Earlier this week I was honored to deliver the invocation at the New York State Senate in Albany. In my brief remarks, I referenced the upcoming holiday of Pesach and the unique attributes of freedom for the newly liberated Jewish people. I further described the convergence of freedom and re…
Yesterday, close to 100 members of our community joined me and Stephanie Hausner, COO of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organizations, for a discussion about the current upheaval in Israel over Judicial Reform. Stephanie was incredibly insightful.
But I’m not goin…
For several weeks now, since the new government was formed in the wake of Israel’s recent election which gave Prime Minister Netanyahu a 65-55 majority in the Knesset, many of us have been unsettled by the rising acrimony in Israel. There are several legislative agendas being put forward b…
Recently I wrote about celebrating our Jewish identity as the foremost response to any discrimination we face. I wanted to highlight how much we as a community have to be proud of and how much we as a people can reflect on as sources of inspiration.
Before I do, I want to pre-empt the obvio…
Last week, I had an opportunity to speak with a number of middle school students at one of Rockland’s synagogue hebrew schools. I was invited to speak about the Federation and its role in confronting antisemitism. The key message I gave to the students was that the most important way to co…
