Many years back, I visited Gaza as part of a state delegation. We toured factories financed by American Jews and Gulf Arabs to manufacture goods for sale in Israel and abroad. Our guide, a well-known Palestinian politician, did hilarious impersonations of Ariel Sharon and Shimon Peres, and spoke with pride of the “New Gaza,” soon to be the “Singapore of the Middle East.” It all looked so close, so very doable. Soon, Israelis and Egyptians would be meeting at luxury hotels on the Gaza coast. And then Yasser Arafat grew tired of playing statesman, Fatah drained the foreign investments into priv ..read more

This post previously appeared on the Cardozo Academy website. Last week’s parashah ended with the tribes of Israel settling in Goshen, having been given a holding (ahuzah) by Yosef: Israel settled in the country of Egypt, in the region of Goshen; they acquired holdings in it, and were fertile and increased greatly. וַיֵּ֧שֶׁב יִשְׂרָאֵ֛ל בְּאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרַ֖יִם בְּאֶ֣רֶץ גֹּ֑שֶׁן וַיֵּאָחֲז֣וּ בָ֔הּ וַיִּפְר֥וּ וַיִּרְבּ֖וּ מְאֹֽד׃ Although this sounds like a happy ending to the story of Yosef, the wording has an ominous ring to it: we recall that it was just this “fertility and increase ..read more

The post first appeared on the Cardozo Academy website In the weeks ahead, Israel will be facing one of the hardest tests a nation ever has to face, and it isn’t what we might think. The test is not to stay strong under the threat of rockets fired at our population centers, nor of repelling vicious incursions from across our borders, nor even of standing against the hatred of the nations when we fight back. We’ve faced all these things, and though we know we’ll pay a price, we also know that we are equal to the challenge. But the war now facing the State of Israel poses a greater challenge, a ..read more

In this week’s Parasha, Yaakov flees from his home after stealing his father’s blessing that was meant for his older brother, Esav. His destination is Haran, where his mother’s family lives. In one of the iconic scenes in the Torah, Yaakov meets the daughter of his mother’s brother at the well, and falls in love with her. When Yaakov saw Rachel, the daughter of his uncle (lit. “his mother’s brother”) Lavan , and the flock of his uncle Laban, Yaakov went up and rolled the stone off the mouth of the well, and watered the flock of his uncle Laban ..read more

Tonight marks the holiday of Tu B’Av, commonly thought of as Israel’s answer to Valentine’s Day, the holiday of love. The Mishnah explains the significance of the day: Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel used to say, ‘There were no days more joyful for the people of Israel than the Fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur, since on these days the daughters of Jerusalem would go out dressed in white and dance in the vineyards. What were they saying? ‘Young man, consider whom you choose (to be your wife)?”‘ (Mishnah Ta’anit, Chapter 4). In reality, this day should really be called “the holiday of courtship ..read more

The story goes that famous physicist was speaking on the quantum nature of light, demonstrating how light sometimes acts as discreet particles and sometimes as a wave. A confused student asked, “But professor… Is light a particle or is it a wave?” To which the professor replied, “Probably not”. The recent kerfuffle around Whoopi Goldberg has once again ignited the perennial debate about whether the Jewish people constitute a race. “The Holocaust was not about race,” Goldberg asserted, evidently trying to make the point that people can do awful things to other people even if there’s no obvious ..read more

In Megillat Ta’anit (an almanac of notable dates on which one should not fast or give eulogies), we find that one such entry was the day “on which the Book of Decrees was burned (that is, abolished)”. What “Book of Decrees” was this? The rabbis answer that it was the penal code of the Sadducees, which interpreted “an eye for an eye” as an actual eye and “a tooth for a tooth” as an actual tooth.  Amazingly enough, the rabbis considered the reinterpretation of a law in the written Torah away from its pshat (simple) meaning as cause for celebration! Today, we’re so used to interpreting these ..read more

Imagine that the earth was going to be destroyed within five years, and that you were tasked with deciding what literary treasures to preserve? You had a time capsule into which you could put your treasured writings to keep them safe, but there was room for only a few. There was no way to could save them all. What would you choose to preserve? And why? How might you answer future generations when they asked you why this was preserved and not that? That is the background of the Tanach that we have today. What to leave and what to take At the time when the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) was being co ..read more

Spring has officially sprung here in Israel and the hills are alive with wildflowers. We’re beginning to venture out in public again after a long and strange year!  So to ease back into what passes for normal, here are some literary recommendations from around the Jewish blogosphere (in more or less alphabetical order). Note that cover images link to the relevant affiliate-linked book page on Amazon. Enjoy!   At Jewish Books for Kids, Barbara Bietz interviews Alexis O’Neill about her children’s book, Jacob Riis’s Camera – Bringing Light to Tenement Children.     The newe ..read more

As we emerge from a very strange and isolated year, it feels odd to think of actually sitting down at a coffee shop with other people. On the other hand, with most of the population in Israel vaccinated… “Have you had your shots?” you ask your friends as you pull out a chair. Awkward! Maybe I’ll wait another week or two before making that coffee date. But throughout this rather bizarre period, I’ve had the odd feeling that I’ve been sitting and drinking coffee with none other than the Rambam! That’s right, Maimonides himself, Torah scholar, philosopher, and medical practitioner to kings. That ..read more