Those who have been reading these messages for a while will know that I count JRR Tolkien among my biggest literary and language influences. When I first read his works about 40-45 years ago, there was one particular passage in The Fellowship of the Ring that resonated deeply with me - with …
Over the last several days, I’ve taken particular note of developments at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. As you may know, Israel is headed to an election at the end of October. The current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been in power for about 15.5 of the last 17 years in Israel,…
Many years ago, I did some learning and much work with Rabbi Michael Skobac, co-founder of the wonderful Jews For Judaism organization. We collaborated on countering deceptive missionary tactics and educating young and vulnerable members of our community to immunize themselves against this a…
In the wake of this week’s primary results across the country, but especially in New York City, it’s time to revisit a bit of a Political Science lesson, one I learned many years ago. If you want to understand what happened in Tuesday’s primaries, and what has been evolving for years, there’…
Like many of us, I’m feeling an acute sense of unease at the way in which the Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Iran was achieved, the terms included, and those not included. I’ve read and listened to some of the analysts I respect most over the last several days, and my unease …
I’ve been reading about Col. Anne McClain, one of the astronauts picked for the Artemis project, aiming for a return to the moon over the next few years. Like several family members of mine, she’s a decorated combat veteran. Like only a few of my acquaintances, she has thousands of hours in …
One of his missions in life is to make people smile.
Not a quick, polite smile. An ear to ear grin, perhaps accompanied by an eyeroll, but always aimed to lighten the heart and the burdens it carries, both seen and unseen.
I am grateful for the almost five years I’ve known him.
Who am I t…
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…
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 Jewis…
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 ini…
“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 further p…
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 c…
I often see, around the middle of May, an argument of sorts unfolding. It surrounds the celebration of Mother’s Day, and the appropriateness of the designation of a day exclusively to celebrate and appreciate everything about our mothers and our relationships with them from our first days th…
Many of my close family members, and many of my cousins live in Israel, including my brother, my aunt and uncle, cousins who I grew up with, their kids and grandkids. An even greater proportion of my wife’s family live there as well. We are blessed when we have opportunities to share family …
When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence with the help of Franklin and Adams, he used an interesting turn of phrase. “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” he wrote, when describing the natural state of equality the framers believed underpinned the act of revolution th…
