Category: Science and Health

This week we celebrate modern-day Israel’s 77th Independence Day. On Hanukkah 1948, when Israel was 7 months old, it was fresh out of a War of Independence that claimed 6,500 lives, one percent of Israel’s population. The heroes who defended Israel were our modern-day Maccabees, the men and women of the newly established Israel Defense […]

In 1990, George Franklin was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison based on the testimony of his 28-year-old daughter Eileen. She described seeing him rape her best friend and then smash her skull with a rock. When Eileen testified at her father’s trial, her memory of the murder was relatively fresh. It was less […]

This is the sermon I gave in the Krakow synagogue to a congregation mostly of teens in Poland for March of the Living, who walked the previous day from Auschwitz to Birkenau.  Shhhh.  Shhhhhh. In the Torah portion we read this Shabbat, when Aaron’s sons die, the Torah gives us two words — vayidom Aharon.  […]

Donald Trump does not easily call to mind thoughts of honeymoons—even though he has owned several honeymoon destinations. In closing out the first 100 days of his second presidency, it is difficult to say that his honeymoon in the White House is over. So divisive is his presence in American politics, neither the press nor […]

Edward Martin, Jr., who was appointed by President Donald Trump to serve as Interim U.S. Attorney, sent a letter to the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) on April 24 with a series of questions pertaining to its tax-exempt status from Jan. 2021 onward. “It has come to my attention that the Wikimedia Foundation, through its wholly owned […]

Maxim D. Shrayer frequently travels between the inner worlds that constitute his identity. In his latest collection of poems, “Kinship,” Shrayer offers many a glimpse into what it’s like to be living within each of his worlds. There is the scholarly side of him, as a professor of Russian, English and Jewish Studies at Boston […]

Five members of Congress last week traveled to a prison in Louisiana to show their solidarity with two Hamas supporters who are awaiting deportation. The Congressional visitors were continuing an unfortunate century-long tradition of politicians and political activists embracing tyrants, terrorists and terror supporters. In the 1920s, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin welcomed numerous American intellectuals […]

One feature of Jewish life that I have grown to love is the idea of repetition. It also happens to be foundational to our faith. From weekly Shabbat rituals, readings and prayers to the very cyclical nature of the Jewish calendar, the book Deuteronomy essentially “retells the same stories we have already read in earlier […]

Few are the individuals who are successful in life, make their fortunes and are described first and foremost not in terms of their business acumen or trendsetting but in terms of their humility and kindness to others. This is the legacy of Jack Rimokh, who passed away April 6  at the age of 87. “Despite […]

You may have heard of the recent resurrection of the dire wolf. This scientific miracle came about through extracted DNA from the blood of the gray wolf and rewritten into the genetic code to match the sequence from dire wolf fossils. simultaneously in the American zeitgeist.  In California, we need another resurrection of an endangered […]