Traveling in a Confused World
The simple act of living in Israel has a heroic dimension to it. You have had rockets fly over you, you have lived through times when buses were exploding daily, you have served in the army, you know your children will. Islamism, terror, jihad are not just disturbing news from far away lands. It’s the crust of day-to-day life in Israel. Continue reading “The Evil of Heroism”
My last post, in which I call for a new agenda for Israel (one that focuses more on being a great country for its citizens and less on being a Jewish state) has gathered a lot of comments on Facebook, and so I thought I should reply to one of the most popular arguments that have been voiced. Continue reading “If You Want To Live In a Great Country, Move to Australia”
One could say that I live in a country-free bubble. I don’t really care about Jewish holidays, I don’t observe Jewish traditions, I don’t listen to Israeli music, I don’t watch Israeli TV (or any TV at all for that matter). I have my family, my friends, my job, my volunteering. I watch Game of Thrones, read non-fiction in English and prose in Russian, get most of my news from Facebook, listen to electronic music on the Internet. Almost none of it is connected specifically to Israel. Continue reading “I Want To Love My Country Because It’s Great, Not Because It’s Mine”
In 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama famously proclaimed “the end of history”, that is the eventual victory of Western-type democracy over all other types of political systems. Since then China, Russia, and radical Islam have all tried to prove him wrong. Continue reading “A Muslim, a Russian, and a Chinese Walk Into a Bar”
How many times you read media reports about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, hoping to understand something, but always coming up empty-handed? You aren’t alone.
A week ago, the eyes of the media turned to the latest military escalation between Israel and Hamas. Beside the regular reports of the death toll and the reaction of the world, the more serious journalists tried to explain the conflict beyond the current event. Unfortunately, it’s too complex for the casual commentator, so often such analysis has resorted to rehashing of shallow arguments, and “neutral” points of view that neither take sides nor promote any real understanding. So here are the most popular media cliches about the conflict: Continue reading “Top 4 Media Cliches about the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict”
In my last post I talked about the evolution of man – from the blindly ambitious traditional man of the past, to the cynical and bored modern man of the present to the examining and harmonious conscious man of the near future. Continue reading “The Rise of The Conscious Organization”
In a recent program on a Russian TV station, high-school teenagers were asked whether they think that a totalitarian regime is good or bad. Two boys spoke their mind. They said that “it is mostly good, because it brings order and structure into society, and enables progress. If people are not ruled, are not forced to work, nothing gets done”. Subtle nods and facial expressions of the other kids in the class revealed a general support for the view expressed by these two boys. Continue reading “The Russian Myth of the Strong Hand”
Last Saturday me and a bunch of friends went hiking. We were met by a hot weather, small current of water, slippery rocks and lots of arid vegetation – in other words, a typical Israeli landscape. After a five hour walk, and a short trip by a car, hungry and tired we arrived at a beer brewery in Katzrin. As we were waiting for our beer tastings, an interesting conversation began to develop. Continue reading “On The Humanness Of Criminals”
