Gary Rosenblatt

If Mitt Romney is elected president next week, Bibi Netanyahu will finally exhale, with a sigh of relief. The Israeli prime minister can feel confident that he will not be pressured to make peace with the Palestinian Authority anytime soon.

But is that a good thing?

On the Israel-diaspora front, surprising good news and, unfortunately, not-so-surprising bad news.

First, the bad news. The arrest and harassment of a woman reciting the Shema prayer aloud during Rosh Chodesh services this past week at the Western Wall is nothing less than shameful — an act that Jews of all denominations and beliefs should view as an embarrassment and outrage.

Maybe I’m just jealous of the free offers being made to young Jews today, but part of me worries that down the road, these well-meaning programs and proposals — like trips to Israel, High Holy Day services, books for children and Shabbat meals — may have a negative effect on a generation that is being coddled and spoiled Jewishly.

The last time the Baltimore Orioles and New York Yankees met in the playoffs before this week, I spent a few surreal moments schmoozing with George Steinbrenner in his owner’s box in Yankee Stadium, trying very hard not to let on that I was a fervent Orioles fan hoping his team would lose that day — and every day after that until the end of time.

When it comes to hardware stores, you can count me as a One-Day-A-Year Jew — and that day occurs just before the holiday of Sukkot, when I focus on putting up our family sukkah in the backyard. Thank God it only has to stand for eight days.

Part of the wonderful rhythm of the High Holy Days season is that we go directly from the cerebral solemnity of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur to the hands-on, harvest-inspired, outdoor-focused festival of Sukkot, recalling the wanderings of the ancient Israelites in the desert those 40 long years.


Sometimes conversations are more noteworthy for the topics they don’t include than for the ones they do.

As the story goes, a visitor to the Biblical Zoo in Israel was amazed when he approached the cage of the wolf and the lamb. There they were, peacefully resting near each other, calling to mind the prophecy of Isaiah, who imagined messianic times of peace.

“How is it possible to have a wolf and lamb live together?” the visitor asked the zookeeper.

“Simple,” the zookeeper said. “Every day a new lamb.”

And so it is in the Mideast, where appearances of stability give way to predators and daily bloodshed.

Yossele Rosenblatt was the most famous chazzan (or, cantor) of his era, known as “the Jewish Caruso.” After arriving in America from Europe a century ago, he not only led services around the country before settling in New York, but also earned large sums for concerts and sang in “The Jazz Singer,” the first talkie.

Preparing for the new Jewish year, in part by reviewing some of the big news stories of the past year, I was reminded that most major issues don’t get resolved in dramatic fashion.

How do you deal with Mideast heads of state who refuse to accept historical fact or reality?