In considering the furor around President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to appoint Stephen Bannon, the chief executive officer of the hard-right news website Breitbart, as his chief strategist, let’s start with the perspective of those who have defended him. On one…
Marta Fuchs, right, with Ilona Fuchs, 1968, Pasadena, Calif. (photo from Marta Fuchs) My 98-year-old mother died recently and I’m waiting to feel something. I watched family and friends cry at her funeral and I listened to their outpouring of…
For the last three years, I have been researching, interviewing and writing articles for Senior Line, the magazine published three times a year by Jewish Seniors Alliance of Greater Vancouver. In that capacity, I read everything I can about dementia,…
When my father died in 2014, I was already familiar with the notion that mourning progresses in stages. These include denial, anger, grief, bargaining and, finally, acceptance, and they are widely recognized by the therapeutic professions. Two years after my…
There is a wise Jewish saying: “A little hurt from a kin is worse than a big hurt from a stranger.” (Zohar, Genesis 151b) Why is that? Strangers come and go in our lives. Some remain to become friends, others…
“The power above is set in motion by the impulse from below, even as vapor ascends to form the cloud. If the community of Israel did not first give the impulse, the One above would not move to meet her,…
Machzikei Hadas can be found on Rathmore Villas in Dublin. (photo from jewishgen.org) When my bride and I lived in Dublin, we were strangers in a foreign land. Our refuges were the synagogues of the tiny Jewish community. It was…
This is Part 2 of a two-part series. The first examined Oberlin College’s “Jewish problem.” When Nathan Heller’s “Letter from Oberlin: The Big Uneasy” appeared in The New Yorker (May 30) his sub-headline asked: “What’s roiling the liberal-arts campus?” At…
Let me start by saying that I grew up a secular Jew. As I’ve gotten older, my desire for more Yiddishkeit has increased tenfold. Long story short, I went from being a “High Holidays-only Jew” to someone who lights candles…
In the last federal election, Mira Oreck was the NDP candidate for the riding of Vancouver Granville. (photo from Mira Oreck) Nearly one year after the Canadian federal election, I had a chance to sit down with Mira Oreck (by…
