YOM YERUSHALAYIM, GOLD AND IRON

This week we mark the 50th anniversary (on the Hebrew calendar) of the 1967 Six-Day War, certainly the most momentous passage in Israel’s history. Israel’s territory was multiplied almost three-fold, acquiring Sinai (of course later returned to Egypt), Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. These latter two were annexed under Israeli… Read more »

Multiple Freedoms

Passover is חג החרות, the Holiday of Freedom, the grand tale of ancient Jewish suffering followed by divine and prophetic liberation. I am sure that many of our Sedarim, over the years, have also addressed modern enslavement and liberation, including readings or documents from the ultimate Jewish catastrophe [שואה], as well as the American Egypt… Read more »

Separation Fence

Can we not admit that we must fight terrorists, and must not lose our reverence for our enemies’ human lives? Can we defend ourselves, love our people and love our homeland without lurching into dehumanizing our neighbors? Can only one people thrive in this little land?

The difficult things I saw complicated but did not diminish my joy in Israel.

Open My Heart

When Shabbat ends, I will set out on my favorite earthly journey, represented by six of the best letters in our alphabet: JFK-TLV. New York to Israel. (Hope I get a window seat.) This trip will be like many of my others, yet different from them all. It will be similar, including Shabbat in the… Read more »

Sacred Cemetery Earth

President Trump deserves credit for beginning his recent address to Congress by affirming that America is “united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms,” specifically condemning bomb threats against Jewish school and JCCs, vandalism in Jewish cemeteries in St. Louis and Philadelphia, and the murder of an Indian immigrant in a bar in… Read more »