Heart of the Matter
Do you know what you’ve done? Do you have any idea where your money goes?
From Avrum Cohen to Marty Levine, professional leadership change at JCC of Chicago stresses continuity and experience.
Chag kasher v’sameach, may your holiday be pure happiness.
There seem to be far more cattle than humans between Las Cruces, New Mexico, and St. Louis, Missouri. And once you leave St. Louis, en route to Chicago, it seems corn and soybeans vastly outnumber the stars.
At a family bat mitzvah in Newport Beach recently, my wife and I marked the passage of time and our own aging.
Western Civilization is beautiful, but we Jews have a special place.
How shall Jews retain organic peoplehood in a cyber world? Where is the line between the real and the virtual? How does the old model of geographical community give way to new forms of interest-based community, while maintaining core values?
It’s good to go back in time, if only to remain firmly rooted, eyes wide open, in the present.
The topic of “Jewish power” cuts to the chase about how Jews interact with the world.
The last two weeks in June I took 23 high school students on a two-week whirlwind tour of Israel. That’s how I spent my summer “vacation.”
You don’t need to be a physicist to have heard about the Big Bang, the theory that the universe began with an explosion of matter emanating from one point.
In February I found myself in a strange place, in a strange mood, doing something that felt rather strange. I'm not talking midlife crisis strange—I know what that feels like, thank you. I'm not talking bad strange at all. It just felt odd—and sad to feel the need—to be standing in a dimly lit, overflow parking lot at Yad L'Shiryon, Israel's Armored Corps Memorial Site and Museum at Latrun, exhorting some 230 people to promise to do their part for Israel and the Jewish people.
The spouse and I have our eyes on a little cottage tucked away in a part of Wisconsin no one around here seems to have heard about. It's by a lake with an Indian name, is renowned for fishing and sunsets, and seems to be populated today—to the extent it's populated much at all—by the descendants of Germans who fled the great European traumas of 1848 and 1870.
On the ferryboat, somewhere between the tiny port towns of Isabelle Segundo and Fajardo, it struck me. The problems of nationalism, allegiance, identity, and justice I'd been discussing with Puerto Ricans on the island of Vieques had lots to do with me as an American—and with them as citizens of an American colony—and nothing to do
“Visiting Israel is the right thing to do,” I wrote last month, anticipating the trip from which I recently returned. A week in country — rubbing shoulders with Israelis during Memorial Day and Independence Day ceremonies; breaking pita with them in cafes; speaking with them non-stop about their problems and fears, pitfalls and achievements — proved to me that visiting Israel is indeed the right thing to do, lest we lose sight of her true face.
When I think of sacrifice—something it's hard not to do lately—I think of shahadat, martyrdom (in Arabic); it's an idea nihilist butchers have hijacked in a gory race to a paradise that looks an awful lot like hell.
What we see in Iraq and Darfur and in the grim aims of the leaders of Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah is slaughter seemingly for slaughter's sake masquerading as slaughter in the name of God. We see the flag of jihad planted atop a mountain of hate. We hear the three no's of rejectionist Islam: no recognition of Israel, no ending violence, no honoring past agreements.
Hockey puck, slider, spud muffin, grease sponge, glue glob… oh the shame of a latke gone wrong. Heaven forbid the guests at your Chanukah party would have to digest a latke that merits such insult.
Assemble 5,000 Jews under one roof and you get a lot of talking. For the people attending the General Assembly of United Jewish Communities: The Federations of North America, the biggest topic of conversation concerned how the Jewish people will deal with an enemy—triumphalist Islam in general and the country of Iran in particular—that is preparing to deal Israel what it hopes will be a decisive blow.
Chicago Federation makes a big impression on Los Angeles General Assembly
Sometime during the Days of Awe I got word that a dear high school friend had succumbed to cancer. At 54, Mary Aileen Schmiel was the first of our old inner circle to die. The news sparked a hint of the emotion, the shock of the new, attending the group's other "firsts"—first marriage, first child, first grandchild, first death of a parent.
Boxes line the halls and obscure the walls at One South Franklin Street, the building that for nearly 50 years literally has served as the central address of Chicago's organized Jewish community.
Israel faces a new war with a new demand: the raising of the green flag of Islam over its sovereign territory
Jerusalem, June 18, 2006—Visiting Israel you feel the wheel of history turn beneath your feet. Sure the wheel turns on your own home street, and I suppose you can feel it turn strolling down Michigan Avenue. But nowhere does it turn as fast as here. Here you're moving even while sitting still; in the time it takes to sip one fabulous cup of café hafuch (Israeli latte), the wheel has brought you one click closer to destiny.
The same day Mayor Richard M. Daley was in Jerusalem, learning (among many other things) how Israel protects her citizens from Palestinian terror, I was on a treacherous Appalachian switchback, schmoozing about pluralism with Khaled, a Palestinian-American truck driver.
2006 Ride to Remember honors the Paper Clip Project at Whitwell Middle School in Tennessee
Despite all the matzah balls, matza brei, matza pizza, and just about every other iteration of the bread of affliction weighing heavily on my digestive tract as I write this, I still can't help but reflect not so much on how we Jews have been oppressed but rather on how we're blessed in this glorious season of spring.
Now recruiting high school sophomores for a program that can change the way Jewish students address Israel on campus
I had expected a different reception when on a spring day in 1998 I arrived at the Turkish cultural center in the Kreuzberg neighborhood of Berlin. Visiting Germany as a guest of the foreign ministry, I had requested to meet with a representative of the city's largest, most visible, and perhaps most ambivalent minority.
Producing what we fondly call the love issue of JUF News moves me to ponder today's world of relationships—a world my young adult children will soon enter; a world so many friends and colleagues grapple with; a world that seemingly brings as much pain as pleasure.
I'm old enough now to wax nostalgic about the first time I grasped that someday I would be old enough to wax nostalgic. The release of Steven Spielberg's by now not-so-new film, "Munich," was the touchstone for my sentimental, if not entirely pleasant, musing.
Old warriors have been on my mind. Old Jewish warriors.
Life for us American lovers of Zion seems a bit mad. Our hearts straddle two continents, two countries and two cultures while embracing one far-flung people. Our homes are too distant from our homeland. It's hard to bridge the gap, though Lord only knows we try.
When I first interviewed for my job at JUF News, I recall entering the restroom to make sure my hair was combed and my tie was straight, to look myself in the eye, and to wish myself good luck. I trusted to the force that rules these things that whatever would happen, by definition would be for the best.
Hitherto a shameless news junkie, I now recoil from the media's daily supersize dose of shooting, bombing, torture, murder, mayhem, warriors, wags, wonks, and worriers. The issues facing our country and the Jewish people are vexing; the human tragedy heart-wrenching. The situation on all fronts probably will deteriorate before it gets better. But as the weather improves in Chicago's inimitable way, all I want to think about is camping.
One of the benefits of working for a Jewish organization in these 21st-century United States is not having to say you're sorry during the Jewish holidays. You get the time off, period. During Passover I took advantage of the first and last two days falling during the week, took the other intermediate days off work, and flew the coop. It was poignant to celebrate freedom in a free country, something
During the last two weeks in June I traveled to Israel with 15 high school students who had devoted seven months studying Zionist and Israeli history, contemporary issues, and advocacy journalism. Our two-week Write On for Israel trip covered the map not only in geographical terms, but also in terms of the nation's political, religious, and ethnic terrain.
Recently I've been in touch with old high school friends who have said and done things publicly about Israel I can't abide. They are Jews who, as far as I'm concerned, just don't get it when it comes to the justice of Israel's struggle, who believe Israel's "occupation" and "aggression" are the major obstacles to peace.
Two people I know have kids in Iraq, soldiers in the United States Army. Both are immigrants. Janina is from Poland, Manny is from Mexico. They work for the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago Facilities Corp., and work hard. Janina cleans my office every evening. When I'm working late we chat. I look up from my computer, and she pauses while emptying
Practitioners of Jewish journalism cherish the opportunity to get to know just about everyone in the community, regardless of their religious observances, political leanings, or preferences concerning Jewish life. During this presidential election year, when U.S. Middle East policy, America-Israel relations, Israeli domestic politics, and other
Whoever isn't mad as hell at Mahathir Mohammed's anti-Semitic diatribe should take a good long look down the corridors of Jewish history and, for that matter, at the nature of bigotry and racism of all kinds.
This column is dedicated to every Israeli bus driver and passenger, be they Jews or Arabs, religious or secular, Ashkenazim or Sephardim, leftists or rightists, men or women, young or old.
It's been 40 years since it made much sense to put candles on my birthday cake. Eleven candles 10 for each year and one for good measure were pyrotechnic enough. After my 10th birthday I recall thinking that more candles just increased the likelihood of spitting on the frosting, without raising the odds my wish would come true.
I knew the day would come when my parents would move from the family homestead. I had hoped it would come when they were both alive and could enjoy condo living in some vibrant part of town, or that they would migrate to a warmer place and leave snow and ice behind. As it happened, my father has made the move alone, nearly six months after my mother died.
In several weeks my teenage daughter heads off to summer camp, where she'll spend seven weeks learning Hebrew (and lord knows what else) in the exotic environs of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. Israeli counselors, their speech redolent with rolling rheshes and expectorant chets, will hone her skills in the ancient, new tongue, hopefully to the point
To borrow the famous World War I Army recruiting slogan, your "Cousin Ruth wants YOU!" She wants you involved in what she calls "this project of a Jewish state," because it is "too serious and demanding to leave to Israelis alone. All the Jews are responsible."
In a couple of weeks (II Adar 14/March 18) we'll celebrate Purim, that fascinating Jewish holiday when we recall our reversal of fortune in ancient Persia, when those who sought to destroy the Jews were hoist on their own petard.
We got the kind of call at the office the other day that makes us feel terrific--well, almost. Norman B., a reader in Tucson, had phoned with a special request.
Whoever said "may you live in interesting times" has got their wish. This is an interesting, odd, spooky time, especially for young people trying to get a foothold in adulthood.
I was supposed to be winging my way to Italy about now for an exploration of that country's Jewish past and present with a few other lucky Jewish journalists. But no, that trip was canceled for the second time this year.
Growing up, the beginning of September always stirred a mix of nostalgia for the impending fall of glorious summer, a pang of anxiety about the approaching school year, but also a feeling of adventure, with the new school year bringing with it new possibilities.
On June 26, 1963, President John F. Kennedy stood at the Berlin Wall and made his famous pronouncement in less than perfect German, "Ich bin ein Berliner" ("I am a Berliner"). His statement of identification with the people and the democratic values of the Federal Republic of Germany was a Cold War shot heard 'round the world. Surrounded and walled-off by brutal, totalitarian forces, West Berlin was a beacon to the peoples of the Soviet bloc whose basic rights were trampled. Eventually the light of free Berlin penetrated the darkness; the Wall was reduced to little concrete souvenirs, which you can buy at the Checkpoint Charlie gift shop.
However much American Jews care about Israel and involve themselves in educational, political, cultural, and philanthropic efforts that express and support that connection, the reality is that Israel is far away both geographically and experientially. Israelis live in a separate reality, which the majority of American Jews never experience
Aaron Cohen links the UN Durban conference to the attacks on America.
For those of us who love the Middle East, each war, each outrage, creates a special pain.
Interview with Richard Joel, international director of Hillel: The Foundation for Campus Jewish Life.
