There they go again. Palestinian Media Watch reports that the official Palestinian Authority newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, announced Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s plan for an upcoming fencing tournament for youth named after terror chieftain Abu Jihad.

You read right. Salam Fayyad, the man who is constantly touted by Western leaders as a “moderate” and a “peace advocate,” is heading up a tournament that glorifies mass murderer Abu Jihad.

A recent intriguing article about Roman Vishniac got me thinking well beyond him.

Vishniac, of course, was the famed photo-chronicler of pre-war Jewish Eastern Europe whose 1983 collection “A Vanished World” is celebrated for its evocative portrayal of shtetl life, Jewish destitution, and religious Jews at home, work, and study.

The article, by veteran journalist Alana Newhouse in The New York Times Magazine, focuses on the work of an assiduous researcher, Maya Benton, who has uncovered evidence that some of the narratives accompanying Vishniac’s photographs are unreliable, that what seem candid shots were likely posed, and that, as per the photographer’s assignment in the employ of the Joint Distribution Committee, the Jewish world he captured on film was a constricted one — a mere piece of a universe considerably larger, more diverse, more complex.

The crisis in funding Jewish education has reached the breaking point. For many families, the “Great Recession” has turned the yearly ritual of writing tuition checks from a gripe into a catastrophe.

Approximately 200,000 students are attending some 700 Jewish day schools in the United States. Tuition averages about $14,000 per student and has increased 7 percent a year over the past five years, overwhelming many families who have struggled to maintain wage levels or even stay employed.

It was 1974. I was in medical school and the student union was giving out donated tickets to the Rangers game. I went on the subway to see the game. Most of the seats were taken. Suddenly, in the midst of a pleasant ride to Manhattan, a large muscular man walked across the aisle and started beating a young woman. I jumped to my feet to intervene, confident there would be at least 10 people behind me to assist in stopping this assault.

This giant of a man turned to face me, and it was now only the two of us standing on the train, while the rest of the passengers stared in either anticipation or apathy. Remembering what my father had taught me about basketball — “short and Jewish, shoot from the outside” — I was in a disadvantaged position for a fight with someone somewhat drunk and twice my size. Facing two large raised fists, I spoke quietly but firmly, telling him this was unacceptable and while I did not want to fight (I really did not), I could not sit by and allow the assault. This criminal, like most, followed the path of least resistance and left the train at the next stop. When I returned to my seat, a young man next to me asked why I stood up to the assailant, telling me that I could have gotten myself killed. This bystander made more of an impression on me than the confrontation.

When the plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and dozens of officials crashed in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk, Russia, on Saturday, this immense disaster was also a personal tragedy.

I lost friends in the crash that killed key leaders from the Polish government, economy, and military.

These friends represented democratic Poland, the country that emerged after a decade of struggle led by Solidarity and KOR activists. And of all places for Polish leaders to meet their maker, why did it have to be Katyn, Poles ask, the site of the 1940 Soviet massacre of more than 20,000 Polish officers?

How much can you berate a friend and still call him or her a friend?

As Israel continues to dust off from the latest dust-up with her closest ally, it might be wondering about the future of a once-storied friendship. Over the Passover holiday week, a period of relative quiet has set in. But we can’t let this seeming calm make us complacent that things are back to normal.

It’s quite possible that this strained relationship is the new normal. And that will require some major adjustments.

There are hundreds of books about the Holocaust on classroom and library shelves, but my co-author, David Gold, and I decided that books and videos that hit people on the head with huge numbers of dead people — and even survivor memoirs — weren’t always reaching students. All you had to do was look around to see we were failing.

Israeli officials faced “coalition challenges” on three fronts last month: U.S.-Israel relations; the cohesion of the governing coalition; and diaspora-Israel relations. A seismic shift took place that should not be missed. The diaspora community, which has been too silent on issues of religious freedom when challenges to Israeli security and internal political unity were present, strongly spoke out.

The U.S. and Israeli governments are working through a major crisis in the wake of the controversial settlement announcement during Vice President Biden’s visit. At the same time, on a different issue, the coalition government seemed at risk of crumbling under the weight of the intransigent ultra-religious parties. The catalyst was the Rotem conversion bill, which began as an effort to open the system of religious conversion courts. It suddenly expanded to include possible changes to the Law of Return and further disenfranchisement of the majority of world Jewry.