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.

Who Writes the Last Chapter?

Early on in the post 10/7 conflict, I began to listen to podcasts featuring Israeli journalist Haviv Rettig Gur. Gur had a very incisive approach to his analysis. It wasn’t ideological, it was extremely well informed, and it was clear eyed about the challenges faced by Israeli society, by …

Family

A few minutes ago early this morning, my daughter returned home to Toronto.

In Israel on a seminar with educators and group leaders when the war with Iran began, like millions of others she spent most of a week in and out of a bomb shelter. She and her group were evacuated through Ashdod to…

No One Else Will Bomb the Tracks to Auschwitz

For the second time in two weeks, I find myself compelled to write a new message hours before we publish our newsletter. Circumstances give me no other choice. It reminds me of November 1989, when my Modern European History course in my 2nd year at the University of Toronto had to be reworke…

Celebrating Jewish Leaders in the Pride Movement

As Pride Month continues, celebrating the LGBTQ+ community, we also take a look back at a number of Jewish leaders who made cultural and historic contributions to that community. From politicians and lawyers to religious leaders, here is a list of some of those who have made a great impact f…

The Intifada Has Been Globalized

It had been my intention to write this week about our friends and allies in Rockland’s LGBTQ+ community. As Pride month celebrations continue, let us not only passively recall but also actively assert that the identity and the rights that our community believes are being eroded - by the h…