The Truthful Project

 [Originally appeared in the Jerusalem Pos t ] Two headlines this summer caught my eye. One from The Times of Israel “ 50 US professors quit union after it calls Israel a ‘settler-colonial state’ ” and the other from the Forward “ I resigned from the CUNY union because of its antisemitism .” While the articles were about professors at the City University of New York (CUNY), I had also just resigned from my union at Rutgers University for the same reasons. My ex-union, the PTLFC-AAUP-AFT, issued a statement in Solidarity with the Palestinian People (June 12, 2021). I resigned shortly thereafter. The union’s statement made unfounded and unsupported claims that were lies, libelous, slanderous, as well as anti-Semitic and racist. Even after I refuted each false statement, with links to facts and original source material, the union ignored my meticulously detailed supported claims and facts. The union’s statement contained some of the usual tropes: ·    ...

[Originally appeared in the Jerusalem Post ]  We have all been collectors at one time or another. Whether it was baseball cards, dolls, stamps, coins, art, etc. It felt nice to complete a set or obtain a rare item. Collecting gave us selective trivia knowledge to impress others. It also made us feel good to display, share, and inform friends and strangers alike. Our collections were built slowly over time, by buying or trading. Sometimes we might get a gift or inheritance that would start or greatly increase our collection. In some cases, we could build our collections by being explorers, archeologists, or seekers at garage sales, flea markets, or secondhand stores. In every collection, each item would have a story and provenance. Provenance as the chronology of ownership, custody or location of a historical object is of utmost importance when discussing valuable items. For museums and the art trade, in addition to helping establish the authorship and authenticity of an objec...

[Originally appeared in the Jerusalem Post ] We’ve all been there. The stereotypical bad, inconsiderate, crazy, Israeli driver. Why? I am sure you will agree it is due to a number of things. Culture, drivers ed, Israeli mythical traits like aggressiveness, always under threat of war…you get the idea. How do we change this bad and dangerous behavior pattern of current drivers and instill a courteous behavior in new drivers? Here is my simple, two-pronged plan: 1.               Broken Windows. To change current drivers’ bad driving behavior, we should employ the “Broken Windows” approach. This concept posits that serious crime is the final result of a lengthier chain of events, theorizing that crime emanated from disorder and that if disorder were eliminated, then serious crimes would not occur . To apply this approach here, we can call “serious crimes” speeding and car crashes. And “disorder” can be called “di...

We have all heard the phrase “Status Quo” in reference to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Israel. It has been treated as a legal document, spelling out the control and access to the Temple Mount, which is the holiest place on Earth for the Jewish People. The phase “status quo” implies never changing. But is the Status Quo, as it related to the Temple Mount, really unchanging? Is it really historically or even politically correct? Is it working? Is it a truly existing legal document? Much has been written on the Quranic references and Islamic 19 th century writings asserting the Jewish provenance to the Land of Israel and the Temple Mount. While I won’t repeat them here, a great example is a 2010 article from Tablet magazine “ Allah is a Zionist .” Then there are two obvious questions: 1. Why did the rabbis of 1967 not demand Israel maintain control of our holy Temple Mount, even if there were Jewish religious issues regarding access? Did the rabbis not have any concept of...