Essays, notes, poems, and prayers
Writing
Most of this started as a Facebook post and got a second life here. Every piece carries its date in two calendars.
- 3 November 2025י״ב בחשוון תשפ״וEssay
Zionism for Palestinians
Zionism for Palestinians? I've been having great discussions with listeners to The Z Word 's first episode, my conversation with Palestinian author Mo Husseini . A central point of not...
- 30 October 2025ח׳ בחשוון תשפ״וEssay
Kollelim as National Service
I respect Haredim. I think that their counter-cultural ethos is inspirational and the construction of a lifestyle revolving around the study and observance of Torah is admirable. I, too, value...
- 28 October 2025ו׳ בחשוון תשפ״וEssay
Igbo Israelites
The Igbo culture always surprises me. Today I learned that those Igbos that still pray according to the ways of Omenana, convene an additional service steeped in tradition (after they...
- 27 October 2025ה׳ בחשוון תשפ״וEssay
Who Invented the Jews
Who invented the Jews? Who invented the Palestinians? "Sand explained during a newspaper interview his reasons for writing the book: "I wrote the book for a double purpose. First, as...
- 17 October 2025כ״ה בתשרי תשפ״וEssay
Political Zionism Is Autonomy
Morning meditation on political Zionism: The political component to Zionism is not Jewish sovereignty over the land. According to Jewish tradition, the Creator was, is, and forever will be the...
- 16 October 2025כ״ד בתשרי תשפ״וEssay
Genocide Accusation as Blood Libel
On October 7th, 2023, the Hamas military invaded southern Israel. For an entire day, they systematically murdered every Jewish person they found. Their stated goal was to join with Hezbollah...
- 15 October 2025כ״ג בתשרי תשפ״וEssay
Religion as Foundation
People (especially those from a certain North American country) are obsessed with politics, especially partisan politics. Everything must be explainable by reference to your political ideology or better yet, your...
- 14 October 2025כ״ב בתשרי תשפ״וEssay
The Road Leads to Zion
Yesterday I saw a video of an execution on Facebook. A row of kneeling men, shot in the head from behind. The person who shared the video asserted that the...
- 12 October 2025כ׳ בתשרי תשפ״וEssay
Reckon with the Devastation
This will make some people irrationally mad but: Zionism must reckon with the devastation of Gaza. We've left behind the naive days when we waged war solely and wholly in...
- 11 October 2025י״ט בתשרי תשפ״וEssay
Benevolent Sensitivity
Jewish Religion: A Rough Sketch At the heart of our practices, theories, and forms lies חסידות, a word translated variously as piety, loving-kindness, and mysticism. For reasons that I hope...
- 3 October 2025י״א בתשרי תשפ״וEssay
PSA on Palestine
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...
- 24 September 2025ב׳ בתשרי תשפ״וEssay
How Many New Years
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...
- 14 September 2025כ״א באלול תשפ״הEssay
I Have Listened to You
One of the people who objected to my desecration of a murdered man's memory assumed that I was not interested in "listening without trying to make a counter-argument." Since he...
- 22 April 2025כ״ד בניסן תשפ״הEssay
Zionism: Toward a Horizontal Covenant of Israel
Introduction: The Crisis and the Calling We live in a moment of profound civilizational crisis. The ideological frameworks that shaped the modern world—nationalism, capitalism, statism, and religious orthodoxy—are unraveling. Where...