I Survived Sensitivity And The Kids Can Too
Even Though Judaism Broke My Heart
My New Year’s Resolution Is To Make No Difference
I resolve, for the New Year, to not “make a difference.” I must accept what I cannot change and find the strength to change the things I can, to paraphrase a wise prayer. I will remember this year that strength is rarely measured in page views, Facebook likes, or marketing budgets. True strength is strength of character. […]
Today, a synagogue lies drenched in Jewish blood, and our nation mourns as one. The soul cries out: What do we do? What can we do? What is the answer to those who hate us? This afternoon, as I pull myself away from the news and the poetry and the terrible pictures, I find my mind […]
The People Who Don’t Know How Much I Love Them
“Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke I was going to write […]
Enlightenment: Crude. Unsanitary. Ultra-Orthodox.
As every Jew knows, the religious ones are the rude ones. They jostle and shove and step on you and they’re not apologizing anytime soon. The first thing I ever saw in Meron on Lag Ba’omer, almost five years ago: a father slapped his son’s face so hard he pirouetted a full circle before bursting […]
I’m not an atheist; that’s the first thing. Though I certainly don’t (or, at most, don’t certainly) believe in G-d. I’m not religious, but try finding a non-white shirt in my closet. I’m not culturally Jewish; I can’t stand kugel, herring, or kishke, Israel bothers me, and I do not live every day with the […]
Shabbos ended three hours earlier but none of us had changed out of our sweaty slacks. My two companions, one a local, the other a visitor like me, wanted to see some sights in the town. I came with. We drove down the road parallel to the sea with the windows rolled down and the […]
The Earth Is Not A Cold, Dead Place
There was a Russian guy I knew in Tel Aviv who clearly lived with pain and depression. He hated everyone and everything, but not all on the same day. We got along. I once asked him if, when he went to sleep, he looked forward to the fresh start of the morning, whether he felt […]
Previous page Next page