Gary Rosenblatt

When I was growing up, baseball was all about fathers and sons.

I am grateful that my Dad transmitted his love of the game to my older brother and me, and am reminded of it each spring, when the promise of a new season still fills me with childlike excitement.

The ugly public battle between the University of Chicago Hillel and its parent organization, the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, merits attention because it transcends the immediate issues of funding, independence, governance and power. (See Editorial, “Showdown At Chicago Hillel,” April 27.)

The conflict speaks to a wider struggle between younger and older approaches to sustaining meaningful Jewish organizations, and to the future of innovation in communal life.

Did you chant a Haftorah at your bar or bat mitzvah?

Do you remember what it was about?

Have you chanted any others since then?

Rabbi Joy Levitt, executive director of the JCC in Manhattan, believes that the heavy emphasis on teaching youngsters to chant a Haftorah on their special days is a sign of “wasted training and the wrong message” for bar and bat mitzvah youngsters.

“We’re not preparing them for Jewish life” with such rituals, she says. “On the contrary, we’ve sabotaged their Jewish life.”

Let me make clear at the outset: I don’t know what Israel plans to do about the Iran nuclear threat, and I don’t have any new advice for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about what actions he should or should not take as he and his government face an impossible dilemma.

But I do know that the mainstream press (and especially The New York Times) has had a steady drumbeat of reports these last few weeks characterizing Israel unfairly in the delicate diplomatic dance of Jerusalem, Washington and Tehran.