Jewish Voices, Jewish Lives

It’s what we do every day. Whether it’s the food we favor…a bagel with shmear… or the drive to repair the world…tikkun olam, we Jews are there, especially in Rockland County. We plan to bring Doing Jewish to you every Friday. Sometimes it’ll be fun, sometimes it’ll be serious.

How Low Can They Go?

Once upon a time, there was a riot. Weeks after Yasser Arafat refused what President Clinton called the best offer anyone would ever get at Camp David in the fall of 2000, he directed the beginning of what was initially called the second intifada, but what would become the AL Aksa war. Among…

The Hero, The Patriot, and the Dreamer

Though I’ve been steeped in the minutiae of Jewish history since I was a child, I wasn’t always aware, growing up in an immigrant household in Toronto, that there was even a category such as that applied to the stories and sagas of Jewish communities in North America, more specifically J…

How Do You Really Feel?

Yesterday, I was listening to a podcast, as I often do while I’m driving. The podcaster was the incredibly articulate Jonah Platt, son of recent Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) Board Chair Julie Platt, who championed the LiveSecure initiative which helped fund our own security i…

Conceiving the Possible

“The only clue to what man can do is what man has done.” RL Collingwood

At the conclusion of the recent movie Nuremberg this quote flashed across the screen. It reminded me of a related concept, an idea shared by the German-Jewish philosopher Theodor Adorno - “After Auschwitz no fur…

Change and Challenge

Every modern generation of Jews measures Israel through two lenses: Its strength, and its spirit. At times, these two move in perfect alignment. At other times, they strain against one another—each demanding attention, each requiring care. Today, we are living in such a moment, a moment of…