Item: Last November, Israel’s Cabinet voted to create a prison-like detention center in the southern part of the country in which to contain the refugees who fled to the Jewish state from persecution in Africa. The daily newspaper Haaretz quoted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as saying that the facility is needed because the refugees are “a threat to the character of the state. As opposed to previous governments, this government is acting.” The facility can hold 10,000 inmates. There are approximately 40,000 refugees destined to be sent there.

Hypocrisy is an ancient curse.

One thing you discover in studying other cultures is that from way back in time, each has had its own way of saying that all people deserve equal consideration. Sometimes the statement is made in the negative, sometimes in the positive, sometimes in both forms.

This Sunday, at the West Side Institutional Synagogue in Manhattan, I will lead a conversation between Michael Steinhardt, the co-founder of Birthright Israel, and Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, on “Obama, Israel, and how Jewish values can be used to renew America.” Michael was one of the founders of the Democratic Leadership Council. Indeed, it was once a given that nearly all Jews would vote Democrat. Times are changing, however, as Jews witness the unshakable commitment of leaders such as Eric on Israel vs. President Barack Obama’s obviously tenuous record.

To be sure, the president deserves high marks for enhancing America’s military cooperation with Israel and especially his rejection of unilateral Palestinian statehood at the United Nations. Those who say that Obama is anti-Israel malign him against the facts and those who say he is anti-Semitic are guilty of character assassination.

Of all the “antiquated” customs in Judaism, the ones related to Sukkot may be among the most embarrassing for modern Jews.

Imagine being dressed in a business suit and waving palm branches decorated with willows and myrtle, and pairing them together, no less, to the world’s most expensive “lemon,” the etrog (or citron). Not only does this smack of pagan tree-hugging rituals, say the naysayers, but the Torah probably never meant for the words of Leviticus 23:40 to be taken in this way.

Last week’s Jewish Standard cover story focused on the growing GOP challenge to the once impregnable Democratic fortress of North Jersey. It turns out that it is not just the Arabs who are having their spring. Here in the United States, Americans are calling their government to account like never before and throwing out entrenched, machine politicians with a spending addiction.

Driving to JFK airport in New York from my home in New Jersey, I discovered that the cost of crossing the George Washington Bridge had jumped from $8 to $12. The Robert F. Kennedy Bridge (it used to be called the Triborough Bridge) cost another $6.50 to cross. These bridges serve in two states — New Jersey and New York — that both have among the highest property taxes in the nation, among the highest sales taxes, and among the highest income tax rates often at both state and local levels, in addition to the federal rate. Apparently, none of these taxes covers the maintenance of an old, rusting bridge.

War is hell — but is it halachic?

Shammai Engelmayer

When we marked the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 horror, we also began the inexorable march toward another 10th anniversary, that of the start of the war in Afghanistan. On Oct. 7, 2001, the United States and several of its allies launched Operation Enduring Freedom, designed to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and destroy al Qaeda and its Taliban protectors.

These were noble goals, and few argued that the war was anything but just. Was it, however, what God wanted?

Wars almost always have been seen as sacred conflicts. Each side has God’s sanction; each side is fulfilling God’s wishes.

Paul Krugman believes that Republicans are knuckle-dragging Neanderthals who would drag America back to the Stone Age given the chance. “One of these years,” he warns in The New York Times, “the world’s greatest nation will find itself ruled by a party that is aggressively anti-science, indeed anti-knowledge. And, in a time of severe challenges — environmental, economic, and more — that’s a terrifying prospect.” Terrifying indeed. What is more frightening than the prospect of a bunch of underdeveloped orangutans with their finger on the nuclear button?

To my mind, even more frightening is a Nobel-prize winning columnist in what claims to be the world’s most authoritative newspaper writing broad generalities about how Republicans are unlettered buffoons who hate learning and science.

I wonder sometimes whether I just deplaned from some Twilight Zone-like inter-dimensional transport, having lived in an alternate universe lo these many years and finally returning to the “real world.” How else can I explain the fascination many Jews today have for the political right?

Certainly, the Torah is no “suicide pact” (credit for the phrase apparently belongs to the late Justice Robert Jackson, although he was referring to the U.S. Constitution). There is no “turn-the-other-cheek” or “give away the store” mindset in it. It is not some ancient version of the Communist Manifesto. It does not forbid people from making comfortable livings and even being able to squirrel away resources to meet future needs.

The 270 victims of Pan Am 103 may soon rest easier because their murderer is on the brink of being toppled from power. Even as the world awaits word of Gadhafi’s downfall, however, it must also look toward a day of reckoning for those in the West who supported him and kept him in power.

For decades, the world tolerated the crazed and bloodthirsty Libyan leader for one reason: He had oil.

The most egregious violators were the British. Prime Minister David Cameron and Labor leader Ed Milliband decry Britain’s loss of morals, which, they say, is evidenced by the recent News of the World tabloid scandal and the riots that had London burning.