Must all the parties on Israel’s left merge before the next election?

What were the most important people, events and trends of Israel’s momentous, trying, eventful past decade?

For decades, once hapless immigrants to Israel from Yemen, Iraq and other Mid-eastern countries have said that, 70 years ago, their babies were taken and never returned. Some say that, until there is hard-and-fast evidence, these claims must be treated with suspicion. But shouldn’t we switch the default to trusting the victims?

A once-mild religious Zionist party joins forces with a far-far-right religious party. What’s this say about the soul and politics of religious Zionism today?

Tel Aviv parents go ballistic when they learn their high-school kids are gender-segregated for a one-off meeting with visiting religious kids. Are they right to be so upset?

Israeli 15 year olds do third-worldishly lousy on an huge international standardized test. What accounts for the mediocrity in math, science and reading? Is Israel destined to become the “Dumbed Down Nation”?

Netanyahu is almost sure to win next week’s Likud leadership primary, and yet it still feels like maybe end of one era and the beginning of another. What’s happening in the Likud?

Do native born Israelis just not “get” anti-semitism?

Is the love-him-or-hate-him acrimony over Prime Minister Netanyahu really a struggle between “First Israel” (well-heeled, secular Ashkenazim) and “Second Israel” (pretty much everyone else)?

What are Israel’s third-time-this-year Knesset elections about, anyway? Did we learn anything from our failed first two elections?