Blogs

Happiness... there is a word for it in every language, yet, what it is and how best to sustain it is a perennial puzzle. There is hardly a culture, religion or political platform that fails to mention it, while few have defined it in consistently satisfying terms.

Pennsylvania Republican Senator Pat Toomey outed his party's leadership when confirmed the worst kept secret in Washington:  Gridlock on Capitol Hill is not a result of deep disagreements on policy issues but something much more personal: a Republican desire to deny helping the President "do something he wanted to get done."

An enthusiastic group of 72 bike riders and hikers, ages 13-73, arrived in Eilat on April 30 after biking since April 24 all the way from Jerusalem. They made the trip -- the Ramah Israel Challenge -- to support special needs programs at Ramah camps in the United States and Canada.

“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.

President Obama completed filling out his second term cabinet today when, as reported in the Political Insider last week, he nominated Chicago businesswoman Penny Pritzker as secretary of commerce and Mike Froman to be the U.S. Trade Representative.

Pritzker, a longtime Obama supporter and fundraiser, brings extensive experience in the real estate, finance and hotel industries; her family owns the Hyatt hotel chain. 

Obama described Froman, a former Harvard Law School classmate of his, as "one of the world's foremost experts on our global economy."

Today, Germany is recognized as a leading industrialized nation with a stable democracy. But despite the country’s Holocaust memorials and reparations, anti-Semitism—along with racism and neo-Nazi ideology—has remained part of German society since 1945.These circumstances are at the heart of “Germany After 1945: A Society Confronts Anti-Semitism, Racism and Neo-Nazism,” a traveling exhibition that is making its U.S. debut at Baruch College of The City University of New York.

At the recent GISHA Conference on Jewish Special Education at Hebrew College, I had the privilege of hearing the personal story of a husband and wife and their years-long attempts to find a Jewish space in which their children – both struck with the same severe neurological disorder – could make Jewish friends and strengthen their Jewish identity.

A piece of my soul died when we decided that Ben’s autism would necessitate a reexamination of a conventional Bar Mitzvah service. Having guided so many young people through their studies towards becoming Bar or Bat Mitzvah, I yearned to have the unique privilege of preparing my own son, my firstborn, the way my father, also a rabbi, had long ago prepared me.

Ok, I admit it. I don't like trashy novels. I like to read books where I learn something of value. I've read dozens of books on disability/papers issues. If you care about inclusion for kids with disabilities, here are the best reads going.

As President Obama weighs the evidence on suspected Syrian use on Sarin nerve gas and what to do about it, the Israeli government is trying to keep a low profile, or at least low by Israeli standards.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed his government not to make this incident about Israel and not to speak publicly about the issue, but first deputy foreign minister Ze'ev Elkin warned that a weak American response to Syrian use of Sarin would encourage Iran to accelerate its nuclear program.