Category: Other

At the Newport Folk Festival this summer and at Farm Aid last weekend, Jesse Welles closed his set with one of his most popular songs, War Isn’t Murder, a song I criticized, as his encore. This article is my encore.

As a Jewish cantor and…

The recent case of Charlie Kirk’s wife, #ErikaKirk, publicly forgiving her husband’s murderer is not an isolated event. It is a symptom of what is happening in the West: a world that has emptied martial justice of its content and turned…

How Israel is covered in East Africa may shape not only regional diplomacy but also the perspectives of millions of Africans whose countries maintain growing ties with Jerusalem.

In East Africa, mainstream media is one of the most influential…

Recently, I posted a commentary titled “Charlie Kirk and the Propaganda of Ultra-Right Martyrdom” on the Times of Israel.

It is not hyperbole to compare the baby want-to-be fascist dictator, Donald Trump, with his mentor and role model,…

Rosh Hashanah writes; Yom Kippur seals. Between them lies a slender span—the Ten Days of Teshuvah—where the draft of our year can still be edited. Not by pageantry or performance, but by substance. If there is one message worth…

If you live or work near an airport, you’ve probably noticed that airplane engines don’t always sound the same. Sometimes their roar shakes the windows and vibrates in your chest, and other times it blends into the background of city…

For many past generations Jewish peoplehood meant something very clear. It meant a shared history, a shared destiny, and a bond that stretched across the world. Whether a Jewish person lived in Israel, the US or anywhere else, they felt they…

How Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezritch Anticipated Jung and Quantum Physics: The Hidden Unity Behind Everything.

Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezritch (circa 1700–1772), the Maggid of Mezritch, once shared a Torah teaching beginning with V’shavta ad Havayeh…

The Sabbath of (Re)Turning Within

This Shabbat is called “Shabbat Shuva” named after the prophetic reading in which the prophet Hosea calls on the Israelites to “return to God” (Hosea 14:2). If the way of God might be defined as…

In honor of the 15th Yuhrzeit of my mother

How do you explain the importance of Rosh ha Shana and Yom Kippur to a young child?

Leave it to my late mother, she always found a way.

“You know what Hashem is doing right now?”
She would ask…