Yair Lapid is an outstanding performer, a born stand-up comic. By the faint light of my cellphone I try to jot down his witticisms, which are flying fast and furious, but the people around me are grumbling.
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Israel isn't likely to strike Iran's nuclear program - this time
Israel's belligerent talk is likely to be just that - talk. But that doesn't mean the regional upheaval couldn't make the nuclear threats facing us much, much worse.
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Twilight Zone / Carrying the torch
Heaping servings of beauty and soul
Ruth Dolores Weiss has no rivals when it comes to depth of expression. Witness her latest album, of songs 'borrowed' for a moment from their original owners.
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Patriarch of zoology
Prof. Heinrich Mendelssohn devoted his life to studying local fauna. Nine years after his death, his legacy is still palpable.
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Subterranean horror and hope
At the age of 7, in 1943, Krystyna Chiger descended with her family into the sewers of Lvov to escape the Germans, battling hunger, death and disease. Her story has now come to the silver screen, but has ruffled some feathers.
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Talent, and touching vulnerability
A decade ago, Li At Glick left Israel for New York, leaving behind a promising acting career. When she returned, she took up filmmaking. In her premiere work, being screened in Berlin this week, she grapples with one of her life's great traumas.
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Pen Ultimate / Easy to make, hard to deliver
Surprising as it may be, the word "promise" - either alone or in the context of the Land - is not found in any early Hebrew or Jewish sources.
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The Makings of History / Ben-Gurion − and Joshua − slept here
Hotels excite the imagination and provide an illusion of home-like shelter. They are stations on routes of migrations and adventures, escapes and fantasies.
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Portion of the Week / Echoes of the Exodus
Our sages usually read biblical reality through the prism of life as they experienced it. Thus, the patriarchs are depicted as Talmudic scholars debating the fine points of halakha and constantly quoting the Mishnah.
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For members of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Gur sect, sex is a sin
Y., a Gur Hasid, fainted during his pre-wedding counseling session. R. left the sect because she could not stand its alienation of women. A. was sexually harassed as a youth by a religious supervisor. On breaking taboos - and silence.
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Why Netanyahu won't attack Iran
The prime minister isn't a belligerent man, says an opponent. He knows what destruction an attack on Iran would lead to.
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It's the sovereignty, stupid
Outrageous as their vetoes of the Security Council resolution on Syria might have seemed in the West, China and Russia had good reasons to oppose UN condemnation of Assad.
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And for his next trick ...
Fed up with the way his books were being handled by local publishers and bookstores, experimental novelist Alex Epstein chose to offer readers his latest volume of short-short stories on Facebook.
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Singer on fire
Amir Benayoun's new album reunites his yin and yang, his passion and sound judgment, and justifies his top standing in the major leagues of local music.
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Twilight Zone / 'This is no life'
The tiny Jordan Valley village of Khirbet al-Tawil, surrounded by encroaching Jewish settlements, launched a hunger strike to make the world notice their distress.
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Haredi army enlistment may cost Netanyahu precious political capital
One of the main outcomes of last summer's protest will likely be an end to draft exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox. Meanwhile, army reservists are also pressing their case for more favorable affordable-housing criteria.
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The Making of History / Good old days in Eretz Israel
The story of an alleged rape in Mea She'arim that had the whole country in an uproar, 100 years ago.
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Portion of the Week / From the womb of Egypt
Our sages interpret the phrase 'take Him a nation from the midst of another nation' as a metaphor.
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Hanging in the balance
Both in the cabinet and the Prime Minister's Office, there are a number of people anxiously waiting for the legal authorities investigating them to finish their work and sum up their findings.
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