Parenting from the Left #2: Netanyahu and the Holocaust
(With gratitude to the editors of Jewschool, I will be blogging 1-2 times per month on the challenges of parenting about Israel and Palestine to two boys in Jewish day school and who live within an...
View ArticleOn The Firing Of Theater J’s Ari Roth
Ian Thal is a playwright, performer and theater educator specializing in mime, commedia dell’arte, and puppetry, and has been known to act on Boston area stages from time to time, sometimes with Teatro...
View ArticleParenting from the Left #3: France and the 9/11 Memorial
“Dad, I have had enough. I don’t really want to talk about 9/11 any more.” So said my older son a couple of weekends ago, just a few days after the tragic attacks in France. Our family had headed to...
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Hang in there…
Dear readers, this weekend our site is launching a much-needed redesign! Hang tight with us while the site is migrated and our contributors oriented about our new bells and whistles. Recognize a...
View ArticleParenting from the Left #4: Selma and Israel/Palestine
True fear knows no context. And to follow the commandment to love your neighbor, to know the stranger, you must understand what fills them with unbridled fear, the kind of fear that cannot be...
View ArticlePublic Caning While Standing in a Bucket of Pig's Blood: The Facebook...
I’ve been thinking today about the ways in which facebook and other online discourse can be constructive or destructive. I try to engage people with diverse opinions in thinking through vitally...
View ArticleThe Terror and Joy of *Feeling*: Channah's Legacy for our Spiritual Activism
Editor’s Note: Following yesterday’s post by Sarra Alpert, here is another piece about the Rosh HaShana Torah readings, re-visited as we read those passages again this coming Shabbat. This piece was...
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And the winner is …
Yes, here it is, the announcement that you have all been waiting for. After sifting through the… uhhh… hmmm… one entry to decide what cookie will represent Jewschool at NewGround’s evening Spotlight:...
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Rabbi Pruzansky and the Jewish Media's Failure
Of late, Rabbi Steven Pruzansky has been roundly and justly criticized by the Jewish media. Within the last few weeks, the rabbi of the 800-member-family Teaneck, NJ, Bnai Jeshurun Orthodox synagogue...
View ArticleOnly Cause: Some Words On Standing Up in Israel and Palestine
Try reading out loud. Sometimes I feel like there are all these peace agreements for sale and no one’s buying. We’ve got two states, one state, unions, federations, long term, short term and more. Get...
View ArticleIs Benjamin Netanyahu King of the Jews?
This is a guest post by Shaul Magid, the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Chair in Jewish Studies Professor of Jewish Studies and Religious Studies at Indiana University in Bloomington. There has been much...
View ArticleOnly Cause: Some Words On Standing Up in Israel and Palestine
Try reading out loud. Sometimes I feel like there are all these peace agreements for sale and no one’s buying. We’ve got two states, one state, unions, federations, long term, short term and more. Get...
View ArticleSouth Side Poetry Suite, Part I of VI
I recently wrote here about my decision to move from Israel, where I had lived for fourteen years, back to my ancestral homeland of the South Side of Chicago. Leading up to this decision, I wrote a...
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On disruptive technologies and disruption
Disruptive technologies is one of the new business buzzwords of the past decade (actually here HBR has it in an article from 1995). To be perfectly honest, its not new anymore in the business world. I...
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The Hijacking Of the Pro Israel Community
I was marching as I do every year at the Celebrate Israel parade with the Progressive cluster. Despite a loud and nasty campaign to keep us out of the parade we marched proudly under the banner of New...
View ArticleLeaning into Conflict to Nurture Love
In the most obscure verse in this week’s parashah, perhaps the most obscure in the whole Torah, Scripture catalogs Israel’s journeys in the desert and describes the geography of one of their pit-stops:...
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BDS: Reject or Reflect?
“Eliav, come back. This is not either/or. We need to talk through it.” This is one of my more frequently-uttered sentences these days, as my 10-1/2 year old son grows up and hits those pre-teen...
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What are the True Outcomes in Israel/Palestine…and Baseball?
What can modern analytical approaches to baseball and baseball statistics teach us about understanding conflict in Israel-Palestine? Before answering that, I should say that a lot of our family’s time...
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#TBT: Tisha B’Av at Grand Army Plaza asks Israel-Gaza “If Not Now?”
This week’s Throwback Thursday looks backward and forward. Last year, Tisha B’Av fell during Israel’s assault on Gaza, a truly terrible time, like so many other truly terrible times. A burgeoning...
View ArticlePresident Obama’s interview with Jewish Federations
A live webcast — concluding in moments — speaking to the Jewish Federations of North America and local federations nation-wide. (Interview starts at 31 minutes.) The post President Obama’s interview...
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