Recently, while jogging through Jerusalem’s clean, coronavirus-hushed Old City, I started dreading Yom Yerushalayim. Usually, I love Jerusalem Day. It’s as glorious as Yom Ha’Atzmaut and July Fourth; as stirring as Hanukkah and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday; as freedom-affirming as Passover and Presidents Day; and as awe-inspiring as Yom HaZikaron and Thanksgiving. Yet in […]
Category: Jewish Journal
Spiritual Engagement Dulls The Pain of Social Estrangement
Although I’m a traditional person, I have never been much for praying. I usually attend services armed with a nonfiction book. Books make sense to me: they inform, change, enlighten, surprise and inspire. Prayer books always struck me as the spiritual equivalent of laundry instructions: rinse, wash, repeat — laden with time-consuming obscure rituals and words. […]
Counterpoint: What work must be done on our college campuses?
Jay Sanderson, president and chief executive officer of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, fears Israel’s government is “stoking the flames” with heavy-handed counterattacks against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement on campuses. Judy Maltz wrote in Haaretz, as “it is unusual” for Jewish Federation officials to criticize Israel’s government publicly, Sanderson knew […]
Anger: As American as apple pie
Responsible leaders from left to right are blasting Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim demagoguery as “un-American.” Even in the midst of this “Happy Holiday” season, Trump’s fury seems to be unfairly capitalizing on a burgeoning Age of Rage. Yet, while the bigotry exhibited by the Republican candidate for the presidency offends most Americans’ sensibilities, his ferocity has […]
