Yakov M. Rabkin

1 week ago | juancole.com | Yakov M. Rabkin |Juan Cole

Montréal (Special to Informed Comment; Featured) – As missiles fly across West Asia, I recall my trip to Iran where, in 2016, I discovered a fascinating country and a vibrant Jewish community. I enquire every day about the safety of people close to me in both Israel and Iran. What goes on there is tragic and criminal. Many reproach Israel for not following the wisdom of the Jewish tradition of seeking to turn an enemy into a friend.

3 weeks ago | juancole.com | Yakov M. Rabkin |Juan Cole

Montréal.(Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – The genocide in Gaza continues unabated as I write these lines. Belatedly, a few Israelis have begun decrying the starvation and mass murder that their army—a people’s army—has perpetrated since October 2023. These acts, supported by the majority of the country’s Jews, exceed in cruelty and brutality the violence that the IDF routinely used against Palestinians since before the unilateral declaration of independence in 1948.

2 months ago | juancole.com | Yakov M. Rabkin |Juan Cole

Montréal (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – There is a proverbial elephant in the room that few dare to identify openly. Revoking visas, arresting students on the streets, detaining them in staunchly Republican jurisdictions, banning protests, cutting federal funding to universities, and forcing institutions to censor their faculty and curricula—all of these actions, and more, violate academic freedom, civil liberties, and both U.S. and international law.

Mar 17, 2025 | juancole.com | Yakov M. Rabkin |Juan Cole

( The Times of Israel) – The author is a renowned journalist, political scientist, and professor of journalism at New York University. He headed The New Republic magazine and is the author of four books. Named among the hundred “global thinkers” by Foreign Affairs, he is widely present in American media, particularly as an editor-at-large for Jewish Currents.