Teachers
Seth Rudetsky – Judy Davis – Mrs. Green – Yoni Shultz. If any of those names ring a bell with you, you’re either an unapologetic listener to the Broadway channel on Sirius XM, an in-the-weeds fan of pop music – or you’ve been doing some digging into my personal background. Seth Rudetsky hosts a program […]
Villages and Nations
It was brilliant – it was complicated – it was messy. It was also notoriously unsuccessful – and, thank Gd, it was a glorious success. In the years before the founding of the Third Jewish Commonwealth (aka, Israel), the divide between Haredim (what some call “Ultra-Orthodox” today) and secular Zionists was becoming more pronounced. The religious communities […]
Absolutely Extraordinary
I’d like to think that Herzl would have ordered the “Nastia” (Maker’s Mark Bourbon, spiced silan (date honey), lemon juice, za’atar and thyme), but I’m not sure if A.D. Gordon (the godfather of labor Zionism) would have chosen the “Raz” (with white negrita rum and a ginger infusion) or the “Meteora” (rye, Benedictine, honey and […]
Words – and More
It’s not a trick question: asked to name the two profoundly important twentieth century events in the history of the Jewish people, most even minimally connected and engaged would provide the same response: the shoah and the founding of the modern state of Israel. (More on why I stubbornly insist on “shoah” as opposed to “holocaust” later.) We could […]
Future Reunions
Even on Zoom, with everyone snuggled in their respective squares, it was a welcome, moving (virtual) reunion. It had been a bit over fifteen years since we spent two very – very – intense years together of study and leadership training and mentoring; five national mentors, fifteen “mentees” (three apiece), two two-week summer seminars, Shabatonim sandwiched between them. Along […]