Much has been written, here and elsewhere, about the economic crisis in Jewish day school education, with rising tuitions and shrinking family incomes combining to make the prospect of enrollment an increasing hardship for many.- Read Story -
There’s nothing new in the threat to unilaterally declare statehood, which seems to resurface every time Palestinian leaders confront the consequences of their own failure to negotiate responsibly with Israel. And there’s nothing new in the arguments about why such an action would only heap new fuel on the region’s simmering conflicts.- Read Story -
Persistence is a critical ingredient in effective political advocacy, a fact the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish groups have learned well.- Read Story -
The first long-term study of the impact Birthright Israel has had on participants who made the trip five to eight years ago was released this week and bears thoughtful review and discussion. (See story, page 1)...- Read Story -
One of the fascinating dynamics in American Jewish life today involves the complex and evolving relationship among three key groups: the Establishment organizations, symbolized by the federations, the primary engine that drives the organized Jewish community; the family foundations, which have generated great sums of philanthropic money in recent years; and the hundreds of emerging start-ups, or small, independent and youth-driven nonprofit ventures that have become increasingly popular in the last decade, especially among Generations X and Y.- Read Story -
Before there was a Jewish People, there was a Jewish family, and what a family it was.
It started with Abraham, who had marital strife caused by a jealous wife, parenting problems because his sons didn’t get along and he favored one over the other, and issues with his nephew Lot, who got in with a bad crowd in Sodom and Gomorrah.- Read Story -
The only thing surprising about the decision last week of a distinguished Ivy League university press to, in effect, censor a key element of a book about censorship is how predictable the result was.- Read Story -
Think of the American Jewish community as a business — a more than $10 billion annual business. If our organizations and leaders made programming decisions based on that notion, perhaps they would be building a stronger, larger and more effective Jewish community.- Read Story -
When Reform rabbis voted in 1983 to accept as Jewish the children of Jewish fathers and gentile mothers, many leaders, Orthodox and Conservative, worried the policy would irrevocably divide the Jewish world.- Read Story -
When Gershon Kekst began his career, he wanted more than anything to be another Edward R. Murrow, the legendary newscaster. Kekst, who recently retired as chair of the board of trustees of the Jewish Theological Seminary,...- Read Story -
Bobby Thompson hit the most famous home run in baseball history, one that capped the New York Giants remarkable pennant race. As he entered the dugout, his brother said to him, “This is the greatest moment of your life!” Immediately, he was depressed.- Read Story -
Judaism so treasures words one might think you could get a righteous person out of a book. Yet beginning with the Bible, Judaism taught that laws come to life in people. Role models speak louder than rules.- Read Story -
Like many homeowners, I live in a house with a front door I seldom use. Good friends and groceries come in through the side door, nearest the driveway. Only my mother, rickety with age but undiminished in drive, preferred the formality of the front door. And though I grumbled about moving the random matter that accumulated there between her visits, I never minded the sense of order I felt afterwards. That I privately drew a sort of sustenance from it was something I didn’t understand until, just before her 97th birthday, she was suddenly gone.- Read Story -
