Articles

The word focus comes from the Latin for “fire”. The “focus” was the fireplace in a Roman home.* Fire draws our attention. It’s impossible...

Antisemites think Jews cause everything bad. We’re to blame for capitalism and communism, ethnocentric nationalism and rootless...

Question: What did the first three-headed clown juggling live baby goats say to the second three-headed clown juggling live baby goats?...

All weekend as I watched the news, I wondered again what I’ve wondered before: why isn’t pain a zero sum game? Why can’t we spread the...

Lately there seems to be a concerted attack on the idea of Tikkun Olam. Critics say Tikkun Olam is not a Jewish idea, but merely liberal...

A two-part essay for The Peoplehood Papers, volume 22 – “Israel@70: A Peoplehood Perspective” Part 1: How Zionism challenges the Jewish...

Is there a relationship between Israel’s dependence on rain and the traits and values we developed as a people? Golda Meir famously...

We’re still in the Stone Age. Or rather, our minds are. I’m not kidding. The human brain has evolved very little since we were...

[This essay is part of a series from leaders in the field of Jewish philanthropy, who will offer reactions and analyses to Jack...

Whenever the Jews have had sovereignty in their land, they have messed up and lost it. Traditional Judaism has an obsession with...

“Each generation doubtless feels called upon to reform the world. Mine knows that it will not reform it, but its task is perhaps even...

Have you ever heard the phrase “the God of the Old Testament”? It’s generally used to distinguish between the supposedly angry, vengeful,...

Israel has two major memorial days: Yom Hazikaron—the remembrance day for fallen soldiers of Israel and Israeli terror victims—and Yom...

There few things more delightful that getting into an argument with your teenage child about the meaning of “freedom”. No, my dear son,...

Much of our communal energy over the last three decades has been aimed at creating platforms, leaving the content pretty much up for...

I follow Anshel Pfeffer’s column in Haaretz with assiduity. I usually find his mordant analyses profound and insightful. But I can’t help...

Our obligations extend to both past and future. Almost all modern societies are based on variations of a single concept: the “Social...

Persephone was a unique goddess in Greek mythology. She lived an idyllic and lonely life in communion with Nature, far from the other...

Intense, lifelong friendships that transcend social and cultural barriers are an Argentinian specialty, like tango, recurrent currency...

The choice of Kohelet for Sukkot is a curious one. Sukkot is supposed to be the most joyous festival in our calendar, and yet, on it we...

In order to succeed as philanthropists, we need to better understand and accept the views of those who are in positions of less relative...

Georg Friedrich Hegel was to modern thought what Plato was to Greek philosophy. Most of the ideological movements of the 19th and 20th...

Many people acquire power precisely by having a great capacity to be empathetic, or, at least, to be well-attuned to the emotional...

If the purpose of Tisha Be’Av is to warn us about the dangers of internecine hatred, it has failed miserably. The year 403 BCE was...