Author: David Rutman

My truck-driver father and secretary mother, both hardworking people, seemed like failures to me because they were not doctors or lawyers like many of my grammar school classmates’ parents. I was so wrong. It’s painful to think that your parents are losers. I hope to God they never knew my thoughts.  I lived in a […]

There are two ways of looking at Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny’s performance during the Super Bowl halftime show, which he sang almost entirely in Spanish. One is politically, as Commentary’s Abe Greenwald writes: “It was a mini musical about labor exploitation, American colonialism, social inequity, Latin American pride, and Puerto Rican independence… It was, […]

The story at the heart of The Anatomy of Exile by Zeeva Bukai (Delphinium Books) harks back to the Six-Day War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973, an era when the wars that Israel was forced to fight had beginnings and endings that were measured in days.  But we are reading her […]

When it comes to the hatred of global Jewry, unnecessary roughness is not a penalty but rather pay dirt. Many receive great satisfaction treating Jews as tackling dummies—blaming and besmirching them; resenting their success; cheering their losses. Antisemitism comes with a scorecard, and the smart money is always betting against the Jews. The Super Bowl […]

A new commercial that will air this Sunday during the Super Bowl will inform America that “2 in 3 Jewish teens have experienced antisemitism.” The assumption is that if we tell Americans how much Jews are hated, they’ll be less likely to hate us. Is that so? The Jewish teen walking in a school hallway […]

When Rabbi Heshy Wolf and his wife Chani announced to their family and friends that they were moving from Los Angeles to Fairbanks, Alaska, they were met with skepticism. “Everyone was looking at us like, ‘What are you doing? You’re crazy,’” Heshy told The Journal on a Zoom interview from his home in Fairbanks, where […]

International Holocaust Remembrance Day has now come and gone. It wouldn’t be such a bad idea for it to finally be gone for good. After all, this most recent commemoration was part travesty and complete misnomer. A day that had little to do with the actual Holocaust. President Trump’s campaign promise to clamp down on […]

I’ve driven by Sinai Temple in Westwood hundreds of times, and attended countless events, but never once have I asked myself: What came before this? I’ve always known the temple has been around for a while, but I have no idea how it started or how it evolved. We’re a people of stories and memory. […]

Parshat Beshalach offers a seminar on courage. It begins by declaring that, “God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although it was nearer; for God said, ‘The people may have a change of heart when they see war, and return to Egypt.’” The newly freed slaves were not ready […]