Features

In the last decades, Israel’s high-tech entrepreneurs have established the country’s reputation as the “Start-Up Nation,” a scrappy bunch of innovators, many of them products of the army’s incubator atmosphere.

This week, the next generation of Israeli scientists visited the Big Apple.

A group of Israeli high school students demonstrated their solutions to current problems in “Street Labs,” a hands-on event Tuesday in Union Square. 

Ruth Messinger left a 20-year career in politics, including Manhattan borough president, in 1998 to become president of the American Jewish World Service (AJWS), a nonprofit that supports human rights for marginalized people around the world.

I’ve already kissed her good night, but my daughter Talia, who is 11, pulls closer and whispers, “I’m afraid of dying.”

“You dying?” I ask. It is a ritual we have been through before. “My dying? Daddy dying? Grandma and Grandpa dying?”

“Everyone,” she answers, as she has many times since she was 3 years old and spotted a strangely motionless fish washed up on a Long Island beach.

Toronto is one of those cities that people who live there rave about. They’ll tell you about the cultural diversity, the fabulous ethnic food, the great public transit.

Pumpkin? In May? Sure, this sweet treat is associated more with fall and Thanksgiving than spring and fresh fruits. But pumpkin is really one of my favorite dessert flavorings, and with the canned stuff available year round, I can make it year round!

Earlier this year, as I was approaching (with no small degree of apprehension) the imminent arrival of my 60th birthday, I found myself struggling to address exactly what turning 60 meant to me.  What was its significance?