All of the above? Yeah, that was January. Just January.

Since then, in the Territories, Hamas and the P.A. cracked down fiercely on popular protests in favor of unity. Then, suddenly, they agreed to unity, even though it was always doubtful it would actually work. But they stayed together long enough to mount the most threatening Nakba Day protests in years if not decades, and to threaten even worse come September—if they seek unilateral statehood.

Substantively, the most consequential thing President Obama did vis-à-vis Israel was veto a Security Council resolution condemning settlements. In a speech in May, Obama pledged similar opposition to the statehood gambit, condemned Hamas and the P.A.’s deal with it, sharply criticized Iran, and committed the U.S. to totally standing up for Israel’s security and right to exist. And he mentioned what the previous two presidents had assumed: That a two-state solution depended on land-swaps based on the ’67 borders. So, naturally, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded angrily, creating a huge diplomatic mess that has yet to be fully untangled, and which could have implications on the 2012 U.S. presidential contest.

The Fogel massacre. The Hamas rocket attacks. The Jerusalem bus stop explosion. Israeli responses claimed lives, including of innocents.

On the Iranian front, first we were given ample reason to believe that its purported nuclear program was substantially delayed. But then we learned that Stuxnet, while helpful, was no panacea. And then we learned that Iran has made significant progress on weaponization technology.

Egypt continues to move tentatively toward democracy.

In Lebanon, the sealed U.N. indictment for the 2005 assassination of the former prime minister (and father of the also-former prime minister, who had to resign when Hezbollah pulled its support) was only last week partially unsealed; expect things to continue to get hotter there.

It was weird that the Syrian regime was brutally cracking down on internal dissent, and barely anyone was saying anything. And that was half-a-half-a-year ago.

Former White House chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel, who once harbored dreams of being the first Jewish Speaker of the House, instead decided to run for mayor of Chicago; was briefly declared ineligible, then not; then won.

We were there as Rabbi Gershom Sizoumu ran for and lost a seat in Uganda’s parliament. We observed the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. Ellen Weiss, an NPR honcho and wife of the enormously influential Rabbi David Saperstein, was forced to resign. Rep. Peter King held hearings on the American Muslim community, attracting the opposition of the American Jewish community. The Reform movement picked a new head.

Jimmy Carter was sued by people who bought and hated his book. Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder sued Washington City Paper, and even got the Simon Wiesenthal Center to endorse his ludicrous accusation of anti-Semitism—maybe his buddy Tom Cruise helped? Jon Demjanjuk was convicted of helping carry out the Holocaust, and then set free.

Quote of the Half-Year (paraphrased): “Oops!” — Richard Goldstone.

Western countries invaded Libya, possibly out of Holocaust guilt. A crazy guy tried to blow up a Santa Monica Chabad house. Benjamin Netanyahu and Justin Bieber were plausibly mentioned in the same sentence. A glass ceiling was shattered when Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was picked to be the first woman to run either the Democratic or Republican National Committee. The Prince of Wales had the least Jewish wedding ever. Controversy swirled about playwright Tony Kushner. Jill Abramson was named the first woman editor of the New York Times. Dolph Schayes rooted for the Dallas Mavericks to win the NBA championship, and lo, it came to pass.

Eva Braun in blackface. Eva Braun speaking to the Tenafly JCC.

On the home front, Nextbook Press author Hillel Halkin was honored, and Rush Limbaugh said we were a “radical left-wing” outfit. We rolled out a welcome mat for Goldblog. And the American Society of Magazine Editors confirmed that it enjoys The Scroll.

We said several goodbyes, most of them sad: Elizabeth Taylor; Chris Hondros (whose photograph adorns the top of this post); Juliano Mer-Khamis; and Debbie Friedman, whose death I managed to turn into a controversy, though I swear I mourn for her as well. I don’t, however, mourn for one of the most important U.S. neo-Nazis, who was killed by his own son. There were many other sad goodbyes. Meanwhile, Sen. Joseph Lieberman announced he would retire after four terms. John Galliano’s career ended, or at least lulled, on less favorable terms. So did Rep. Anthony Weiner’s. Oh, and a final goodbye: Enjoy your virgins, Osama. Hamas will enjoy them with you. (Fortunately or not, Noam Chomsky’s religion does not conceive of an afterlife.)

Where do we stand now? Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested for rape, which is looking more questionable by the day; Israeli central banker Stanley Fischer was barred from replacing him as head of the International Monetary Fund. The most Jewish state got gay marriage thanks in part to a handful of Jewish Republicans. Israeli-American law student Ilan Grapel is still being detained by Egyptian authorities under dubious espionage accusations. Benjamin Netanyahu’s greatest domestic rival may well be retired Mossad chief Meir Dagan. The Gaza flotilla remains docked.

How should you deal with all this? We suggest going the f**k to shul.

Yehudah Krinsky, the Chabad-Lubavitch leader, remained at the top for the second year in a row. By far the biggest hit was taken by Eric Yoffie, who moved from number 2 to off the list—no doubt because of his lame-duck status (though I question this radical movement, given that he will head the Union for Reform Judaism through July 2012); his nominated replacement, Richard Jacobs, took number seven. David Wolpe, a Conservative rabbi in Los Angeles, went from 13 to the runner-up spot. The rest of the top ranks are no strangers there: Three, four, and five went to David Saperstein, of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism; Peter Rubenstein, arguably New York City’s most influential Reform pulpit rabbi; and Marvin Hier, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. (Oh, and congratulations to Joseph Telushkin, author of Nextbook Press’s Hillel, who secured 15th for the third year in a row.)

Women. Best thing about this year’s list? It has more women (13) than the past two years’ lists combined (six and six), which is likely a reflection both of actual trends and of the recognition that not enough have been included. Last year’s top-ranked woman, at 17, was Ellen Weinberg-Dreyfus of the Reform movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis; this year, it’s Sharon Brous, at 10, a Conservative rabbi whose innovative, spiritual “IKAR” movement is all the rage in L.A., where such things tend to be all the rage. Other notables in this category include Naomi Levy, 19th, also a Conservative founder of a quirky, catchy, spiritual L.A. movement; Sharon Kleinbaum, 24th, head of Manhattan’s Beit Simchat Torah, the largest LGBT-focused congregation; and, of course, Sara Hurwitz, 32nd, controversially appointed Orthodox Judaism’s first “rabba” last year by Avi Weiss (#12). May there be 20 or 25 next year!

Down a Schneier. Last year’s father-son tandem, Arthur and Marc Schneier, ranked 34th and 41st, respectively. Arthur, of Manhattan’s Park East, continues to be a rising star, at 26, but his tastefully named son—who has been in the news for all the wrong reasons—dropped off the list.

Shmuley. New Jersey’s own dropped from sixth to 11th. Happens.

“Kabbalah.” The Kabbalah Centre’s Yehuda Berg fell from 14th to 37th. Given what the Kabbalah Centre is, things have upset me more.

The Scroll’s beachhead. Friend-of-The Scroll Andy Bachman reappears on the list, at 41, after a few years in the wilderness. As the list acknowledges, Bachman is actually a critic of the list, and thereby embodies the quintessential Jewish quandary of not wishing to belong to a club that has him as a member. My guess is, however, that this is secretly providing him necessary consolation following a weekend in which his Milwaukee Brewers were swept by the above-.500 Washington Nationals (ahem, below).

America’s 50 Most Influential Rabbis [The Daily Beast]
Related: Hillel [Nextbook Press]
Why Newsweek’s 50 Most Influential Rabbis … Aren’t [HuffPo]
Earlier: Top Rabbi
Reform Movement Picks New Head

Rabbi Israel Dresner, 81, recalls being arrested in June 1961 for participating in the first Freedom Ride. “I was a Reform rabbi,” he says, “but I always wore a yarmulke. I wanted people to know I was Jewish.” He remembers being with King in Georgia in 1962 while being threatened by the local White Citizens Council. Recounting a Seder he had attended, King reportedly told Dresner, “I was enormously impressed that 3,000 years later, these people remember their ancestors were slaves, and they’re not ashamed. We Negroes have to learn that, not to be ashamed of our slave heritage.”

A Half-Century Later, Rabbis Recall Marching with Martin Luther King [JTA]

Can probably file this under trying to right a wrong with another wrong.

Review of Juan Williams’ Firing Done; NPR News Exec Resigns [NPR]
Ellen Weiss Out at NPR (Juan Williams Aftereffects) [James Fallows]

• Thirty prominent American Jews signed a petition calling for a two-state solution. Supporters include Judge Abner Mikvah; the Forward’s publisher; Rabbi David Saperstein; and Theodore Bikel. [For The Sake of Zion]

• Former editor of the Forward argues Obama should have chosen a Protestant Supreme Court nominee. [Forward]

• J Street supports the extra U.S. aid for the Israeli missile shield. [J Street]

• An interview with Tablet Magazine contributor Judith Shulevitz on her new book about the Sabbath. [Jeffrey Goldberg]

Keith Richards introduces Phish on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon; they cover the Stones’s “Loving Cup”. Awesome.

Also in attendance were Rabbi David Saperstein (of the progressive Religious Action Center) and Nathan Diament (of the Orthodox Union), both of whom are members of Obama’s ecumenical Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Diament was seated with the Pakistani ambassador, Husain Haqqani; Muslim congressman Andre Carson; White House legislative assistant Phil Schiliro; and Kathleen Sebelius, Obama’s Secretary for Health and Human Services. “We were joking ahead of time about whether there would be one table for the Jews,” Diament told Tablet. “There was not.” That said, Oren wound up seated with Jewish White House staffers David Axelrod and Susan Sher (who handled Jewish outreach before being named Michelle Obama’s chief of staff). “It’s part of a normative statement that Israel is part of the Middle East landscape,” explained David Harris, head of the National Jewish Democratic Council, who was not on the guest list. “It’s another nod from the president to the Arab world that Israel is a fact on the ground that they have to deal with.”

Ramadan Dinner at the White House: The Guest List [WaPo]
List of Expected Attendees [Whitehouse.gov]

“There’s nothing in the Torah about palliative care, or dialysis…. When you start getting down to the details of the bills, how do you turn that into a moral argument as opposed to a political argument?” a host of the show asked Saperstein.

The rabbi gave the standard reply that we can apply the moral norms given in the Torah to contemporary situations; then, more intriguingly, he argued that “by the time of the Talmud 2,000 years ago, [these norms] had developed into health care systems and rules and requirements to provide adequate health care for all people. Any community that wanted to be considered a moral community had to provide health care, had to provide health care providers. These are not new ideas.”

So does that imply that people opposed to Obama’s health care plan are immoral?

“Good moral people can differ on the best way to go about achieving universal health care,” Saperstein said. “That isn’t what this debate has been about, unfortunately. This has been a very disturbing debate in terms of the civility of discourse in America. When people make these extraordinary accusations and allusions about fascism and Nazism and the Holocaust, what they’re doing is trying to take these ideas outside the free marketplace of ideas.”

The Moral of the Story: Religious Leaders on Health Care Reform [The Takeaway]
Previously: An Orthodox-Reform Divide on Health Care?