Once upon a time, there was a riot. Weeks after Yasser Arafat refused what President Clinton called the best offer anyone would ever get at Camp David in the fall of 2000, he directed the beginning of what was initially called the second intifada, but what would become the AL Aksa war. Among some Arab residents of east Jerusalem, that meant dragging Tuvia Hoffman, a young American Jewish student in Israel for a gap year program, from a taxi in Wadi Joz, and proceeding to beat and stab him blo...

Though I’ve been steeped in the minutiae of Jewish history since I was a child, I wasn’t always aware, growing up in an immigrant household in Toronto, that there was even a category such as that applied to the stories and sagas of Jewish communities in North America, more specifically Jewish American Heritage Month, as we are celebrating throughout the month of June (along with our Canadian cousins, who celebrate theirs in this same month of May).

I’d always been familiar with the sto...

Yesterday, I was listening to a podcast, as I often do while I’m driving. The podcaster was the incredibly articulate Jonah Platt, son of recent Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) Board Chair Julie Platt, who championed the LiveSecure initiative which helped fund our own security initiative right here in Rockland.

Platt’s podcast, “Being Jewish” has become a staple of mine, as I listen to him as often as I do Haviv Rettig Gur, Dan Senor, Yossi Klein Halevi. I highly recommend...

“The only clue to what man can do is what man has done.” RL Collingwood

At the conclusion of the recent movie Nuremberg this quote flashed across the screen. It reminded me of a related concept, an idea shared by the German-Jewish philosopher Theodor Adorno - “After Auschwitz no further poems are possible, except on the foundation of Auschwitz itself”. We are all the products of the events that shape us, but we must understand that the events and the shaping can be not only in our ...

Every modern generation of Jews measures Israel through two lenses: Its strength, and its spirit. At times, these two move in perfect alignment. At other times, they strain against one another—each demanding attention, each requiring care. Today, we are living in such a moment, a moment of change and challenge.

There is no question that Israel’s strategic position has changed. Over the past decades—and especially in the wake of recent conflicts—Israel has demonstrated capabilities th...

I often see, around the middle of May, an argument of sorts unfolding. It surrounds the celebration of Mother’s Day, and the appropriateness of the designation of a day exclusively to celebrate and appreciate everything about our mothers and our relationships with them from our first days throughout our lifetimes.

One side of this discussion is that a special day can make these most special people in our lives feel appreciated and seen in a way most of us don’t always prioritize througho...