“I am very much a fan of free speech,” Rabbi Daniel Levine said. And on his YouTube show, the 32-year-old San Diego native and professor at UC Irvine practices what he preaches. He interviews people from both the right and left; .his goal each time is to spread light on their views, whether you agree […]
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Long before I light my candles, the smoky scent of my Moroccan fish signals that Shabbat is coming. Like my mother and my grandmothers before me, I serve my family and friends this flavorful, saucy fish dish every Friday night. For Sephardic Jews, serving fish as the first course on Friday night is symbolic […]
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This week, the world watched as Einav Zangauker cradled her son, Matan, returning from captivity in Gaza, her arms locked around his neck. His face sank into her shoulder. In the seconds before their embrace, Einav could be seen stomping her feet as she ran toward her son, a movement like the jumping we’ve seen […]
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I am known to have unrealistic expectations. For instance, once the Gaza 20-Point Peace Plan was signed, I naïvely, facetiously, imagined that Mark Ruffalo, Dua Lipa, Emma Stone, the Hadid sisters, Javier Bardem, New York City’s mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, and legions of pink-and purple-haired antisemites would all ecstatically dance the hora in celebration. After […]
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I lie awake thinking of Italy, love and broken illusions. And even the news of the return of the Hamas-held hostages to Israel does not dispel all my sadness. I visualize some of the happiest times in my life. My parents and I, former refuseniks, coming to Rome in the summer of 1987 and tasting […]
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The Sharm El Sheikh Peace Summit of October 13, 2025, concluded with over twenty world leaders signing the “Trump Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity,” celebrating a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas after more than two years of devastating conflict in Gaza. Yet the most striking feature was not who attended, but who did […]
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Many know Brock Lesnar, Conor McGregor and Jon Jones. But not as many are familiar with Mark Kerr, for a time one of the toughest men on the planet. Kerr went from winning an NCAA wrestling championship to winning to Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) tournaments. In “The Smashing Machine” Kerr is masterfully played by Dwayne […]
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B’reishit — In the beginning (Genesis 1:1–6:8) In the beginning there was nothing andliterally everything had to be made. Now there is everything and peoplestill want more. Just yesterday I overheard someone say it tookseven days to make the world. Maybe it was on television oron a bus (though I wasn’t on a bus…) or […]
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A story is told about a day when motion picture director Otto Preminger, who sought a safe haven from the Nazis and achieved fame and fortune in the American movie industry, overheard a conversation that was conducted in Hungarian. “Don’t you guys know you’re in Hollywood?” he quipped. “Speak German.” The point is made in […]
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Prospects for a sustainable Middle Eastern peace appear to be the most favorable since the heady days of the Abraham Accords. It seems rash to consider lessons learned over the past 24 months before we see how things play out. This reminds me of a conversation that allegedly took place in 1972 between Secretary of […]
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