Gary Rosenblatt

How do you deal with Mideast heads of state who refuse to accept historical fact or reality?

Dennis Ross, the longtime U.S. diplomat and Mideast expert, says that there has never been a time in its tumultuous history that the State of Israel has faced as many threats and unknowns as today.

He should know.

Until I was 10 or 11 years old, I didn’t realize you had to pay to go to the movies. That’s because our family didn’t.

As one of the perks of being a rabbi in a small town, my dad had a clergy pass for the family, allowing us to go to any of the three movie theaters in Annapolis, Md., any time. And since there wasn’t much for a kid to do in town in those days, I went often, seeing each of the movies playing at least once, and sometimes twice. Often with my brother or my friend, Michael, the son of the cantor, since his family, too, had a clergy pass.

Isn’t it nice to see Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama fighting it out over who is Israel’s greater friend and ally?

My advice: sit back and enjoy it while it lasts, but don’t take it too seriously.

In mid-May 2013, just before Shavuot, the first winner of the annual $1 million Genesis Prize, described as the “Jewish Nobel Prize,” is scheduled to be announced in Jerusalem amidst much media hoopla.

A yeshiva rebbe in Bnei Brak, the largest haredi city in Israel, has come up with a great plan for making army duty more equitable in the Jewish state.

Well, make that half a great plan and half a potential disaster.

Rabbi Simcha Avraham Halevi says that for the sake of fairness, with the government pushing to end army exemptions for haredi young men who are full-time yeshiva students, all secular young Israelis should be required to study Torah.

Israelis call him by his affectionate nickname, Bibi, but few speak of him with warmth.

There is no alternative political leader on the horizon, but that doesn’t mean he’s popular at home.

Even though he is not known for his integrity, he is widely trusted with protecting the fate of his people as Israel faces the threat of extinction from a nuclear Iran.

Only about 2 percent of the respondents to the New York Jewish Population Study are “Jewish by conversion.” Twice as many people — 5 percent of the study — describe themselves as “Jewish by personal choice.”

Jerusalem — “Tomorrow” was the theme of this year’s Israeli Presidential Conference, a three-day program that attracted more than 4,000 guests from around the world here this past week. But there was an air of nostalgia on the opening evening when host Shimon Peres, the 88-year-old president of Israel, bestowed the Presidential Award of Distinction on Henry Kissinger, 89, praising the former U.S. secretary of state as “a great statesman and a great Jew” for statecraft performed in the 1970s.

Simon Kuh didn’t chant a Haftorah for his bar mitzvah several Shabbat mornings ago at Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills. Instead, the 13-year-old reported on his recent ride alone on a city bus, the 720 Wilshire, across Los Angeles on a Friday at rush hour “to see my city from a different perspective.”