Gil PSA to both Leftists and Right-Wingers: If all you know about the situation in Palestine is derived from memes and viral posts, and you haven’t done any research into the history of this land, or learned about the peoples who come from it, or even just talked to both Palestinians and Israelis who have lived … Read more
All year long we avoid our shadow, we avert our gaze from the many ways in which it falls upon others and robs them of the light… All year long we hide in the very tree we were warned against, we pretend to ourselves that our maker will not see us, does not want to … Read more
The Trump ceasefire plan does not seem substantially different from the Biden ceasefire plan. The timetable for some things is a little faster, for other things a little slower. There is a stark cosmetic difference in the language. But it seems to set out roughly the same basic points for both Israel and Hamas as … Read more
Evening Musing: The American relationship with history is very peculiar. American society insulates itself with a certain willful amnesia, an official disinterest in the critical study of the past. People seem to prefer myth and legend over fact and evidence. The civil religion requires a certain uncritical ahistoricity. Skeptics are unpatriotic, revisionists are heretics. And … Read more
The racing of Jewish people as “white” has a lot to do with developments in American racial politics over the course of the 20th century and little to do with contemporary or historical Jewish people. In actuality, Jewish people are of West Asian descent and have since absorbed the genes of other human communities on … Read more
I wonder if James Comey regrets putting the investigation of Clinton’s email server in the national spotlight right before the 2016 election.
Whew. Said the prayers. Blew the shophar. Ate the honey. Let my wife rest through the night. I showed up, I did my part, I stood with every single being in creation and crowned my King. Despite everything, Rosh Hashana was, thank God, a success in my little corner of the cosmos. Barukh Hashem. Mammash. … Read more
Due to a mishap in my prescription fulfillment, this Rosh Hashana, I’ll be without my OCD medication for the first time since I started taking it. For those who don’t live with OCD, all they know of it – all they see of it – are some odd behaviors and preferences, some rigidity in personal … Read more
(trigger warning: suicide decades ago) Just found out that Rabbi Yosef Adler z”l of Teaneck has passed on to his world. The mark of a good rabbi, imho, is not merely their erudition (that is a sine qua non) but their capacity to successfully lead a Jewish community. To shepherd, not just educate. The mark … Read more
As more and more countries recognize a state with no contiguous territory, no means of self-defense, no independent monetary policy or funding, and no active popular legislature, I would like to renew my personal invitation to build a shared society in a single state, built on the infrastructure of the existing Israeli state, that grants … Read more