Once a week, filmmaker Semion Vinokur interviews me on a program called Novosti (News). In the program, Semion asks about current affairs and presents viewers’ comments. In the previous show, he presented a poignant question from a viewer who called…
In the end, what everyone wants is to have a good life. A good life means more or less the same for everyone: a decent place to live, food on the table, good health, education for the children, and most…
The recent study by Gallup and West Health, which found that rising healthcare costs have forced nearly 100 million Americans “to delay or skip healthcare treatments, trim regular household expenses or borrow money,” could bode ill for Jews. Since the…
We live in times of ever-growing concealment from the upper force, which is why our world seems to be getting darker from one day to the next. That is, we increasingly find ourselves in wars, struggles and anxieties with no…
For the past 19 years, a Jewish man has been protesting outside a Michigan synagogue nearly every Sabbath. What began as protesting against policies of the State of Israel has gradually morphed into signs that read “Resist Jewish Power,” “End…
This month, eighty-two years ago, one of the founders of the State of Israel, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, passed away. Jabotinsky was a gifted poet, a celebrated author, and an eloquent orator. But most of all, he was a Zionist leader who…
The national Jewish identity and the fear of losing it has become a question that troubles many people in Israel. On the one hand, there is no fear that we will lose our identity even if we want to since…
I remember how everyone looked at me fifty years ago in Belarus when I said that I had to leave there and go to Israel, that I had no other choice and wanted nothing else in life other than to…
The 9th of the Hebrew month of Av came and went a few days ago, but it seems like it is always here. “Unfounded hatred,” or hatred without cause, which caused the ruin of the Second Temple and the expulsion…
When I came to Israel in 1974, I was sent to a hotel that accommodated new olim (Jews who had just immigrated to Israel). Each family was given a room and we slept, dined, and learned Hebrew there. One day,…
Today is the 9th of Av according to the Hebrew calendar. On this day, the First and Second Temples were ruined and the people of Israel were exiled from their land. It happened centuries apart, but on the exact same…
This week, we commemorate the anniversary of the passing of the great kabbalist Isaac Luria, known as the Holy ARI. It is therefore a good time to reflect on an odd synchrony between his arrival and the global events of…