” […]

“Zionism” is now a bad word in many circles. It’s used to insult others and has become an antisemitic slur heard on college campuses, city streets, and social media. Despite the anti-Israel, anti-Zionist sentiment poisoning so many institutions and people, Herbert Block, executive director of the American Zionist Movement, is optimistic about the Jewish community’s […]

“The aim of the operation is to end the threat from the Ayatollah regime in Iran. [It] will continue as long as necessary. … If we don’t stop them now, they will become invulnerable. Their representatives in negotiations are trying to buy time, attempting to gain time in fruitless and deceitful negotiations with our American […]

Donald Trump has always been a man of gluttonous taste. After surviving a litany of federal and state prosecutions and a slew of civil actions in his four-year hiatus from the White House, he proved to be a glutton for punishment, too. And yet, he always presented himself as a man not to be trifled […]

While Hamas terrorists were hiding behind their own people during Israel’s war in response to the Hamas massacre of 1200 Israelis on Oct.7, 2023, Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid, who had moved to France in 2021, felt his home country was in a state of “total moral collapse.” So he made a film, “Yes,” to capture […]