The decade drawing to a close (and social media memes with people comparing themselves in 2009 to 2019) invites comparisons about how things have changed – or not – in the decade since I lived in southern Israel– even more so given Israel’s recent political news. Eleven years ago on New Year’s...
Achvat Amim – Solidarity of Nations is currently accepting applications for our cohort starting in February. We are a five month social justice program in Jerusalem in which participants volunteer with preeminent human rights organizations and engage in critical education for peace and justice. Apply and join us in partnership with Israelis...
We grew closer quickly, and right away, our relationship posed an interesting challenge for me: I was falling for a man who was neither Jewish nor not Jewish.
White American Jews have a racism problem. This statement surprises no one but white American Jews, who have been raised to tell hazy stories about Abraham Joshua Heschel and Martin Luther King Jr., to sing “Go Down Moses” at our seders (you hope not in dialect, but it has been known to...
We in the American Jewish community, as a general rule, treat our kids like they are stupid. They are not, of course. But, as I have written before, we treat them that way when it comes to teaching them – or not teaching them, as the case often is — about Israel...
I finished watching Our Boys on erev Simchat Torah, right before I left for hakafot. It’s been three weeks now, and as far as I can tell, it’s nowhere close to leaving me. Our Boys is a ten-part series created by Joseph Cedar, Hagai Levi, and Tawfik Abu-Wael, which premiered on HBO...
In this season of Sukkot –the festival of booths, of harvesting and gathering in –thousands of Kurds face displacement from their temporary homeland in Rojava, in Northern Syria. Those who are lucky enough flee the disaster created by the U.S. decision to leave the area. They gather their families, take what they...
by Rabbi Rami Shapiro On the Shabbat of Sukkot, this year October 19, we read the book of Kohelet, Ecclesiastes. But why read a book that famously disclaims the “vanity” of life on the holiday called “time of our rejoicing?” The answer lies in understanding and superseding a bad translation and finding...
Outrage has been growing at the United States Department of State’s website choosing to feature as its home slide for several days in October a speech by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called “Being a Christian Leader” delivered to an organization called the Association of Christian Counselors. The outrage is, understandably, focused...
“And in towns across the country It’s color that divides When in working men and ladies We could find our common side” What a respite the last 10 days has been. Not from the barrage of unimaginably bad news and developments. Or of simple and plain cruelty in the world. That sadly...