There’s a funny story from when my husband and I were first married. We were in graduate school, but I had returned to grad school after teaching in Washington, D.C., inner-city high schools. I discovered that my husband and his…
Concentration camps are in the news this week. The term, which was first used in the context of Jews in the Holocaust, is being invoked by opponents of the U.S. government’s detention of migrants from Latin America. Appallingly, those detained…
The deed is finally done. For years, Quebec politicians have been talking about secularism, or laïcité, proposing a range of actions to ban the presence of visible religious symbols among government employees. On Sunday, following a weekend of almost round-the-clock…
My Southern friends and family often joke, “The Lord works in mysterious ways.” This morning, I wondered what I would write for this column. I was walking dogs in the sunshine and things were mostly going well. Except, right after…
Words matter. In a period when traditional media compete with social media, where everyone on the planet can pretty much find a place to say whatever they want, the weight of words can seem lost in the deluge of opinions,…
So, I’m thinking about the times of our growing up, and who did what in the story of our lives. We never think much about it while it’s happening, during the years when we are coming to our senses. During…
Lately, I’ve been thinking about Elijah the Prophet, or Eliyahu Hanavi. He’s that guy who somehow travels worldwide, to drink all the wine at every Passover seder every year. (What a hangover he must have!) Elijah is also supposed to…
“Doctor, it hurts when I do this,” says the patient in an old joke. “Don’t do that,” advises the doctor. In a decidedly unfunny twist on that old joke, the German government’s Commissioner on Antisemitism Felix Klein responded to the…
I chatted with a friend recently about what it was like in “the old days” when someone had to take a cellphone call during synagogue. This is when there were only big, clunky cellphones. I remember seeing a doctor on…
Israel’s Eurovision 2019 entrant, Kobi Marimi, didn’t fare very well but he gave an emotional performance. (photo © Martin Fjellanger, Eurovision Norway, EuroVisionary) The Eurovision Song Contest, like the World Cup, is one of those cultural phenomena that seems to…
