Letting your voice be heardIt’s no surprise that the Jewish community includes people across the political spectrum with different reactions to the midterm elections (“Jewish Democrats and Republicans offer dueling views of election results,” Jewish...
After a divisive and explosive process, President Donald Trump became the fourth president in a row to lose one or more houses of the United States Congress to the opposing party in the midterm elections. At this time, Democrats have gained 35 U.S. House...
Like all of you who heard the news, I was shocked by yesterday's horrific tragedy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where innocent community members who wanted to enjoy a peaceful Shabbat and celebrate a Jewish baby's birth were senselessly injured and murdered....
By Rabbi Seth D Gordon
• Published November 9, 2018
As a Jew and as an American, I am saddened and angry that 11 people attending Shabbat services at Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh were murdered. The loss is incalculable, as is the fear. The murderer also injured others, including several...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The outpouring of grief over last month’s massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue has sparked a degree of counterintuitive hope. Just maybe, the eternal optimists among us believe, this will prove to be the watershed event...
When gunman Robert Bowers fired on the Tree of Life congregation late last month, he shook the whole tree, from the roots in Pittsburgh to the branches of Jewish communities across the world. At Washington University, Bowers struck close to the root—several...
Word came from 600 miles away, but it could not have felt closer to home. The horrifying news arrived while many here were still in shul. It sounded surreal and yet all too familiar.A shooter had invaded a place of worship, on Shabbat, shouting, “All...
By Rabbi Yonason Goldson
• Published November 8, 2018
Nearly a century ago, on Sept. 1, 1923, a violent earthquake struck Japan, devastating Tokyo, Yokohama and the surrounding cities. One hundred thousand people lost their lives, and many had their lives turned upside down.The news reached as far as the...
A different take on vigil speakersI attended the vigil at the Jewish Community Center last Sunday (Oct. 28) and had a very different reaction than the opinion of Dr. Myron Jacobs (Letters to the Editor, Oct. 31 edition). To me, the program was uplifting...
(JTA) — My father, whose own father changed his unpronounceable last name to Carroll when he came to America, would often tell a story about job hunting in the late 1940s and 50s. It was only after the interview that the men across the desk would ask,...
“The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity.”— William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming”The events unfolding over the past few days have revealed a deadly poison at the...
A synagogue under fire, the body count climbing. Several reactions rose within me simultaneously, the reactions shaped by the different lenses of my life. The first is the lens of Mother. The mother in me weeps, both for the dead and their families...
