Two weeks have passed since a series of videos produced by the Israeli Ministry of Absorption caused American Jewry to collectively bristle at the suggestion that Jewish life in America is so thin that the children of Israeli ex-pats living in America will, if they stay in America, assimilate int
December 03, 2011
The House of Laban
Occasion(s) / Va-yetzei
From a historical perspective, there is nothing terribly surprising about the ethical failings we read about every day in the paper. Insider trading, phone hacking, influence peddling, steroids in sports, high school cheating scandals.
November 26, 2011
Brother, Can You Spare a Blessing?
Occasion(s) / Tol’dot, Thanksgiving
To sit down at a large family Thanksgiving dinner is to experience the pleasures and pressures of family dynamics…on steroids. All of our familial idiosyncrasies, fissures, and history are brought together around a single table for an exclusive one night engagement.
October 21, 2011
In the Garden and Beyond
Occasion(s) / B’reishit
For reasons that are too strange to get into, I had the odd pleasure this past week of eating lunch with one of the nation’s most prominent statisticians from the University of Chicago.
October 14, 2011
The Uprooted
Occasion(s) / Sukkot
Before Oscar Handlin, there was one dominant narrative of American self-understanding – the frontier experience.
October 07, 2011
The Greater Good
Occasion(s) / Yom Kippur
This past year, I had the opportunity to visit the Menachem Begin Museum in Jerusalem.
October 03, 2011
A Complaint is a Gift
Occasion(s) / Ha·azinu
Next time you are on Lexington Avenue, I want you to stop to appreciate the beautiful church that sits between 75th and 76th – the church of St. Jean Baptiste.
September 28, 2011
Waiting for a Miracle
Occasion(s) / Rosh Hashanah
Precisely 70 years ago, on September 29 and 30, 1941, the single most horrific and infamous mass killing of the Holocaust occurred at Babi Yar.
September 27, 2011
The Stories We Write
Occasion(s) / Rosh Hashanah
As we greet the New Year, I want to welcome each and every one of you. May we all be inscribed in the Book of Life for a year of health and happiness.
September 23, 2011
If I Forget Thee, O Jerusalem
Occasion(s) / Va-yeilekh
In terms of Biblical prooftexts for supporting Israel, some of the most famous are found in today’s Torah and haftarah reading. L’ma’an tziyon lo eheshe, u-l’ma’an yerushalayim lo eshkot, “For the sake of Zion I will not be silent, for the sake of Jerusalem, I will not be still.” (Isa.