Category: Science and Health

I am an interfaith hospice chaplain who on average handles 20 deaths every week; at times I manage 40. This number may sound staggering but it’s not. As people age and society understands death, more people will choose to die with the dignity of hospice. The career of a chaplain is not one of the […]

Amy Dell grew up in the restaurant industry and is still deli-adjacent. Her father, who is from Israel, owned Mr. Broadway kosher restaurant in New York City. Her husband, Jake, is the third-generation owner of Katz’ Deli. “When my husband and my father met, one of the first questions my father asked my husband was, […]

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 […]