Category: Other

This was a Friday evening not to forget. First, my flight home to Portugal was delayed for hours — my longest-ever wait for a plane that refused to leave the runway. I can’t recall exactly how long I was stuck, only that it kept me in the…

Seventy-three years ago, a baby was born in Leningrad, the USSR. That baby was given a name: Vladimir — or, as his mother likely called him affectionately, Vova or Vovochka.

If it weren’t for what Vovochka eventually became in life, there…

In a moment in time, on October 7, 2023, the world took a deep breath and stood still, as images of unprovoked death, rape, and assault were filmed for posterity by murderers who since then have been elevated to victimhood. Two years, 1,400…

According to Chabad.org, a maamar is more than just a teaching.  It is a concept derived from the word amar, which means “to say.”  In the Chabad tradition, when a leader, a rebbe, states a Maamar, he is understood as bringing a new…

Two years ago today, I was awakened by my wife with the startling news that Israel was at war.

Hamas had attacked southern Israel in an unprecedented rampage of murder, rape and pillage that caught Israel unprepared in an intelligence failure…

“What we need right now is tenderness”  ~ Ada Limón

*  *  *

I read these words as I skimmed my email
and took the first sips of strong coffee
in my home, where, perhaps naively,
I did not particularly worry last night
about ICE agents…

As expected, on the second anniversary of October 7, my feed is flooded with posts and articles about it. I am sitting at my computer, wanting to write something, but wondering if there is anything I can say that has not already been…

Last week, the Washington Post published the results of a survey of American Jews conducted September 2-9 and timed for release just ahead of the second anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack.  In the new poll, nearly four-in-ten…

This piece was co-authored by Sarah Haiken-Dray.

Why focus so much attention on 48 hostages from Israel when thousands of Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, wounded, or detained — and continue to be — in the war that continues to rage…

The past two years have turned family lives in Israel into another battlefield, an occupational and economic battlefield. These days, reservists are being called up again, and once again, the women are left behind. Women married to men who…