Author; benjaminkerstein

Benjamin Kerstein is an Israeli-American writer and editor. Born in Boston, he made aliyah to Israel in 2002 and holds degrees in Jewish history from Ben-Gurion University and Tel Aviv University. He worked as an assistant editor for Azure, a contributing writer for The New Ledger, associate editor of The Tower, and is currently the […]

Peter Beinart thinks Jews don’t need Zionism. That’s because he’s never needed it himself. In today’s world, when the Jewish people have realized one of the essential tenets of Judaism—return and redemption—in the form of refounding a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, the debate over Zionism and anti-Zionism essentially consists of two arguments: […]

There comes a time when we have to start seeing the pattern, understanding its depth and meaning, and recognizing just how high are the stakes for the world we know. Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again. —Andre Gide There is […]

We are watching the era of the new iconoclasm take shape, no longer in the form of the destruction of religious icons, but in the demolition of historical memory via the toppling or desecration of statues and memorials across the West. While the removal of Confederate statues can be justified—though it should be accomplished by […]

“I’m just like Anne Frank,” Bob Dylan sings on his latest album, “like Indiana Jones, and them British bad boys the Rolling Stones.” The strange confluence of these images ‐‐ an icon of the tragedy of the Holocaust, a blockbuster movie character and a British rock band ‐‐ seems to sum up the extraordinary and […]