Jewish Voices, Jewish Lives

It’s what we do every day. Whether it’s the food we favor…a bagel with shmear… or the drive to repair the world…tikkun olam, we Jews are there, especially in Rockland County. We plan to bring Doing Jewish to you every Friday. Sometimes it’ll be fun, sometimes it’ll be serious.

With Thanks to Tom Clancy

Years ago, I recall reading one of the late Tom Clancy’s thrillers, Red Storm Rising. Being the military history and geopolitics nerd I was (and still am) I paid particular attention to the ins and outs of political intrigue at the Politburo level in the (then still extant) Soviet Union. I…

A Year Like No Other

While this week has often been a time to read ‘Best of 2023’ lists, and discuss Time’s person of the year, it has been a different kind of accounting we’ve done, and an unspoken apprehension of what 2024 will bring.

There are few Jews alive who have experienced anything like this. …

We could all use a laugh

When I was a child, I lived in Toronto. At this time of year, as we counted down the days until winter break, our playgrounds were full of snow, and the line where the pavement ended was piled with mountains of hard packed snow and ice - a winter wonderland of forts and slides, hard climbs a…

Women of Valor

Early this morning, I received word that the IDF had recovered the body of Ron Sherman z’l who had been murdered by Hamas in captivity after being taken on October 7th. And last weekend, we heard that Eden Zacharia had been found, also killed after October 7th.

Now, I’ve followed as clo…

Time to Change Direction

Two days ago, I watched with horrified fascination as the presidents of three of the most ‘illustrious’ academic institutions in the country told the world that calling for and inciting the genocide of the Jewish people would only possibly breach their codes of conduct ‘depending on th…