"Part of the beauty of the way Australians hang out isn't just how relaxed it is, but the inclusive, ..." — Bari Weiss

For reasons historic, aesthetic, and political, we Jews are most attuned to the anti-Semitism of the far Right - and we find the most sympathy among our progressive allies when these are our attackers.

To many American Jews, it is a truism that Barack Obama was the anti-Israel president. It was Mr. Obama who signed the Iran deal, which Israel portrayed as a mortal danger. It was Mr. Obama whose most contentious relationship with a foreign leader was with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In Israel, there is no civil marriage. All elements of religious life - from the kosher certification of food to conversion to marriages and burials - are controlled by the rabbinate. In Israel, then, the official religion is not just Judaism. It's Orthodoxy.

I'm not someone who from a young age imagined myself being a writer or had dreams of being a novelist or anything like that, but I was always very driven by ideas and by values, and that is the reason I got into journalism.