Jacob Sivak
ARTICLES BY: Jacob Sivak
How Many Jews Are Too Many?
In April 2022, the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics reported that at the end of 2020 -- 75 years after the end of World War...
Painful Memories in Ukraine, Past and Present
The tragedy and horrifying images from Ukraine resulting from the Russian invasion of the country brought to mind a picture in my late father’s family...
Why Are There Two Talmuds? The Answer: The Diaspora
Recently, a new translation of the Jerusalem Talmud was made available on Sefaria, the free access web interactive platform for Jewish texts that was established...
Palestinian Prisoners and the Israeli Death Penalty
Six Palestinian inmates (five belonged to Islamic Jihad, and four were serving life sentences for attacks that killed Israelis) recently escaped from a prison in...
Why Does the Media Ignore the Only True Democracy in the Middle East?
A recent opinion column by the journalist Gwynne Dyer was titled “No Functioning Democracies in Arab World.” The article notes that in Syria, Yemen, and Libya,...
More Than Oranges: The Continuing Success of the Israeli Economy
Growing up in Montreal in the 1950s and 1960s in a Zionist household meant being aware of the precarious nature of the Israeli economy and...
Jewish History Proves Jews Are Indigenous to Israel
Jewish history is long, tortuous, and difficult to grasp in its entirety. Moreover, there is the history of the Jews, and then there is the...
COVID-19 Vaccines, Israel and Antisemitism
The COVID-19 pandemic is a global challenge, and the one thing that should be clear to everybody is that no country or population is immune...
Despite COVID-19, the Israeli Economy Will Continue to Thrive
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics reported that Israel’s economy grew by 3.3% in 2019. While this is slightly lower than...
Hebrew as the Proof of Jewish Continuity
Many have wondered about the underlying basis for the continuing existence of the Jewish people. In their book Jews and Words (2012), Amos Oz and...
The Anglican Church of Canada Prays for Reconciliation with the Jews
When I was a young Jewish boy growing up in Montreal, I remember seeing a woman on the sidewalk of St. Catherine Street, the primary...
Jews Are Indigenous to the Land of Israel
In a Tablet Magazine article, Ryan Bellerose asked, “Are Jews Indigenous to the Land of Israel?” Bellerose’s answer is yes. He refers to Jews as...
The Founding Fathers of Israel’s Scientific Legacy
While technically a failure, the crash landing of an Israeli space probe on the moon’s surface was successful in many respects. It was also the...
Why Have Jewish Refugees From the Arab World Been Forgotten?
I recently watched a television reporter interviewing participants in an Al-Quds Day rally held in Toronto on June 9, 2018. (This is an Iranian-initiated event to...
