Observations from Israel and America

These weeks since October 7 have been unrelentingly awful. Grief. Panic. Heartbreak for the hostages. Revulsion at Hamas’ cruelty. Horror at the suffering of Gazans. Despair for the future. Not to mention Jew-hatred in America, especially on campus. And the great difficulty of talking about all this among friends and family, whose differing views can… Read more »

The Third Temple — Kol Nidre, 5784

The Jewish people are good at remembering important dates. We left Egypt on the 15th of Nissan. Moses smashed the Ten Commandments on the 17th of Tammuz. The Babylonians destroyed the Temple on the 9th of Av.  Fifty years ago today – Yom Kippur, 1973 – was one of the worst days in our long… Read more »

A Coffee Percolator at Ansche Chesed?

Members of our Ansche Chesed community know that I take Jewish legal traditions seriously and reverently but in a heterodox way. I am happy to be a faithful, traditional but non-Orthodoox Jew. I do not automatically incline toward the most stringent behaviors, which would be neurotic. But neither do I seek out all the most… Read more »