Author: David Rutman

Since 2020, the Western world has been on a covered-face fetish. The pandemic made the N95 mask an indispensable artifact of the coronavirus—more important an accessory than the iPhone. We came to accept that protecting our respiratory systems meant forfeiting our facial identities. Soon faces were masked for infections of a different sort. Viruses migrated […]

Batya Ungar-Sargon wore a Magen David necklace as she hosted the first episode of her weekly NewsNation show “Batya!” on Sept. 20. Before the debut, she told The Journal “It’s to remind me and my viewers who I am as a Jew,” One the show, Ungar-Sargon told guest Megyn Kelly she was one of her […]

Actress Rita Zohar didn’t have to search far for her role as a Holocaust survivor in Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut, “Eleanor the Great.” She is a Holocaust survivor herself. Though Zohar did not experience the horrors of the war directly — she was only four-and-a-half months old when her family was liberated from the concentration camp […]

When President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a new ceasefire and hostage-release plan on Sept. 29, The New York Times reported that hostage families called the deal a “historic turning point.” Yehuda Cohen, father of hostage Nimrod Cohen, did not share that description. “Okay. First of all, I wouldn’t call it […]

A sukkah was nearly selected as the symbol of America. On July 4, 1776, the day the Declaration of Independence was adopted, the Second Continental Congress appointed a committee to design a seal for the United States. John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were chosen for the task.  Franklin, amidst the early brainstorming sessions, […]

It was impossible not to feel hopeful as the most powerful man in the world waxed dreamily about solving a conflict he says is “thousands of years old” and aiming for nothing less than “eternal peace in the Middle East.” What is noteworthy about Trump’s plan, which got the support and input of Prime Minister […]

When, and if, World War III commences between Islamists and the tattered remnants of Western democracy, America is now on notice of a dwindling list of allies to fight alongside it. This past week was a pitiful reminder of the back-stabbing spinelessness that now governs once-great countries. France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Belgium, Portugal […]

It’s been 14 years since Rabbi AdaM Schaffer arrived at HaMakom (né, Temple Aliyah) to become director of the Jewish Learning Cooperative, the religious school. An educator for most of his adult life, the Washington, D.C. area native was asked if he ever considered becoming a full-time teacher. “We know the word rabbi/rav comes from […]

Jewish National Fund-USA (JNF-USA) held its annual David Frank Memorial Golf Classic at The Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades this past summer. During the gathering, held July 28, 120 philanthropists from greater Los Angeles spent a day with corporate executives at one of the most iconic golf courses in the country, while raising funds […]