One of my Haaretz blogs several months ago told the stories of two individuals who left the Orthodox fold. This past June, I nearly swallowed whole the new former-Chassid memoir everyone was talking about: Shulem Deen’s All Who Go Do…
The award-winning Canadian film Lies My Father Told Me begins with a hunched over man on a horse-drawn wagon moving slowly through the snowy narrow streets of old Montreal. His grandson runs through the streets shouting Zayde, Zayde, as he…
The story is told that the idea of building a modern city in Beersheva came from David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister. He appointed a committee of experts to examine the idea. The committee reported back that it could not…
While it might be hard to contemplate cooking on these hot summer days, there are a few recent cookbooks enticing enough to draw you into the kitchen – with savory results. Jewish Soul Food: From Minsk to Marrakesh (Schocken Publishers,…
One would be hard-pressed to find anyone involved in human rights around the world who has not heard of David Matas. A Winnipeg-based lawyer, Matas has helped countless victims of human rights violations, and written or co-written numerous books on…
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, right, with Michael Oren, then the Israeli ambassador to the United States, at Ben-Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv on April 9, 2013. (photo from U.S. State Department via jns.org) It’s safe to say…
What a mouth on Minnie! And I don’t mean it pejoratively. (I just wanted to get your attention.) Grandma Minnie Bloch is articulate and sensitive as she meticulously narrates the three-generational story that includes her own early life with her…
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen came under a barrage of criticism in 2006 for writing that Israel was a mistake. Almost a decade after the controversy, he has come back with Israel: Is It Good for the Jews? (Simon &…
New Home, New Hope edutains on aliya and the Soviet Union. With the themes of Passover still reverberating, I read Aliza Ziv’s book New Home, New Hope (Contento de Semrik, 2014). About a single mother making aliya from the Soviet…
The first time I met Gina Dimant and her husband Sasha was in 2000 at the opening of my exhibition Evidence of Truth at the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery. The exhibition was dedicated to all victims of Nazi concentration…
