NEW YORK (JTA) — At 4 a.m., Israeli rocker Aviv Gefen was still crying, head in hands, in the empty Haifa-area amphitheater where he had performed the previous late May evening. Staff members urged him to go home.In a televised interview days later,...
An uplifting story What a wonderful, heartwarming headlining article about the father-son reunion written by Ellen Futterman in the June 17 edition of the Light! I can’t begin to express how deeply touching this story was, especially welcomed coming...
Jewish organizations are in danger. Our charitable giving can help ensure they survive.ATLANTA (JTA) — My library has the popular book “21 Lessons for the 21st Century,” in which Yuval Harari — a Jew, an Israeli and an acclaimed author — states...
BETHESDA, Md. (JTA) — David Axelrod, a former top aide to President Barack Obama often credited with masterminding his two successful campaigns for the presidency, recently published a column in The Washington Post that hit me between the eyes and...
The protest movement in the wake of police killings of African Americans that has targeted monuments to the Confederacy has also targeted statues of Christopher Columbus (including one in Tower Grove Park), Thomas Jefferson, a Texas Ranger (not one of...
The world has been changing drastically. This pandemic has forced us to rethink our values because it threatens our way of life. To many people, this ordeal has brought adversity, pain and sorrow. To me, however, this virus feels a lifetime away.I live...
This story originally appeared on Alma.As a white person, as a Jewish person and as the descendant of Holocaust survivors who have benefited from the German reparations program, I feel morally obligated to pay reparations to Black grassroots organizations...
Black lives matter. We begin here with this most fundamental acknowledgement of the inherent worth of your existence, the recognition of your most basic humanity, and the fact that we are all created in the image of the divine (b’tselem elohim). And...
America is a “medina shel chesed, a nation of kindness.” — Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson Sunday was Flag Day. In the midst of a pandemic, economic recession, and crisis over race and policing, I am daring to call for Americans to recover a...
Readers respond to Jewish Federation decision to drop adult learning classesA few weeks ago, I received the news that the Jewish Federation’s Adult Education program, CJL, would be summarily eliminated and staffers Cyndee Levy and Rabbi Tracy Nathan...
On June 8, Hennepin County (Minnesota) District Court Judge Karen Janisch signed a far-reaching order that, among other provisions, flatly prohibits the Minneapolis Police Department from using chokeholds or neck restraints of any kind “for any...
Over Memorial Day weekend, unspeakable actions occurred in my adopted hometown of Minneapolis, shocking and horrifying many into a natural desire to speak out against the recurring injustices. While those statements may make people feel better, they often...
