The Voice That Calls: Jewish Awakening in Our Time
Imagine being awakened at 4 AM by a voice calling you to something urgent, something that cannot wait for a more convenient hour. This is the essence of selichot – a voice that calls us from the comfortable darkness of spiritual slumber into the demanding light of self-examination and transformation. It is the voice that…
To Occupy or Not To Occupy Gaza
The morning of October 7, 2023, marked a watershed moment in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hamas militants breached the Gaza-Israel…
The Miracle of Persistence: Lessons from a People Who Refuse to Disappear
In an age when entire civilizations have risen and fallen, when empires have crumbled to dust and languages have vanished…
The Modern Erev Rav: When Jewish Identity Becomes a Shield for Betrayal
At a time when Jewish unity, Ahavat Hinam vs. Sin’at Hinam (baseless love vs. baseless hatred), and acceptance of Klal…
Approaching encounters with curiosity and not with judgement
Teens across Israel and in Jewish communities throughout America participate in transformative encounters that shape their Jewish identity, their relationship…
In 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. shared his dream that “…this nation (US) will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: …that all men are created equal.” Dr. King’s dream extended beyond healing African American suffering; his vision included “…all men…” society as a whole. 70 years earlier, in 1895,…
It’s taken me a couple of months to write about this War of Iron Swords. I keep asking myself: What do I have to share and why do I want to share it? Not sure if it has to do with my mind clouded by the images of mutilated little kids, of parents chopped to…
The field of teen immersive experiences in Israel is undergoing a transformation not seen since the introduction of Israel Advocacy over twenty years ago. This is not to say that we have seen the last of Israel Advocacy, but perhaps a next iteration of it or a parallel – strategic track – to it. As…
Duality and contradictions are found throughout the Torah, in Jewish life, and Israel’s existence as a people and a nation-state. The book of Genesis begins with chaos seeking order, attempting to create a semblance of normalcy because life is anything but normal. Like creation, on Passover we have a Seder, an “order”, of reenacting our story…
Erica Brown, on her podcast Day 129, discusses renewal and the challenges leaders face when getting stuck in routines and relying on “the way we’ve done things”. Erica shares that we don’t know we have been imprisoned until we’ve broken out. Advancing renewal results in a level of self-awareness that can unleash the full range…
Zionism, initially defined as the national movement of the Jewish People, has made a huge comeback onto Global Jewry’s agenda. Organizations across the globe, including the Government of Israel, are investing tremendous resources into the reclamation and re-education of Zionism. On the one hand the term has been hijacked by others for the purposes of…