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.

Strange Days

One of John Lennon’s last songs, left unfinished and released after his death, was ‘Nobody Told Me’. One line in the first stanza has stayed with me since I was a teenager.

Nobody told me there’d be days like these, Strange days indeed, most peculiar mama!

We’ve all felt the trut…

Rise Up

Though I rarely share thoughts on the weekly Torah portion, I thought that this week was an interesting opportunity to draw pertinent and relevant conclusions from the fascinating narrative.

In this portion, the Moabite King Balak hires the prophet and soothsayer Bilam to curse the people …

The next generation

In several weeks, we’ll be traveling to Israel on a Unity mission, and we invite you to join us. You can find more information and register HERE.

One of the important elements of our mission will be visiting IDF soldiers recovering from serious wounds at Tel Hashomer hospital. I’d like …

Cultivating Peace

Yesterday, we celebrated the 248th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It gave me reason to consider that like many, if not most countries, the US was conceived in war. That has been the human condition throughout most of history - as Douglas Murray reminds us in his incredible a…

Firelight

You’ve probably seen it in a photo or been there. The Hotel de Ville in Paris. Right next to the Seine River on the right bank. You know the famous post-war photo ‘Le baiser de l'Hôtel de Ville’ by Robert Doisneau? It was up on my wall when I was in university, as it was for many Gen …