The Joy of Dogs

I was nine years old when we got our first dog … and I have had dogs on and off since then. My first dog’s name was Sandy — a beautiful golden Cocker Spaniel. She was a sweet, kind dog who cared for nothing but to be at our side and have her belly rubbed […]

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Is It Time to Rejuvenate Jewish Education?

The two most popular words in the Jewish communal world must surely be “Jewish education.” Walk into any board meeting of any Jewish organization and if you want the room to kvell, just talk about “the importance of Jewish education.” With the high rate of assimilation and the growing irrelevancy of organized religion to the […]

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Wikipedia’s Supreme Court Bans Two Editors for Offsite Misconduct in Israel-Palestine Topic Area

Wikipedia’s Arbitration Committee (ArbCom), the site’s version of a Supreme Court, announced on April 25 that two editors have been banned from the site entirely for “off-wiki misconduct” in the Palestine-Israel articles (PIA) topic area. In their announcement, the committee said it had reviewed a 244-page dossier that The Journal published in the “Gaming the […]

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Did Someone Call for A Chaplain

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 […]

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23 Congressional Members Express Concern to Wikimedia Foundation Over “Potential Abuse of Wikipedia by Coordinated Actors”

A bipartisan group of 23 Congressmembers wrote a letter to the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), the San Francisco-based nonprofit that oversees Wikipedia, on April 30 expressing “our deep concern regarding antisemitism, anti-Israel bias, and the potential abuse of Wikipedia by coordinated actors.” The letter, written by Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), and Don Bacon (R-Neb.) was […]

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Sephardic Torah from the Holy Land

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 […]

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A Dizzying 100 Days

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 […]

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