Vered Kellner

Perhaps here in New York, unlike previous years in Tel Aviv, I will have the space to hurt on Memorial Day, and rejoice over Israel's existence, without someone checking to see if I'm doing so at the prescribed volume.

At long last Rama Burshtein’s movie provides an authentic picture of ultra-Orthodox society but it’s the director’s secular past, and not Haredi society’s silencing of women, which pushes her to express herself.

Did those women fighting for freedom of worship at the Western Wall ever stop to think why they should be encouraging such a primitive, fetishistic aspect of Judaism, so disconnected from our reality? Who wants the Wall anyway?

At Passover, my friends along the Orthodox spectrum and I struggle to find a balance between the tyranny of family traditions, our love for Jewish texts and a healthy dose of cynicism. Do we have the freedom to hold a seder that truly reflects who we have chosen to be?

Jon Stewart was being sarcastic when he said "Everyone knows you get to be racist on Purim." But has American Jewish defensiveness killed the subversive and plain fun of dressing up and playing with identities?

The Radical Republicans' purist disdain for compromise in Lincoln's time is shared by today's left in Israel. They might sleep well at night, but by refusing to engage in realpolitik, what world will they wake up to in the morning?

Modern Orthodox synagogues are pushing the boundaries of custom and religious law to create a more egalitarian prayer experience. But most of these pioneering communities are found in Israel, rather than in the U.S.

Dr. Ruth Calderon, who has made thorny and ancient Jewish texts accessible to non-religious Israelis through writings, teachings and television programs, now must translate her egalitarian perspective into action as a Knesset member representing Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid party.

As a weary Israeli whose shoulders are stiff from 20-plus years of voting eligibility and the intolerable responsibility of its implications, this year I am having a respite. But I can't escape all Israelis' feelings of helplessness about the political situation, our compromises of conscience and the grave price we will all be paying for the election's likely outcome.

Is the American public growing weary of the catwalk parade of slim presidents and their excessive self-control? If the appetite for power is an essential attribute for a leader's resume, let him display it, as Ariel Sharon did.

Israeli mainstream religious thought is increasingly dominated by the view that complexity leads to heresy, not least in the school system, where the indoctrination begins. In New York, it's like a different religion.

In New York, American Jews, unable to resist temptation, try to set me straight on Israeli politics, though I as an outsider tread cautiously on their home turf of U.S. politics.