Author: David Rutman

Recently, a rare occurrence took place at the Laugh Factory Comedy Club in Reno, Nevada.  I was booked alongside Avi Liberman and Howard Nave — a three-man lineup of funny Jews. In the late 1960s and ’70s, this was anything but rare. Time Magazine once estimated that 80% of stand-up comics back then were Jewish. […]

Growing up, Rabbi Bryan Borenstein loved baseball. He would play hours of catch each day with his dad and brothers, working on his pitching in the front yard and spending summers at the Baseball Development Center (the BDC). There, he was coached by college, minor league, and major league players. Dodgers players would drop by […]

The lazy days of summer’s end skipped the United Kingdom and Australia this year. Mass protests swept across the Western world. Tens of thousands gathered in U.K. cities such as London, Epping, Bristol, Birmingham, Falkirk, Gloucester, Newcastle and Essex, where the streets were decorated with Union Jack flags. There were smaller rallies in Scotland and […]

Bruce Weinstein’s eating philosophy is simple: cook, share food, enjoy. “Eat real ingredients. … It’ll make you feel better,” Weinstein told the Journal. “[You’ll be] easy to get along with and people will like you.” Weinstein is a food writer and author of 40 books, 38 of which are cookbooks. His latest, written with husband […]

A Teacher, A Friend, A Balancing Act – Thoughts Before Rosh HaShanah   We have a simple, but wonderful tradition on the Sabbaths between Passover and the Days of Awe – the study of Pirkei Avot, “The Sayings of the Fathers,” one chapter per week. As I study Pirkei Avot at this time of the […]

Comedian Jeff Ross lost his parents by the age of 19, lost his hair after making his mark in Hollywood and might have lost his life, had he not listened to a friend who encouraged him to get a colonoscopy last summer. Ross (whose real last name is Lifschultz) is currently on Broadway in his […]

Mayim, the compassion evident in your recent post about the Oct. 7 War against Hamas was deeply felt, and your desire for peace is shared by every Israeli parent who wants their child home safely, by every hostage family still living in a nightmare, and by millions of Jews who would give anything for this […]

Ariel Yaakov Marciano, 24, was attacked this past Sunday at the Santa Monica Pier by a group of around 20 young men. Marciano, who had traveled from Sacramento to Los Angeles for his cousin’s bar mitzvah, was exploring the area when he noticed dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators holding Palestinian and Mexican flags. Courtesy of Ariel […]

One of the biggest missed opportunities for American Jewry over the past several decades has been in Holocaust education. We’ve focused so much on the Holocaust we’ve overlooked the aftermath. Yes, it’s crucial for the world to know that six million Jews got murdered by a madman and his Nazi killing machine because they were […]