Category: Science and Health

  (Ruins of ancient Charan) Avoiding the Journey Thoughts on Torah portion Lekh Lekha 2024   There is something missing in the story of Abraham, as we usually tell it. Avram was not told by God to leave Mesopotamia for Canaan. We are told in Genesis 11:31 that Terach, Avram’s father, had already left Mesopotamia […]

“George Gascon is about to be gone!” Nathan Hochman made this declaration on the evening of Nov. 5 as it became clear that his campaign to challenge Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon had been successful. As of press time, election results showed Hochman defeating Gascon by a wide margin. On Nov. 5, Hochman […]

Twenty-two years ago, when Sam Delug was thinking about purchasing a house on Elm Drive in Beverly Hills, he brought his three children there and asked what they thought: Should he buy it? It was a beautiful mansion in the flats of Beverly Hills and the price was a steal — what wasn’t there to […]

Over the past few weeks I’ve witnessed a fascinating phenomenon: The closer we get to Election Day, the more those on the fringe deploy the word “Nazis” to serve their own agenda. Nazis, fascism, Hitler, genocide—all words hijacked and robbed of their meaning, all disconnected from their reality, un-fashioned and re-fashioned to serve a political […]

Wikipedia editors have officially added “Gaza genocide” to the “List of genocides” Wikipedia article following a discussion launched over the summer. The list itself begins with “Gaza genocide,” where it states: “Israel has been accused by experts, governments, U.N. agencies and non-governmental organizations of carrying out a genocide against the Palestinian population during its invasion and bombing of Gaza during the ongoing Israel […]

As the clock winds down to Tuesday night when we will presumably learn who will be our next president, it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on a political truth that is relevant regardless of who wins. And few things are more relevant these days than the long-term erosion of the political center in America. […]

More than 1,000 prominent figures from literature and entertainment have signed an open letter organized by the nonprofit Creative Community for Peace (CCFP), to oppose boycotts “of Israeli and Jewish writers, publishers, authors, book festivals, and literary agencies, along with those who support, work with, or platform them.” The signatories include Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize […]

Do they think we’re stupid? Do they think they can single out only one country in the world for an artistic boycott and get away with it? Maybe they’ve concluded that when that country is the Jewish state, they can never get in trouble. And maybe they’re right. How else to explain the idiotic temper […]

As we observe the 11th anniversary of the passing of Rav Ovadia Yosef z”l (3 Heshvan), we do so in the midst of a deep void in rabbinic leadership in Israel.  When I say “Rabbinic Leadership,” I don’t mean rabbis who can deliver beautiful sermons or write thought-provoking essays. I mean Chief Rabbis, whose responsibility […]

As the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers square off in this year’s World Series, old-timers recall the first time the two teams met in the Fall Classic, in 1941, a contest that involved one of baseball’s most famous plays. But that World Series was also connected to a long-forgotten episode in the controversy […]